AGE OF AUTISM

Best of Age of Autism: Paul Offit and the Original Sin

Managing Editor's Note: JB wrote this post last January. We're running it as a follow up to Dr. Offit having been appointed to the IOM. 

By J.B. Handley

OK, let me be clear: I think Paul Offit is a blowhard liar, a vaccine profiteer and apologist, and every time he opens his mouth he disrespects my son. When the final chapter is finally written on this man-made autism epidemic, I will do everything within my power to ensure that Offit is remembered by history as one of the most sinister, dishonest, well-funded talking heads pharma ever produced, and that his efforts served to afflict so many children with autism who may otherwise have avoided it.

In one of the most absurd snowjobs ever put on the media, Offit, a doctor who has never seen a patient with autism, never treated autism, and never published a study about autism, is somehow considered to be an expert on autism. Given his status as a multi-millionaire vaccine patent holder who has had much of his career supported by Merck, this isn’t just absurd, it’s highway robbery, and yet the media persists, and rarely even mentions Offit’s Mount Everest-sized pile of conflicts.

In the latest example of Offit’s dishonesty, AOL recently published a two-person interview HERE with Offit and Geri Dawson, chief Science Officer at Autism Speaks.

In this interview, Offit commits what I consider to be the “Original Sin” of Autism, and something that should be condemned by every autism organization in the country, including Autism Speaks. To quote Paul Offit:

“It's not an actual epidemic. In the mid-1990s, the definition of autism was broadened to what is now called autism spectrum disorder. Much milder parts of the spectrum -- problems with speech, social interaction -- were brought into the spectrum. We also have more awareness, so we see it more often. And there is a financial impetus to include children in the wider definition so that their treatment will be covered by insurance. People say if you took the current criteria and went back 50 years, you'd see about as many children with autism then.”

Michele Bachmann, Meet Dr. Diane Harper, Lead Researcher for Gardasil Vaccine

(Photo is the gravestone of Miss Jessica Erickson who died following Gardasil vaccination. Her story "Guinea Pig" is one of the media articles mentioned below. We've been in contact with her family in the past, her Mom is a warrior in the name of her child.   And we show her gravestone not be macabre, but as a stark reminder that HPV vaccination is not without risk.)

By J.B. Handley

We all know that AoA is no place to discuss our politics. The parents reading this blog are unified in their commitment to one issue, and that’s autism.

At this point, I’m nearly a single-issue voter, and Michelle Bachmann has certainly done our community a huge favor by publicly discussing the well-known risks from receiving the Gardasil vaccine. Taken from a post back in December 2009, here are just a few of the hundreds of headlines out there about Gardasil:

October 29, 2007, UK Telegraph:
Cervical cancer drug Gardasil linked to deaths  
Fears have been raised over the safety of a cervical cancer vaccine which health officials plan to give all 12-year-old girls, after it was revealed that the drug has been linked to several deaths. Three young women are reported to have died days after the drug Gardasil was administered, while the jab is also suspected of triggering "adverse reactions" in 1,700 patients. The figures were uncovered by campaigners who made a freedom of information request in the US, where the vaccine was approved for use a year ago…
 

January 25, 2008, UK Daily Mail: 

Alert over jab for girls as two die following cervical cancer vaccination

A jab that could be given to hundreds of thousands of schoolgirls this autumn was at the centre at a safety scare last night following the deaths of two young women…

February 6, 2008, East Bay Express:

One Less

In early 2007, as the pharmaceutical giant Merck began promoting its new vaccine Gardasil as protection against cervical cancer, Brooke Petkevicius was a nineteen-year-old freshman at UC Berkeley. She had seen the ads for the vaccine, and discussed getting it with her mother, whose gynecologist also had recommended it. On March 12, Brooke received the first of three doses. Two weeks later, she dressed to go running with a friend. As they reached the elevator, Brooke suddenly collapsed against the wall and had a seizure.

June 30, 2008, WorldNet Daily

Death toll linked to Gardasil vaccine rises Complications include shock, 'foaming at mouth,' convulsions, coma  

"Given all the questions about Gardasil, the best public health policy would be to re-evaluate its safety and to prohibit its distribution to minors. In the least, governments should rethink any efforts to mandate or promote this vaccine for children,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. The organization's work uncovered reports of about one death each month since last fall, bringing the total death toll from the drug to at least 18 and as many as 20. There also were 140 "serious" reports of complications including about three dozen classified as life-threatening, 10 spontaneous abortions and half a dozen cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

When Does a “Conspiracy Theory” Become a “Conspiracy Fact”?

By J.B. Handley

As many AoA readers know, publicly challenging conventional wisdom and stating that you believe vaccines cause autism is a great way to be attacked. One of the more common and surprisingly effective techniques of the other side is to label our community as “conspiracy theorists”, implication being that we are all crazies who also believe no one landed on the moon, that the CIA shot JFK, and that Area 51 is crawling with extraterrestrial life.

What happens when one of our conspiracy “theories” turns out to be true? What, exactly, is the label for that? My personal favorite? How about, “Parents speaking the truth"?

As we are all learning, certain British newspapers are willing to do very bad things to people they don’t like, particularly people who impede profits. If Dr. Wakefield wasn’t your biggest hero before, perhaps he will be now, for having endured an onslaught from some very powerful people and institutions.

Brian Deer’s role--and who was guiding him--in the destruction of Andrew Wakefield’s career will likely become more clear in the coming months. In the meantime, this post from earlier this year will help provide some clues and background for those interested in tracking this unfolding story.

Also, kudos to  Natural News for addressing the Sunday Times/Wakefield relationship yesterday.

Anderson Cooper, I’m looking forward to your mea culpa down the road!

Age of Autism: Keeping Anderson Cooper Honest: Brian Deer is the Fraud

 

JB Handley is co-founder of Generation Rescue.

Dr. David Gorski's Unique Brand of Moronism

By J.B. Handley

“Dr. Gorski’s village called, they want their idiot back.”

- Anonymous

There I go again, another inflammatory, ad hominem headline, serving no useful purpose except alienating doctors and scientists who might otherwise be helping our kids. And, I follow it up with a senseless quote, degrading the debate further.

Whatever.

For those of you who don’t know, Dr. David Gorski is a Doctor and a blogger who posts under the pseudonym “Orac.” In only 23 years as a doctor, he’s already made it to the heights of “Assistant” Professor at Wayne State University, a school that no one has ever heard of and that I had to Google to make sure actually existed (it’s in “the heart of Detroit’s cultural center”—I think there’s an oxy-moron in there somewhere…). Yet, in the blogosphere, perhaps with the added courage that only a keyboard can provide, Dr. Gorski seems to think he’s omniscient, as his writing about me (and many others) reflects--here’s one of many examples:

“Before I dive in, let me just point out right here and right now that J.B. Handley wouldn't be able to recognize good science if it bit him on the posterior. The same is true of bad science, because Mr. Handley simply does not have an understanding of the scientific method or the methodology involved that would allow him to distinguish good from bad science, anymore than I have an understanding of investment banking that would allow me to differentiate between various financial instruments. No, on second thought, strike that. I'm quite sure that I know more about investment banking than J.B. Handley knows about science…In any case, thanks to its arrogance of ignorance, Generation Rescue thinks it can judge the quality of complicated epidemiology and basic science, but such pronouncements are about as valid as Joe the Plumber holding forth on quantum physics. That's why Mr. Handley's claim that he recognized these studies to be bad science by reading them led me to chuckle heartily. After all, Mr. Handley's proven time and time again that he doesn't understand science, the scientific method, or epidemiology…To him, it's not about the science, but winning the P.R. war.”

Man, that really hurts. A childless (more on that later) Assistant Professor from Detroit’s “cultural center”, who used to blog as a girl (“SoCalGal”), says I don’t understand science. (By the way, Dr. Gorski, I have never been nor am I currently an “investment banker”, so you may well know more about investment banking than I do, nice try…)

Autism’s Causes and Biomarkers: An Interview with Helen Ratajczak, Ph.D.

By J.B. Handley

In the most recent issue of the Journal of Immunotoxicology, Helen V. Ratajczak, PhD  , had two separate reviews published. The first review, Theoretical Aspects of-Autism Causes a Review tackles a seemingly taboo topic in mainstream health: the many potential environmental causes of autism. Dr. Ratajczak writes:

“Autism could result from more than  one cause, with different manifestations in different individuals that share common symptoms. Documented causes of autism include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis following vaccination. Therefore, autism is the result of genetic defects and/or inflammation of the brain. The inflammation could be caused by a defective placenta, immature blood-brain barrier, the immune response of the mother to infection while pregnant, a premature birth, encephalitis in the child after birth, or a toxic environment.”

Perhaps more controversially, Dr. Ratajczak also proposes a novel theory regarding the mechanism of action for a vaccine to cause autism:

“The MMR II vaccine is contaminated with human DNA from the cell line in which the rubella virus is grown. This human DNA could be the cause of the spikes in incidence. An additional increased spike in incidence of autism occurred in 1995 when the chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue (Merck and Co., Inc., 2001; Breuer, 2003). The current incidence of autism in the United States, noted above, is approximately 1/100.

The human DNA from the vaccine can be randomly inserted into the recipient’s genes by homologous recom- bination, a process that occurs spontaneously only within a species. Hot spots for DNA insertion are found on the X chromosome in eight autism-associated genes involved in nerve cell synapse formation, central nervous system devel- opment, and mitochondrial function (Deisher, 2010). This could provide some explanation of why autism is predomi- nantly a disease of boys. Taken together, these data support the hypothesis that residual human DNA in some vaccines might cause autism.”

Her conclusion is something I’m sure many parents wish more researchers were willing to embrace:

“It is possible that autism results from more than one cause, with different manifestations in different individuals that share common symptoms. Integrating the data presented here, a hypothesis is that autism is the result of genetic defects, with the contributory effect of advancing age of the parents, and/or inflammation of the brain. The inflammation could be caused by a defective placenta, an immature blood- brain barrier, the immune response of the mother to a viral or bacterial infection, a premature birth, encephalitis in the child after birth, or a toxic environment. Also, intracellular pathogens could induce an immune response, resulting in neuro-inflammation, autoimmune reactions, brain injury, and autism.”

Dr. Brian Strom: An Honest Moron

Managing Editor's Note: Hey guys and gals! Print out and this nifty Connect The Dots art and if you can complete it (assuming you are not an honest moron) you'll have a new piece of art for Mom on Mother's Day!  Grab a gray crayon and get busy!  Nap time is at 1pm.

By J.B. Handley
 
How many times do I need to tell you people, “Correlation does not equal causation!”
 
You crazy parents are so pathetic. You just want something or someone to blame. So what, your little guy went to the doctor, got six vaccines in one minute, and then you watched him seize up, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he stopped talking. And you think anyone cares?
 
Oh, and now he has autism? So what! Starbucks Coffee locations have ALSO grown since the autism “epidemic” started – maybe it’s all that ground coffee in the air. Ha ha!
 
What’s that you say? Vaccines are KNOWN to cause brain damage? Well, so what, I, um, gotta go, my phone is ringing…Seth Mnookin is calling…
 
Here’s the detail, from a CBS News report:
 
“University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Brian Strom, who has served on Institute of Medicine panels advising the government on vaccine safety says the prevailing medical opinion is that vaccines are scientifically linked to encephalopathy (brain damage), but not scientifically linked to autism.”
 
Oh, thank God, vaccines won’t cause any autism. Brain damage I can live with. Thanks, Dr. Strom, for your service to the IOM--very helpful indeed.
 
Author’s note: Sorry, I’ve had a lot of coffee this morning (Peet’s, not Starbuck’s)

Natural News Takes on the Growing Poul Thorsen Autism Vaccine Research Scandal

By J.B. Handley

“Understand what is being alleged here: That Thorsen stole taxpayer dollars intended for medical research, then pocketed them in his own private bank accounts and used the money to buy luxury items for his personal use. This is a man with a history of strong ties to the CDC, research universities and medical journals. This is a person whose research has been widely quoted by the vaccine apologists who say vaccines are safe. And now, in the midst of all this, how many mainstream newspapers do you see covering Thorsen's indictment and his ties to the CDC? Virtually none.”

-                Natural News, April 28, 2011

It’s great to see another media outlet cover the Poul Thorsen scandal, and provide both original research and opinion, so I highly recommend you jump over and read the article at Natural News and check out the awesome web of influence chart HERE.

Most journalists have no historical perspective on the importance of Denmark’s data in exonerating the role of vaccines in the autism epidemic, nor do they understand the desperation with which the CDC pursued data from other countries during a time when the Institute of Medicine was starting to explore the link between thimerosal and autism. Perhaps if they did, they, too, would wonder if a “pay to play” deal was hatched to save the CDC.

For the benefit of AoA readers, and hopefully an honest journalist or two, herewith is a pretty thorough history, replete with emails from many of the key players in what we can only hope will be a growing scandal.

It all started with Diane Simpson, circa 2001

Without Dr. Diane Simpson, a CDC employee, Dr. Poul Thorsen would likely be a person none of us would have ever heard of.

CDC's effort, beginning in the summer of 2001, was in anticipation of the IOM's report coming out in the October 2001. They knew what it was going to say and they knew it was going to be trouble.

The CDC's subsequent worldwide effort was an attempt to find corroborative data showing no link between autism and thimerosal and get it to the IOM or release it at the same time as the IOM report was released. As Dr. Diane Simpson says in this August 7, 2001 email :

"I don't have any new data at the moment and am frantically trying to see what is available and how best to get it in time for the expected IOM report release (we have given up trying to submit it in time for the report as they are in the process of writing it)."

Dr. Simpson's actions beginning in June of 2001, require some context. The Deputy Director of the NIP, Dr. Simpson, was given the task of finding data on autism and thimerosal in other countries. And not just any data, she was looking for data that would support the idea that there was no relationship between mercury and autism, despite the fact that she had seen the Generation Zero data and attended Simpsonwood.

Further, you have the division of the CDC that is responsible for keeping vaccination rates high, the division that would be held most responsible for creating the autism epidemic, and one of the leaders of that division, Dr. Robert Chen, who had the most to lose, directly involved in a process to find data about the relationship between thimerosal and autism.

Would CDC be "frantic" to find data that would corroborate the conclusion coming from IOM, that the thimerosal-autism relationship was "biologically plausible"? No, she was frantic to find data to disprove it. 

In the same month, she tells a Swedish researcher in this email that they could fly to Sweden immediately to look at data, "because our IOM committee's work is in process and we expect them to issue their report in the next several weeks, we expect increased public concern and questions in the near future."

In an email an email with another CDC employee, referring to data she may have unearthed in Denmark, she writes, "it is also possible that the data won't help us at all, but we won't know until we see it."

How won't it help? It won't help  unless it can be used to exonerate Thimerosal and the CDC.

As an example, Dr. Simpson's communication with the State of California (where autism data is the best in the country) produced a stunning data set, and one quickly buried. In this email , we see data provided by Dr. Loring Dales from the California Dept of Health showing the relationship between the vaccination rates of DTP by second birthdays, and the number of autism cases in California. One of Dr. Simpson's colleagues mentions "this looks like material for a graph." The graph is created, page 3 of the email, and there is a clear, linear relationship between the increase in vaccination rates (from 50.9% to 75.7%) and the number of autism cases per year (from 176 to 1182, a 6.7x increase) between 1980-1994. Needless to say, California was not the source of additional follow-up.

Matt Carey, Ph.D. says he’s Bonnie Offit (Just Kidding)

By J.B. Handley
 
5 months late, Matt Carey, a research staff member at Hitachi GST, with a PhD in physics from UCSD, has revealed himself to be the notorious blogger “Sullivan.”
 
In a previous post, I speculated that Sullivan was actually Bonnie Offit, wife of a not-to-be-mentioned vaccine millionaire. Mr. Carey’s personal outing of himself renders my speculation incorrect.
 
As many ravenous members of the dark side I’m sure have mentioned, I also made a simple promise that if Sullivan was NOT Bonnie Offit, I would not utter said name of said leader of the Dark Side.
 
I also offered to give up the website www.pauloffit.com
 
Apparently, Mr. Carey is a parent of a child with autism. Matt, if you’re reading this, note that I really have no interest in writing about or attacking other parents, and you can expect similar treatment. My enemies are the AAP, CDC, and the vaccine makers themselves, as well as their well-paid minions. Since you don’t appear to be in any of those camps and have a kid just like me, I don’t have the heart.
 
If I live 5 lifetimes, I will never understand where your reverence for not to be named profiteer of vaccines comes from, or why you choose to use your precious time to defend him.
 
I’m also pleased to see you now blogging in your own name, as all AoA writers and parents do. I think it’s a simple way to demonstrate courage, conviction, and integrity in the things you write.
 
‘Nuff said, in the world I live in, a deal’s a deal, even if you took five months to get here. Just email me, plenty on the dark side know how to find me, and we can work out the details.

On Autism's Cause It's Journalist MacNeil v. journalist Mnookin

By J.B. Handley

During CNN’s lynching of Andy Wakefield, I was talking to one of Anderson Cooper’s producers, and she mentioned Seth Mnookin and his recent book The Panic Virus, and how it seemed to support the worldview that Andy was a bad guy and all of us parents are crazy and looking for someone or something to blame for our child’s autism. The conversation went something like this:

Me: What the hell does Seth Mnookin know? He’s a former garden-variety junkie turned writer with a book that simply repeats all of Paul Offit’s talking points?

Her: Seth has credibility with the New York media because he is really one of us, he’s an insider--so his words carry some weight.

*        *        *

Thinking back to that day and those comments, I have a simple game for you, I’m calling it, “Find the Trustworthy Journalist.” By the end of this game, we’ll have a winner and a loser. Unfortunately for you, I’ve stacked the decks in my favor: You get Seth Mnookin. I’ll take Robert MacNeil. On autism’s cause, we’re going journalist vs. journalist.

Let’s start with Robert MacNeil. Mr. MacNeil, age 80, has been a journalist for more than 50 years, having worked for ITV, Reuters, NBC, the BBC, and, most famously, PBS, where he won an Emmy for his coverage of Watergate. In 1975, he began hosting the Robert MacNeil Report, later renamed the world-famous MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, perhaps the most respected news broaccast in the history of television.

Mr. MacNeil is the author of 11 books. He is also Canadian and in 1997 he received Canada’s highest civilian honor when he became an Officer of the Order of Canada for being, “one of the most respected journalists of our time.”

Seth Mnookin, age 38, has been writing professionally since the age of 26, or roughly 12 years, in which time he has written three books, including one about the Boston Red Sox, one about the Jason Blair scandal at the New York Times, and the aforementioned book about vaccines and autism.

Before becoming a writer, Mr. Mnookin was fired from a “gopher gig” at Office Depot, worked as a day laborer digging ditches, and also worked at a coffee shop, a liquor store, and several bookstores “never lasting at any job for more than a couple of weeks,” according to Mr. Mnookin.

Soon after graduating from Harvard, Mr. Mnookin became a heroin addict, as he recounts:

“It had been three years since I first tried heroin, snorting a bag by myself on a brisk Sunday morning the fall after I graduated from college. I was living in New York City, and within weeks I was using every day. It had been two years since I had moved back to Boston, ran out of money, and began shooting up…Now, after about a dozen hospitalizations, a handful of overdoses, more than $10,000 in credit card cash advances, and thousands of dollars stolen from my friends and lovers and family, I was cashing in my last remaining chip. My parents agreed to front the money for the Renaissance Institute, a hard-core treatment center in Boca Raton that specialized in intractable addicts. I knew it was the last chance I'd get to try to start over and that if I didn't take it, I'd die.”

As Mr. Mnookin explains about his early career, “I was 25 and had spent the years since I graduated from college focusing all of my desperate energy on my career as an intravenous drug addict…At one point, I gave confused, occasionally incoherent English lessons to Japanese academics visiting Harvard…I hadn't done any real writing in years.”

His stay at the Renaissance Institute? It ended poorly:

Best of AofA: Preventing Autism An Emerging Hypothesis

Here's a "best of" post for Autism ACTION month. Prevention, don't leave the delivery room without it!

By J.B. Handley

My second child’s autism diagnosis put the plans my wife and I had for at least three kids on potentially permanent hold. Three years later, we are the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl, and we feel well-armed with the wisdom of other parents and many doctors to prevent her from the same fate her brother experienced.

What? We’re planning to prevent her from developing autism? The notion of being able to prevent autism is a highly controversial idea, and one sure to make many sentences in this entry blogger-fodder. So be it.

It’s probably worth taking a quick step back. The Generation Rescue  website spells out pretty accurately how we feel about the cause of autism:

We believe these neurological disorders ("NDs") are environmental illnesses caused by an overload of heavy metals, live viruses, and bacteria. Proper treatment of our children, known as "biomedical intervention", is leading to recovery for thousands.

The cause of this epidemic of NDs is extremely controversial. We believe the primary causes include the tripling of vaccines given to children in the last 15 years (mercury, aluminum and live viruses); maternal toxic load and prenatal vaccines; heavy metals like mercury in our air, water, and food; and the overuse of antibiotics.

As we began to think about child number three, and armed with this general point of view above, my wife and I began to network with other parents who were in similar situations. Specifically, parents with an autistic child who had decided to have an additional child after becoming biomedical experts.