"You'll be reassured that the results show essentially no differences between groups who did or did not get thimerosal in their vaccines-and you'll want to know this information when talking with parents of your patients about the safety and benefits of vaccines."

“did not get thimerosal” is not up for interpretation. If this guy says water is wet we better run to a faucet and double check.

thank you, David. unfortunately it seems that scientists and physicians need reminding that science is indeed in the details.

Thank for this post David. You raised some very interesting points. Perhaps the most vital piece of information needed to interpret this study is where did the money originate for this study. If one follows the money trail via emails and internal memos, as I have done for the past 5 years, one will likely find this is no different than the other studies designed to exonerate vaccines and thimerosal. I suggest one follow the PhaRMA, GAVI, WHO, CDC and NHS money trail as it leads to very interesting places...all of which carry the stench of corruption and scientific fraud. According to my forensic accounting research, records clearly show, as did conversations with the late Dr. Frank Engley, a world reknowned microbiologist and member of the FDA committee to ban Thimerosal in OTC products, that it was in fact the Italians that first raised the concerns over Thimerosal that promoted many Europeans countries to begin banning and/or limiting the use of Thimerosal from vaccines.

Lujene G. Clark
President
NoMercury

I see that he has indeed posted a retraction/clarification on his blog.

I do think he needs to be commended for taking this step at least.

@ Maureen Fisher

who asked: "Does anyone know how much it would cost for a study good enough to be published in a major medical journal?"

Maureen, that is a good question. The best place to get an answer is from Big Pharma. They know exactly how much it costs to pay "researchers" and to advertise enough to ensure publication of their desired results in targeted "journals."

David,

You are the best.

That is why I always make sure I shake your hand when I meet you. You stick your nose in business that is not your own for the sake of children and parents that cannot do so on their own.

Thank you so much for sticking with us.

(speaking for the non-english speaking MN Somali parents too.....)

Tim Kasemodel
Wayzata, Minnesota

I went to this blogspot and First is obviously disingenuous on several levels.

He refers to the blog, in his reply to David, as "my blog". One would assume that it is the official blog of Pediatrics as their banner tops the page and the address is pediatricsblog.blogspot.com

If this is First's personal blog no one would make that assumption and it should not be headed by the journal's logo. Either way, as it's editor, I am quite certain that AAP member pediatricians (who are obliviously the intended audience) expect reliable, scientifically based information not his opinion and when he does share an opinion it should be clearly defined as such.

I become more and more convinced that pediatricians are as much the victim of all this propaganda as the general public. Our family pediatrician recently shared with me that doctors are trained not to question the medical establishment. It's high time they start asking some questions and applying some critical thinking to this debate.

First "essentially" reminds me of Vizzini in The Princess Bride: "INCONCEIVABLE!"

I guess that makes David Kirby (and the rest of us) Inigo Montoya: "I do not think that word means what you think it means..."

"I have used the word "essentially" in my blog to express my own opinion/interpretation and to note, by using that phrase "essentially" that the data may still note associations but not ones that I personally feel are meaningful as per the data they have presented."

So essentially, he lied.

It says on First's blog he received an MS in epidemiology from Harvard. I wonder how the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard's School of Public Health would feel about First's method of interpreting and reporting data.

In case anyone wants to ask...

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/hansolov-adami/

I applaud Mr.Kirby for continually attempting to bring reason and sanity into the logic-vacuum of the Wackosphere, regardless of their baffling, form-driven responses to his straight-forward, simple questions. He has the patience of Mother Teresa. Don't give up! We love ya!

I think 'essentially' Dr. First didn't 'essentially' read the study or he hopes no one else will and will just lap up his little soundbyte.

One thing left unsaid by Dr. First: ...."..and you can be damn well sure no vaxed versus unvaxed study will be done any time soon" : The more deceptive the provaccine folks are, the more we know in our hearts that no study comparing thimerosal and no thimerosal will take place No vaccinated versus non vaccinated. They simply cant afford to be exposed by the truth.
Hey there, folks at CDC and AAP, in case you are reading this, how about a trip to India to see the kids who get about 200 mcg mercury in vaccines by 3 and a half months of age and thats after their mothers get 100 - 200 mcg in tetanus toxoids. Just imagine- YOU could go into the history books as the discoverer of the cause of autism !! Wow !

We were watching on an OPB station the other night, that in essence, our MEDIA or "freedom of the press", ranks 27th in the world. I was shocked but not surprised. One wonders what yonder sits on editorial boards and upi wires, and who is actually controlling the information americans receive? For the most part, they want to believe our government is going to fix things, when in fact, the ability of the people to fix things has diminished. Somehow I think THEY, whoever THEY are, know this. So, studies like this will be reported over and over, sham science and junk science portrayed as honest and real, and meanwhile, this autism epidemic will continue. This is why I say, is there any dealings or accountability that we can hold them to? I can only say, I have to try, but in the twenty odd years in this autism biz, most of our efforts have been futile. I feel the only approach is to hit them where it hurts, boycott vaccines in total. This means a fair amount of missionary hood on our parts, to make sure our NEIGHBORS are warned, our FAMILIES, etc. If we as an autism population did that, say, 10 families, can you imagine what would happen to the vaccine industrialists?

Where is the objectivity in research, when clearly all of these parties have a vested interest in the outcome?

Thank you, David, for holding Dr. First and the AAP accountable. The media coverage of this study has been driving me insane. What a sham!

Kim, you're exactly right. Most of the public doesn't want to face the truth. It's too disconcerting and it puts too much responsibility in their own hands. They want to remain blissfully ignorant. Let's face it -- we who read and post here have wrestled with regret and anger and have become thoroughly disillusioned with the gov't and the mainstream medical establishment. It would be much easier to blindly trust the CDC, AAP, etc.

Al Franken wrote about a ploy he used to respond to rude emails-- he would reply with thanks as if the person had flattered him. It clearly made the recipient boil, probably more to think that their aggression hadn't made impact than that they were being toyed with. I wonder what would happen if someone responded to First as First responded to you-- writing back something unrelated to his email:

Dear Dr. First,

Thank you for your admission that you lied in your blog. That kind of concession is very rare in medicine these days and it clearly takes nerve. Duly noted that when you wrote that "either did or did not" receive thimerosal containing vaccines, you were interpreting the data in the study falsely and in a way that you knew would be pleasantly accepted by the AAP so that they would help disseminate your remarks and as a way to mislead parents into believing the study was definitive so that they would continue to vaccinate without hesitation. I will pass on your honest comments to me to ensure that people understand your contrition for initially perpetrating dangerous disinformation. You deserve credit for having courage.

Yours sincerely....

It's amazing that he won't admit the blatant false statement he made "reassuring" his readers.

Lewis First should just "take the shame" as one of "Lauren Cooper's" buddies would advise her. Go to you tube and type in Katherine Tate(amazing British comedienne) and watch some of the Lauren Tate videos- especially Katherine Tate and David Tennant (the Shakespeare sketch) and the translator-hilarious. "I'm not bothered."

Doctors like First are so used to having the press fall all over themselves broadcasting any "official study" without questioning the makeup and conclusions of the research, that he's probably stunned that anyone actually looked at the specifics.
Doctors love to wave "studies" at the worried parents, so they’re highly unlikely to look into one in depth.
David's critique is highly unusual. Lots of people at Pediatrics and the AAP are probably scrambling right now to come up with an official response.
I can't imagine how they're going to spin this to justify calling two control groups receiving different level of thimerosal a vax vs unvax study.
Anne Dachel
Media editor

David,

Only to comment that this is a very odd, not to say lame study.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/eletters/123/2/475

Of course, even on US or UK incidence we would not be talking about a vast number of ASD children, but Tozzi comments that parents of disabled children may not have volunteered them, and you could say with a reasonable degree of certainty that the more disabled they were the less likely it was - and even in cases where the children might have a conceptual understanding of what was asked, in most cases parents would avoid anything which might cause stress.

The point surely is that the study is of absurd bureaucratic design, ensuring the non-participation of any of the sensitive cases. I don't know whether in the US you are familiar with the term "shaggy dog story" but this is a shaggy dog story. After ten years of prevarication the AAP have come up with a study of consumate and transparent silliness - a study which proves that anything goes, providing you can get out the press release, and - as you have pointed out - a professional briefing.

Now (presumably), the study is not definably a "scientific fraud" because the limitations are actually set out within it, but it is misleading. And, of course, that is only where the folly begins, because based on this piece of circumlocutory nonsense, the medical/scientific establisment can institute another round of opinion forming articles.

So now it has been going on for ten years, and I can safely say that of all the tautological nonsensical studies I have ever read this is by far the stupidest, and that time is simply being wasted while guilty men and women fight a futile and damaging rear-guard action as our children suffer.

Well done for calling the AAP's bluff!

Best regards,

John

Dear David,

That comment on the Huffpost was swiftly removed. I replied to it and *poof* it was gone and mine never showed.

Now, somebody can claim a death threat was made against him and this time it'll actually be true. Since some of us saw it written at the Huffpost. I didn't read every comment from Paul Offitt's Huffpost piece...but I don't think any death threats were made against him. Alert the media, call Dr. Snyderman somebody threatened a Kennedy over his stance on vaccines... That post you are referring to was only the 5th one posted after your and RFK Jr.'s post went up. The baby poisoners sure move quickly to death threats, don't they?

I wish Dr. First would have just been straight forward with you about the purpose of his blog. The purpose of his blog is just to get people - doctors and their patients to "believe" no matter what. Just keep on vaccinating. I can't believe he refuses to acknowledge his error and says this is only his intrepretation of the study. What a pathetic copout. He apparently doesn't care he is providing misinformation and leading people to the wrong conclusions.

But, as long as the headline made the news worldwide "vaccine study shows no link to autism"...that's all that matters, right?

Now thanks to JB Handley we know these people hardly ever read the studies anwyays, that they claim let vaccines off the hook. It's all about headlines they generate. People don't have the time or attention to look beyond the headline, do they? Even Bernadine Healy confessed to never actually reading the studies and then when she did, look what she happened. She came out and said this needs studied, because their "mountain" of evidence doens't exist, and the medical profession is turning it's back on an unidentified susceptible group. I wonder what she will have to say about the "Italian job" study? I do hope she will comment.

If people only saw the comment you shared with us from the lead author of the study:

"We did not have the objective to specifically study children with autism and the number of subjects included in our study would have been insufficient to make any epidemiological assessment on this subject."

Shameful.