PAY NO ATTENTION TO THIS VAXED-UNVAXED SURVEY

By THE MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Dear Age of Autism: So what if you crackpots have turned up another survey (CLICK HERE) strongly pointing to an association between vaccines and autism? So what, because we've already seen a bunch of so-called studies like that, and they don't mean a darn thing. Even if a full-scale study of the autism rate in vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated kids has never been done, this case is closed. We already told you so.

First of all, this so-called survey was done by the Dutch Association for Conscientious Vaccination, a questionable crowd made up of doctors, parents and therapists "among others" -- and who might those secret unnamed "others" be? We can only guess -- whose stated aim is "freedom of choice for parents when it comes to vaccinating their children, based on honest, comprehensive and independent information. We view the current 'one size fits all' vaccination policy with great concern. The NVKP is therefore urging the adoption of more thorough independent research by representatives from different disciplines."

Ha! Clearly a foreign cabal of know-nothings.

Then -- get this: "The NVKP survey was conducted in the Netherlands in the latter half of 2004 with the parents of  635 children, and involved both members and non-members of the NVKP. The survey was geographically distributed over the entire country. ... We asked the parents to fill in a questionnaire with questions about the health of their  child or children."

Let's get this straight. These people asked PARENTS about the health of their children? We've seen this gambit before -- most recently when Generation Rescue hired a so-called "respected" phone survey firm to ask parents whether their kids were vaccinated or not vaccinated, and whether those same kids had been diagnosed with autism or not. CLEARLY a trick question, and the "fact" that vaccinated kids had autism by more than two to one -- a so-called statistically significant finding -- must be dismissed out of hand.

So the "fact" (so-called) that these Netherlands results are even worse -- that EIGHT of the fully vaccinated kids had autism and NONE of the never-vaccinated kids had autism -- is equally laughable. So are the findings in most every category of better health outcomes for the never-vaccinated versus the fully vaccinated.

At some point, this demented data-gathering has got to stop. First came the totally meaningless reports that there seemed to be fewer cases of autism among the Amish. Even the reporter who kept writing about that SAID it wasn't scientific, yet here comes U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York introducing legislation to force federal health officials to do just such a study. Who is Congress to tell federal officials to do anything?

Then came the homeschooled -- that nutty Dr. Jeff Bradstreet said he had never seen autism in never-vaccinated homeschooled kids and that a study in that group would be worth doing. Why, he was almost laughed off the podium. What would that tell us besides stuff we don't need to know about homeschooled kids? They are so very different from the rest of us they might as well be aliens.

And then there was Homefirst in Chicago, the medical practice that has thousands of never-vaccinated kids, and no autism and no asthma.

Who appointed these so-called medical doctors to diagnosis and report children's health conditions? Those kids must be strange, too. Very strange.

Heck, unless and until a real scientific study on vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated American kids is conducted, there will never be any evidence.

And believe us, that's never gonna happen.

--
Dan Olmsted, Editor of Age of Autism, helped the Medical Establishment of the United States compose this article because he already knew what they would say, but the opinions expressed are entirely their own.

Comments

[PM MODERATOR]

I think this commenting tennis match should draw to a close. You've all made your points. Let's consider this game/set/match over. Thank you.

A of A evening moderator

[passionlessDrone]

Hi Autism Mom -

"I think you will find when it comes to light that it isn't just a small percentage of kids that have been affected by overzealous vaccines. It isn't just about the mercury, its about injecting multiple doses of infectious agents as well into sulphur chemistries ill-equipped to deal with them (too much or too little sulphur). If you decide to look a little closely into how that works you may find answers to what you are fretting about in the hyperlink you provided - an inflammatory versus non-inflammatory response. "

I definitely agree that inflammatory responses and/or skewed immune responses could be part of the problem. I only singled out mercury because it appears to be the primary thrust of Kellie. I will investigate the sulfur component of vaccines further.

"Chances are you will have to go outside the field of traditional medicine to get the answers the DoC on there could not provide because the explanation of some things do not fall in the domain of mainstream medicine. They look at data, can't make sense of all of it and so conveniently ignore or drop the rest as irrelevant. Now that is what their "science" is, and it happens to be extremely limited. Realize that some things out there cannot be explained to a T and this tendency to rip all to shreds is not doing anyone any good, least of all the children who continue to get injected with toxins on a daily basis. "

Don't you see that if we have to go outside the realm of mainstream science for our arguments to make sense, we have no chance of affecting policy! Our argument cannot be that 'we just cannot explain this to a T, or even a t, but we need to change national vaccine policy based on our convictions.' In a similar fashion, trying to convince anyone to question current policy using this Denmark study is an exercise in futility. If I don't rip it to shreds, surely it will happen somewhere else, but by someone who does not want biomedical treatments to become accepted. We are shooting ourselves in the foot by defending drivel as real science, then shouting that it is a conspiracy that nobody is listening to us.

Take care!

- pD

[Mark]

I'd like to correct one simple error that got started at the beginning of this thread (I wonder by whom?) and has been repeated several times without correction. This data does NOT come from Denmark. It come from the Netherlands. Let's not confuse the Dutch with the Danish just because both words start with D.

There's a lot of rotten analysis that has come out of Denmark but has been dressed up to look a lot prettier than this report. Let's not insult this Dutch group by suggesting they're connected to the Danes.

[Kelli Ann Davis]

PD:

I wasn't laughing at a proof of safety regulation, or anything you wrote per se, but more so at your ability to take a critique of a horrible set of data and my problems with defending it and somehow spin this into a reason to go into the merits of lawsuits.

****If YOU want to critique “a horrible data set” and voice your concerns with the scientific methodology associated with this study, I have no problem with that -- I’m all for sound science.

Rather, MY CONCERN was with your remark: “I'm not here to defend vaccines per se, or the current studies EXHONERATING them, but this no better, and the biomedical community ARE THE ONES who need to be providing less hyperbole and fewer bogus values.”

THE POINTS I WAS TRYING TO MAKE: 1.) The focus shouldn’t be on “exonerating” vaccines; that implies that the focus is on “proof of no harm.” Rather we should be focused on “proof of safety” and 2.) It is NOT the responsibility of the biomedical community to “provide” anything. Period. There was no mention of “lawsuits” in this first correspondence at all. Just a focus on the actual LAW.**********

The two things are unrelated.

**********Your statement above is VERY MUCH related to what I’ve said. We should avoid getting caught up in the our “harm study vs their “no harm study” debates. Instead, we should be focused on the LAW and put the BURDEN back where it rightly belongs. POINT: You’re focusing on a tree. I’m focusing on the forest.***********

Have I made any statements regarding the ineffectiveness of lawsuits, my problems with the safety regulations you have quoted, or the safety of mercury?

**********Your statement “My concern isn't about the law…” should answer that and of course it’s what is important in how we address the “spin” put out by the agencies.************

I happen to agree that ethyl mercury in vaccines was a horrible idea, and that it is likely a very small percentage of children were affected by its inclusion in ways unanticipated by regulatory agencies. Further, I agree completely that a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study is deeply needed, despite the complications in performing one.

********Agreed********

Now, speaking of agencies, I need to focus on a 2 page e-mail that I rec’d from the FDA earlier this afternoon in response to my inquiry about the NY Times Sushi article that came out yesterday. Moody and I are working on it.

And guess what?

The thing is RIDDLED with “no proof of harm” spew. And you can bet your bottom dollar I have every intention of “cutting to the chase” by keeping focused on quoting the – you guessed it – LAW. ”

Translation: No more comments from me on this. The FDA is in my crosshairs right now.

Best,

Kelli

[passionlessDrone]

Hi Doodle -

Perfectly stated. We are in complete agreement. Thank you.

- pD

[Autism mom]

"and that it is likely a very small percentage of children were affected by its inclusion in ways unanticipated by regluatory agencies."

I think you will find when it comes to light that it isn't just a small percentage of kids that have been affected by overzealous vaccines. It isn't just about the mercury, its about injecting multiple doses of infectious agents as well into sulphur chemistries ill-equipped to deal with them (too much or too little sulphur). If you decide to look a little closely into how that works you may find answers to what you are fretting about in the hyperlink you provided - an inflammatory versus non-inflammatory response.

Chances are you will have to go outside the field of traditional medicine to get the answers the DoC on there could not provide because the explanation of some things do not fall in the domain of mainstream medicine. They look at data, can't make sense of all of it and so conveniently ignore or drop the rest as irrelevant. Now that is what their "science" is, and it happens to be extremely limited. Realize that some things out there cannot be explained to a T and this tendency to rip all to shreds is not doing anyone any good, least of all the children who continue to get injected with toxins on a daily basis.

[doodle]

The legal wrangling bit sounds great. It is not really related to this study though, as none of those lawyers would want, or need, to city this data. They would just need to focus on toxicology data and demand proof of safety.

@ Sonja, I would think everyone posting on this board deserves, at the least, to have studies that have a depth of information beyond the "main message". Is the point just to reinforce the beliefs of the true-believers? I hope not, as there will never be a carry-over into the general public when the study is so easy to question.

A data set like this should be worth more than just posting on a blog, assuming it was collected properly, and could actually be useful for swaying the opinion of other if worked up properly (PassionlessDrone may disagree). If the data turns out to be good, it will speak for itself and help with the legal battles. Any constructive criticism that helps determine its quality should be applauded and not attacked.

[passionlessDrone]

Hi Kelli Ann Davis -

I wasn't laughing at a proof of saftey regulation, or anything you wrote per se, but more so at your ability to take a critique of a horrible set of data and my problems with defending it and somehow spin this into a reason to go into the merits of lawsuits. The two things are unrelated. Have I made any statements regarding the ineffectiveness of lawsuits, my problems with the saftey regulations you have quoted, or the saftey of mercury?

I happen to agree that ethyl mercury in vaccines was a horrible idea, and that it is likely a very small percentage of children were affected by its inclusion in ways unanticipated by regluatory agencies. Further, I agree completely that a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study is deeply needed, despite the complications in performing one.

Why should having these beliefs mean I should also have to defend bad science?

Take care!

- pD

[Sonja Lopez]

As imperfect as this data appears to those who require more than the main message, if more of these independent studies are done, eventually someone has to listen. We have lots and lots of "perfect data" showing an outrageous increase in Autism and how long did it take them to even admit there might be a problem? This study may not be "it" but it sure is better than nothing which is what our government is giving us!

Sonja

[Kelli Ann Davis]

PD:

“My concern isn't about the law, but rather, can we convince more people that the biomedical community should be taken seriously?”

What is the surest way to get people to “take us seriously?” Easy. By “winning” where it counts – in a court of LAW.

But to do THAT, first you’ve got to understand the importance of the LAW -- and recognize how it can help when it's in your favor -- and then you’ve got to demonstrate that the “bad guys” broke the LAW.

In this case, the LAW is on our side and it should be our MAJOR focus for eliciting change. We need to continually put the focus back on PROOF OF SAFETY whenever the other side gives us another "proof of no harm" study.

We can “tout” our studies on "harm" and they can "tout" their studies on "no harm" ALL DAY LONG but it won’t change a thing -- UNTIL it’s put before a court.

For example, there is a plethora of studies showing the HARMFUL effects of mercury and NOT ONE study demonstrating the SAFETY of mercury and YET, IT HASN’T MOVED THE FDA TO REQUIRE ITS IMMEDIATE REMOVAL FROM THE MARKETPLACE.

The whole premise behind the FDA Citizen’s Petition that is currently winding its way through the COURT SYSTEM is the FACT that the regulation that I quoted earlier (remember the PROOF OF SAFETY regulation that you found so incredibly funny) is not being followed – i.e; the LAW IS BEING BROKEN.

And some pretty brilliant attorneys are behind that push.

Here's my million dollar counter-bet to you: Let's see who's laughing and rolling on the floor once that verdict comes down.

[passionlessDrone]

Hi Anonymous -

"PD: Do you hear yourself?-do you think people can't hear "AGENDA" in your arguments? You sound just like a pharmaceutical company executive. Unable to grasp any concept you don't agree with. Demanding proof when it is you who have the responsibility of proving your product safe. obfuscating behind minutia and double talk. Who cares how professional the fake "vaccines are safe" studies look. You can dress up a pig but everyone who cares to examine the pig sees a pig. Do you really not understand what this article implies or are you just deliberatly attempting to undermine the biomedical approach?
I, like thousands of others watched our children regress after vaccinations. I also have a cabinet full of supplements-and they are working better than I dared to dream and the pediatrician had no treatment at all. That is all the proof I need to spread the word until enough people in power are influenced to DO SOMETHING! How are you helping? Do you really believe the CDC and the vaccine producers or what?"

LOL! You are very, very mistaken. You seem to have come to the conclusion that anyone asking that science be of high quality is beholden to 'big pharma', and 'unable to grasp a concept I don't agree with'. Pointing out that this study is bogus is not demanding anything, it is merely showing that the study is worthless. It doens't matter what the article implies if we cannot trust the data in use, and in this case, we cannot.

We cannot convince people to 'DO SOMETHING' if this study is the level of our 'evidence'. It is of the quality of people that would tell you the moon landing was fake. I am helping (hopefully), by trying to convince people that we have to make reasoned arguments that cannot be invalidated by the most simplistic analysis available if we want to convince anyone of anything.

You seem to have gotten it into your head that if I don't agree with the 'implications' of this study, I must secretly be against biomed, and for the CDC et all. Nothing could be further from the truth. Don't believe me? Check out this posting I made to a group of very smart, and very serious anti-biomed guys on some of the papers offered by Paul Offit on why vaccines should be considered safe for all. http://www.autismstreet.org/weblog/?p=160#comment-5839 (Cannot embed html here)

The sad fact of the matter is that it was much, much simpler to find humongous flaws in the study posted here, than the papers posted on behalf of the CDC and our regulatory agencies. It is about the PR whether we like it or not, and the biomedical community is losing; in part because so many of us rally around very flawed studies because they seem to conform to what we believe. With this paper, we will convince no one who is interested in insuring that the N values stay consistent from page to page, and that includes everyone whom we can reasonably ask to 'DO SOMETHING' about vaccine research and safety.

Take care!

- pD

[Garbo]

Today there was a full page ad in the LA Times from Merck, reassuring their customers about that bestselling drug of theirs that, as it turns out in a study they suppressed for 21 months, does absolutely sweet F.A. when compared to a placebo. Read the fine print and you can see that they can't even claim it works! They spout a bunch of mumbo jumbo to flim flam the people who are using their drug. While Pharma controls politicians, and their advertising dollars sway the media to report only what they wish, and the CDC and FDA have Pharma's back and control the studies and vaccine schedules, and med schools and the AMA and AAP are in the pocket of Pharma dollars as well, no amount of shouting from the rooftops about epidemics and mercury and biomed cures is going to make a hill of beans difference in making vaccines safer. I speak as a mom who's done biomed for 4 years and have a recovered kid; our pediatrician was NO HELP at all, and on our last well visit commented that clearly our son must have been misdiagnosed because he's just fine. She completely discounts the 4 years of biomed treatment in achieving "just fine." (And reminds us that he's due for his booster shots next year. Like that's going to happen.) The only thing that is going to change things is to cut Pharma off at the knees financially. That means lobbying to prevent them from direct consumer advertising, and reducing demand for their products by making the alternative (no vaccines) seem more attractive to consumers. Only then will Pharma and their arm of the CDC be forced to make their products safer. Right now there is no incentive for anyone to do so.

[doodle]

Is it really a good idea to jump all over passionlessDrone for pointing out the obvious problems in the data? There is no structure, no methods section, no real results section and no discussion, so there is no way to answer questions that pop up. Some basic questions I see are:

1. Why are there percentages in absolute measures of incidences for unvaccinated? These are not typos, so what is their definition of "absolute".
2. How did they get 231 unvaccinated kids? It can be inferred that those were the kids of NVKP members but is that the case?
3. Why is is there a plot showning absolute incidence instead of percentage. This is the one labeled with equal number of vaccinated and unvaccinated (N = 321), when the data shows otherwise. The plot is not very useful if N varies.
4. What are the definitions for the different categories? For example, what do they define as chronic eczema and do the people answering the survey know the definition? How do they define autism and why are there more kids with autism than ADHD in the vaccinated group?

In the end, this is just a few bits of data and plots from an excel sheet tossed into a PDF file, with a date of 2004. Did it turn into anything else later that is more usable? I'm sure someone could contact the NVKP HQ and get the excel sheet, and maybe get the requisite information to produce a real paper and answer the questions above.

[at]

PD: Do you hear yourself?-do you think people can't hear "AGENDA" in your arguments? You sound just like a pharmaceutical company executive. Unable to grasp any concept you don't agree with. Demanding proof when it is you who have the responsibility of proving your product safe. obfuscating behind minutia and double talk. Who cares how professional the fake "vaccines are safe" studies look. You can dress up a pig but everyone who cares to examine the pig sees a pig. Do you really not understand what this article implies or are you just deliberatly attempting to undermine the biomedical approach?
I, like thousands of others watched our children regress after vaccinations. I also have a cabinet full of supplements-and they are working better than I dared to dream and the pediatrician had no treatment at all. That is all the proof I need to spread the word until enough people in power are influenced to DO SOMETHING! How are you helping? Do you really believe the CDC and the vaccine producers or what?

[Garbo]

If we want to start changing the minds of the general population we should appeal to their sense of hunger for producing the smartest, most successful offspring. Unless people are already affected by autism, the debate over vaccines, mercury, etc., goes over their heads. But show them a study of unvaccinated kids who score higher on IQ/developmental advancement tests and you've got something you can sell to the general public. One study about playing classical music to your kids, and Baby Einstein sold a bazillion copies. I'm just sayin, instead of fighting so hard to appeal to people's already taxed intellect/attention, appeal to their baser selfish natures. Nobody in gen pop believes autism is going to happen to them until it does. But suggest that they can have a smarter/faster/better kid by not vaccinating...suddenly it will be all the rage.

[passionlessDrone]

Hi Kelli Ann Davis -

LOL! ROFL!

"The LAW does NOT require the biomedical community to provide/prove one iota of evidence to show that vaccines are HARMFUL."

My concern isn't about the law, but rather, can we convince more people that the biomedical community should be taken seriously? I would actually agree with everything you say about the law, the problems with existing studies on vaccines, etc. This has nothing to do, however, as to whether the casual reader will take biomedical seriously, or like a bunch of conspiracy theorists if we refuse to acknowledge the fatal flaws in 'studies' like the one posted here.

"I strongly suggest that next time YOU get your facts straight BEFORE you start making disparaging remarks about the biomedical community (fellow parents). "

Which facts, precisely, did I get wrong?

As far as disparaging parents, I'd make a million dollar bet that my supplement counter is more cluttered than yours, we were SCD for 9 months, we are waiting for results of food allergy tests, lyme, amino acids, and fatty acid profiles. We've run the terins, porphyrins, OAT, RBC, toxic metal tests. I am quite well versed in biomed, and believe in it. I'm on your side, but as long as people trumpet bogus studies like this we won't be taken as seriously as we should be.

Take care!

- pD

[passionlessDrone]

Hi Anonymous -

"Dear pd- There are no studies exonerating vaccines of anything-you can drive a fleet of tractor trailers through the holes in those studies. They are meaningless propaganda disguised as science-but I bet you already know that don't you. Talk about looking foolish! And why aren't you concerned about the autism rate possibly being 1/40 in Denmark?"

I am well aware of the fact that a lot of studies on vaccines are very flawed, but they've got better PR than the biomedical community, and at the very least, their transcription errors are not as egregious. The problem is, to the average consumer, studies 'proving' vaccine safety do not look foolish, they look professional. The same cannot be said of what was posted here; and thus, credibility is lost to the newcomer, likely never to be regained.

As far as 1/40 goes, I'm not concerned about it, because it is absurd. It reminds me of a gun study the NRA guys will always go on and on about, Kleck, in 1993 (I think(?)). They performed a phone survey that 'proved' that ~ 1.5 million Americans used a gun defensively every year. The fact that this meant that every twenty years, one out of every ten Americans had used a gun defensively never seemed to bother them; the data is what it is!

Take care!

- pD

[Gatogorra]

I know, we just can't get it through our thick skulls that 2+2=5. But neither could Winston Smith until they strapped a rat cage to his face.

Could that photo of the bonkers doc with the glint and horse syringe actually be one of the normally girlish Kim S. in a unibrow and shower cap, under bad lighting and holding a modified turkey baster? Lol.

[passionlessDrone]

Hi JB Handley -

"I think that the foolishness may be largely and exclusively contained in your comment, rather than in the biomedical community. "

If I hadn't seen biomed work on my own child, and had wandered to this 'study' as my first introduction, the conclusion I would come to is that here are a bunch of people who don't seem bothered by the fact that their 'study' wasn't proofread well enough to detect a transcription error in the N values between two groups. Why on Earth would I take anything else they say seriously? Jumping up and down about the results of this study is a surefire way to convince the critical thinker that we are not serious about science, but rather, are serious about our beliefs. Until we can convince people of the opposite, biomed will not get the attention it deserves.

"The data is what it is -- it takes a very close-minded person to not wonder if the "where there's smoke, there's fire" cliche applies here."

Ack!

I can make a .pdf just like anyone, but if it seems apparent that I'm not competent enough to proof check it to the point of having an n value = 231 in one place and the value representing the same group as 321 in the same paper, it would take a very naive person to take any conclusions from that data seriously. What other numbers may have slipped past the 'quality assurance' team?

There is no way, NO WAY that 50% of unvaccinated children in Denmark have 'chronic eczema' What number would make you question the validity of the research? If the autism rate was 1 in 10; if 95% of parents responded their children had chronic eczema, would you begin to think the results cannot be trusted, regardless of if the 'data is what it is'?

If I published a phone survey showing that 25% of people I reached were amputees, it wouldn't prove anything other than my study was deeply flawed. The values provided in this study are only barely less ridiculous.

"As someone who has been working to try to fund a more rigorous, scientific, and publishable study of the never-vaccinated, I can tell you that it is profoundly hard to do for one simple reason: people with the pedigree and position to do such a study are concerned for their careers. "

I don't doubt this is true, but this is no reason to stand behind bogus studies just because we have no good ones to stand behind.

I'm all for a real study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. This ain't it.

Take care!

- pD

[Sonja Lopez]

JB,

Thank you for your voice of reason and common sense! The 1 in 40 number would not surprise any of us...we are headed in that direction rather quickly. It angers me to no end that these people of "pedigree" agree there should be a study but refuse to put their jobs on the line...how many of us have had to quit our jobs or loose our jobs, or re-arrange our entire lives, or loose homes, retirements, savings..etc etc etc to care for the damage they have done. Do they really think they are going to walk away from this scott free?!

PD, - There is nothing about this bio-medical community that is foolish in any sense. The fools will have their day, unfortunately at the sacrifice of even more children.

Sonja

[Kelli Ann Davis]

PD:

Your statement below is based on an INACCURATE ASSUMPTION:

“I'm not here to defend vaccines per se, or the current studies EXHONERATING them, but this no better, and the biomedical community ARE THE ONES who need to be providing less hyperbole and fewer bogus values.”

The LAW does NOT require the biomedical community to provide/prove one iota of evidence to show that vaccines are HARMFUL.

The FACT is it’s the RESPONSIBILITY of the health authorities to PROVE SAFETY before allowing a vaccine to be on the market:

The law for the regulation of drugs including vaccines and other biological preparations classified as drugs, explicitly require that all drugs (as the term is defined in 21 U.S.C. Section 321(g)(1)13, including any component used in a drug [21 U.S.C. Section 321(g)(1)(D) must be SAFE (based on the definition of SAFE in 21 U.S.C. Section 321(u)14) and effective in human and animals.

And it seems every time I remind individuals of this LAW and ask for ONE STUDY that demonstrates the safety of MERCURY they just can’t seem to provide it.

Another FACT: The overall vaccine schedule has NEVER BEEN TESTED for SAFETY in regards to the cumulative, long term effects that it poses to an individual.

In my opinion, THAT, is the epitome of “foolishness”.

I strongly suggest that next time YOU get your facts straight BEFORE you start making disparaging remarks about the biomedical community (fellow parents).

[at]

Nice story. Might as well have a therapeutic laugh as this train wreck unfolds in the press and medical community.

Dear pd- There are no studies exonerating vaccines of anything-you can drive a fleet of tractor trailers through the holes in those studies. They are meaningless propaganda disguised as science-but I bet you already know that don't you. Talk about looking foolish! And why aren't you concerned about the autism rate possibly being 1/40 in Denmark?

[JB Handley]

PD:

I think that the foolishness may be largely and exclusively contained in your comment, rather than in the biomedical community.

The data is what it is -- it takes a very close-minded person to not wonder if the "where there's smoke, there's fire" cliche applies here.

As someone who has been working to try to fund a more rigorous, scientific, and publishable study of the never-vaccinated, I can tell you that it is profoundly hard to do for one simple reason: people with the pedigree and position to do such a study are concerned for their careers.

Having interacted with many of them, I can tell you that they find the growing set of data points that Dan outlines above to be deeply troubling. They are the first to admit that such a study SHOULD be done, and that the results COULD be highly problematic based on the anecdotal evidence we have so far seen. It's just that they AREN'T going to be the ones to do the study, because they need to put food on their own table.

I'm confident that an objective, respected, experienced team will step up soon and do a study that meets the appropriate scientific standards to be published in a journal and vetted by others. Regardless of what you think the outcome of such a study might be, don't we all think it would be a good idea to do one?

JB Handley

[passionlessDrone]

Hello friends -

Interesting stuff, but don't we have to question the results? I'm not here to defend vaccines per se, or the current studies exhonerating them, but this no better, and the biomedical community are the ones who need to be providing less hyperbole and fewer bogus values. Just around fifty percent of vaccinated children in Denmark have 'chronic eczema', and forty percent of unvaccinated kids? Maybe there is something in the air over there. At 8 cases in autism in 312 kids, I get a rate of about 1 in 40 children in Denmark having autism. (?!?!?!)

Also, doesn't having a control group with 1/3 more children than the autism group lend itself towards graphs that look scarier than they are? What's more, it looks like the people who wrote the paper couldn't even get it straight, at one point they say unvaccinated group was 231 and vaccinated group was 312 (top of page 3), but later they say they had 312 per group (bottom of page 4). Also, how in the heck are we expected to believe that in a random sampling of 635 children, a full 213 responded and were in the unvaccinated group? That is pretty much a 30% rate of no vaccinations.

This is the kind of thing that makes the biomedical community look foolish.

- pD

[Gayatri]

As the parent of a child on the autism spectrum I was always under the impression (hindsight) that all vaccines were bad. However I find that "Heart rhythm disorder/ heart murmur" are clearly better for the vaccinated kids than the unvaccinated ones. Why?

I recall a study put out recently by GPL where they were suggesting cholesterol supplements for kids on the autism spectrum since they found that they were low in it and it clearly bothered me because we have heart disease on both sides of our family and we need to watch our cholesterol intake. The sample size in that study was small, 40, with just one outlier with high cholesterol that they ignored. Then there was this 2006 Kennedy Krieger study of 100 kids where 19 kids had this low cholesterol problem. I do not know what the rest of the data looked like because they did not mention it in this press release.

I would really like to know more about this heart disease/ cholesterol correlation with vaccines.