The populace ignores science? Of course they do ! and the leaders of the pack are our medical professionals. Before you write any more books try to explain to yourself why , about 5 years ago, Dr. Isaac Pessah published his study showing that ethylmercury at concentrations as low as 20 parts in a billion parts begins to harm the immune system, and the medical community did not hail this as the most stunning news of the new century. Even a high school student could have pointed out to them that a very great many pediatric research studies needed to be re-done, because they had all been done on babies and children whose immune systems had been damaged by the ethylmercury in DPT and other vaccines ,and this was never taken into account at the time of the research. Did it register with the doctors? Not even a blip.
And please tell us why scientists found that eating fish could cause serious problems for pregnant women and the fetus, but this was and is followed by many more articles telling us that we will actually harm our baby by not eating fish?
How on earth are we to have a populace educated in science when the real scientists cannot get their voice heard?

Well said indeed!

I can attest to the frequency in which I encounter scientism arguments - the idea that research should be suppressed, abandoned or never undertaken because "science" says it is impossible.

I am told by a friend who is involved in aircraft design that "science" said it was "impossible" for a bumblebee to fly. But nobody told the bumblebee that!!

We must speak out against the rigid stultification and blind adherence to orthodoxy that seeks to suppress dissenting views. Such an attitude, which claims devotion to "science" in reality is the most dangerous kind of anti-science and involves repression of research, misrepresentation of ideas, ridicule and the worst sort of disrespectful anti-intellecutualistic herd mentality.

Please CONTINUE to speak out in favor of the need for MORE research, rather than heed the cries of those who, apparently fearful of the truth, seem to care only about protecting exorbitant profits, maintaining the status quo and burying their scientism heads so deeply in the sand that the tsunami of truth will wash right over them without the least disturbance to the prejudicial fictions which serve to provide volume inside their empty little group minded heads.

And thanks Stan.

I indeed hurried on this (and was trying to manage my son at the time) and never actually intended to publish it. Did so as an afterthought. I just shot it of to Lori's email.

Horrified of all the typos I am finding, so please, everyone, pretend you never saw them.

;)

Thank you all for your encouragement and thoughtful responses. Unfortunately this was not a week that I could participate in the discussion as I would have liked to.

I have gone back and forth in emails with the author of the article and her editor and the LAT, who claim that they will address autism in the future (pretty much just polite pandering), but unfortunately I get the sense from them that they still do not take their duty to investigate all matters and inform the public seriously, nor do they understand how writing a puff piece on one of the most controversial topics in medicine is screaming evidence of a lack of journalistic integrity.

I don't think they will actually be challenging Mr. Mooney on any of his errant assertions, but they do seem to be enjoying the bees nest that it has stirred up and the traffic that it is driving to the two pages in question (Lori sent out personal invites for people to comment). Pages that were running ads for medical institutions UCLA Health Systems and City of Hope when I visited them.

Unreal.

They remain back to the autism community, face toward the microphones, unfazed.

"Even so, I would imagine the difference between rates of autism in families who vaccinated their firstborn which developed autism and had other children which they also vaccinated and rates of autism in families whose firstborn was vaccinated and developed autism, but did not vaccinate subsequent children would be telling."

Well said ! Both of my sons are on the spectrum. Once my older son started to exhibit symptoms ALL VACCINATIONS in our houselold stopped. A friend of mine has a first-born who has ASD, and since he was diagnosed, none of her subsequent 3 children have been vaccinated !

The well-educated, affluent people who question vaccines aren't anti-science, but they are skeptical of some scientists and doctors with good reason.

From http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/38283649.html

"The conclusions were clear: Women who took hormone therapy drugs were at increased risk for breast cancer, heart disease, stroke and blood clots.

The findings were so strong that researchers stopped a clinical trial in 2002, five years early, because it would have been unethical to continue giving the drugs to women.

But that same year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Medicine and Public Health began a medical education program for doctors that promoted hormone therapy, touted its benefits and downplayed its risks.

For the next six years, thousands of doctors from around the country took the online course that was funded entirely by a $12 million grant from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which makes the hormone therapy drugs used in the study, Prempro and Premarin.

The university received $1.5 million of that total, and university faculty received money as well."

"Advanced parental age and the risk of autism spectrum disorder."
The points in the piece are important to consider John, thanks fo adding it to the mix.
That abstract does give some factors to be considered and it is interesting that neurodevelopment and immunity are seen as possibly connected in the piece as are toxins. The age of the mothers could be figured in as a risk without obscuring the vaccine/subsequent children with autsim analysis. It would also seem that even in families with multiple children in which all are vaccinated only a minority of them would have autism, so the subsequent children approach has limitations. Even so, I would imagine the difference between rates of autism in families who vaccinated their firstborn which developed autism and had other children which they also vaccinated and rates of autism in families whose firstborn was vaccinated and developed autism, but did not vaccinate subsequent children would be telling. That is, if the rates showed a statistically meaningful diffference.

Hi there!

Despite first launched in Lancet with impact factor of some 40 points, this study could not be reproduced. However, there seems to be a correlation between mercury leak and autism incidence near the coal plants in US, indicating a trigger. My autistic son got the shot in the national evening news by accident. So we indeed have the evidence for being shot... Now the mercury is gone also in Finland.

Fact is that many diseases are raising in frequency. Autism included.
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/autismi-asperger.htm

www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Top-50-Terms.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Psychiatry-and-Psychology.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Named-Social-Groups.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Chemicals-and-Drugs.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Anatomy.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Proteins.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Techniques-and-Equipment.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Natural-Sciences.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Technology-Industry-Agriculture.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Organisms.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Biological-Sciences.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Health-Care.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-GO-Cellular_Localization.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-GO-molecular_function.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Geographicals.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Top-50-Cities.htm
www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quantitative-Autism-Top-50-Journals.htm

If there ever is a battleship launched to fight the pervasive hubris and corruption in science, it should be called the "Ginger Taylor". I too have sent your piece far and wide.

"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities [including media] are wrong"......Voltaire

"Nick- Thank you for asking that question. Now if only the CDC would ask it."

I hope more will chime in response. I think there must be enough families who have withheld vaccines from the younger siblings after seeing or suspecting vaccine reactions in their first child to get some indication of a pattern. It may be that these types of families will be more common in the next couple of years as more stop vaccinating subsequent children and the picture may become much clearer. This type of evidence would almost certainly catch the attention of a large enough circle of acquaintances of such families to change many families willingness to risk vaccines for their own children until the connections to such vaccine outcomes could be clearly explained. This, I imagine would likely get the CDC's attention.

Nick- Thank you for asking that question. Now if only the CDC would ask it. My son is severely affected by autism and was fully vaccinated. My daughter was "alternatively vaccinated" and is a healthy, bright, neurotypical little girl. If I were to have another child, I don't think I would give any vaccines at all.

Great job Ginger! This is one of those pieces that I wish to print, save and carry with me in the event some nitwit challenges the "scientific evidence" of non causation of autism from vaccines. You nailed it. As the old saying goes. . .follow the money. In this case it's not hard to figure out that science is influenced by money and pharma makes for sure to keep it that way.

Ginger -- thank you for your cogent response to this book and to the LA Times... you put it better than I ever could. I blogged about your post at
http://embracingwellness.blogspot.com/2009/08/fallacy-of-scientific-consensus.html.

Gee, Nick, those are really interesting questions. Maybe the CHARGE study at UC Davis will come up with some answers to those questions soon. Or maybe you could go work for the CDC or NIH and get them to do a study. While you are at it, beg them to do a general study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated age-matched populations. I'm sure all of us would be happy to participate in giving the medical details of our children. Anything we might spitball here would be purely anecdotal and based on a limited data set. Right?

Dr Brett, be my friend on facebook!? (KATHY BLANCO) I mean that sincerely, because you are really saying what autism is, aka BRAIN DAMAGE (and also no hurt intended...and lets face it, some damage is permanent, and some is not). If you see my posts today on facebook why this is happening, the shocker of the century is, that vaccines are a minutia/one stop picture of the problem, though problematic and literally the universal sign that this child is a non responder to FURTHER immune and metabolic derangements, such as vaccines. Vaccines, may as well be the last straw on the back...but, more telling is, that our kids are canaries in the coal mine, telling us, we are doing something wicked/horribly wrong, and or, hopefully not, purposeful to them, farbeit, that it is motivated by dumb scientist and research...it is more likely these scientists KNOW, but can't tell. Beliegve me when I say, I have talked to a fair number of them, THEY KNOW. Else, careers and jobs with prestige would be on the line, no? Independent research which points to EVERY immune deranger, oxidative stressor should be suspected...and like the perfect storm that gathers, we will likely see more GENOME studies to disway or confront the current TRUE hypothoesis that a gene ENVIRONMENT IAOTRAGENIC interaction/damager/destroyer is the cause of autism, and putting more emphasis on epigenetic interactions, rather than we have screwed up genes...which can be fussed by EMF, toxins, vaccines in the first place...sigh...

As Dr Klinghardt has so eloquently put it, a mother who has a child in the next ten years, if not fully detoxed, is infection free, and knows how damaging vaccines can be, can be rest assured, she WILL NOT have an autistic child. THOSE who don't know about these things, WILL... GRRRRRR....

It seems to me, that a pre pregnancy education must begin, BUT SOON, than LATER...or else, this will be like a broken record...and the THREE autistic children just on my street alone, will be twenty in ten years.

How many of you had your firstborn child regress with autism after vaccines and have a subsequent child or children? If you had a subsequent child or children who here witheld vaccines for them? For those who witheld vaccines from these subsequent children, what was their outcome? Did they develop typically or did some of your non-vaccinated children have or regress into autism?

The seven basic elements of the universe according to the
scientific world. These are Time, Space, Matter, Energy, Power, Prestige, and Funding. He wrote a hilarious piece which I reproduce below:

I am an “ex” scientist. I have over 100 publications in the field of materials science and physics. Many of these publications are in peer reviewed journals such as The Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Materials Research Society Journal and Journal of Applied Physics. I have sat on committees that review papers for these journals. I have worked at the following national laboratories: NIST, Oak Ridge (site X) and Brookhaven National Laboratory. I have spent 10 years living off of federally funded research. I have written winning proposals for government funding in the 10’s of millions of dollars. In short, I am very well aware of the process of getting and keeping funding and getting papers published in peer reviewed publications.

I have seen papers (perfectly good, well researched) papers rejected for publication for the following reasons:
1. The paper went against prevailing theory on a topic.
2. The paper was submitted by a company that was a competitor for government funding.
3. The paper was submitted by a government agency that was a competitor of the reviewer’s agency.
4. The author of the paper was disliked by one of the reviewers.

This is how the funding process works:
1. You determine what the latest ‘hot’ topic is (global warming, ceramic superconductivity, stealth technology).
2. You write your proposal to fund the work you’ve been doing for years in your area but you slant it towards the hot topic.
3. You almost “prove” that the above hot topic is effected in a way that is positive toward your research.
4. You write a follow-on proposal where you state that the really big break-through will occur in the next funding cycle.
5. Oh, and you try to partner with entities that always get government funding.

It works like this: You study frogs in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Nobody wants to fund the study of frogs. Why would they? So in the early 80’s you write your proposal to study the effect of the hole in the ozone layer on the frogs. The mid 80’s your try to figure out how to write a proposal on frogs and missile defense but give up. In the 90’s you write proposals on how frog pee can help certain forms of cancer. You partner with NIH on this because they are getting lots of funding, being the ‘hot’ agency. You both know that the results are useless from the get go but you do it anyway. In the late 90’s you write proposals on how frogs from South Dakota can be used to detect nerve gas as part of the Global War on Terrorism. You routinely reject papers to the Journal of Herpetology that claim that five lined skinks can detect nerve gas by their tails falling off. In the 2000’s you are awarded grants to study the decline of frog populations in the Black Hills due to global warming, despite the fact the frogs were there through the last dozen ice ages and that they’ve survived eight periods since the last ice age where the temperature was much warmer than now. You know that the frog population is declining because the government is leasing the land to cattle ranchers and the cows are crapping in the water but you don’t really care because you’re now just a few years away from retirement and you don’t want to work at Burger King.

So it is not a shock to me, now that the economy is the Hot Topic, to find stories like this bubbling up in the Pop Sci press. Gotta ride that bandwagon. It's the next big thing.

Ginger -- right on! John Stone, as an Angeleno I can tell you that no, the LA Times doesn't hire grownups anymore. They're in dire financial straits, part of Tribune's bankruptcy, and the experienced staff has been cut to the bone. There are several "science" reporters there whose work is often suspiciously pro-pharma. Last year they did a big investigational expose about vaccination rates at public schools that manipulated data and was clearly intended to lay the groundwork for doing away with the philosophical exemption from vaccines. Every time I read one of these articles it makes me wonder where the bulk of the writer's income is coming from.

I think the problem with science today (aside from massive corruption at the top levels) is that, like a lot of other things, it has become so specialized. Scientists tend to be people with narrow-focus on their interest (after all aren't we all just the undiagnosed kids from the 70s). So, given a problem they look to find a solution, but only to that problem without much regard for any unintended consequences.

So, say I happen to be an expert in protein expression. Given a cell culture product, I can make it produce more of the protein we want. Perhaps an antigen, in the case of vaccine production. I can tweak conditions like agitation rate, oxygen levels, amino acids in solution and generate more product. I'm proud. I've helped the company make more material, so it costs less and more people are spared some disease. Great.

But do I know if I've changed the antigenic profile at all? Of course not. I'm no immunologist. Talk to them about that.

And they might say the changes seem to make it less antigenic. And then it will be their job to figure out how to make it more antigenic. Which they will because they are "super smart." They'll add some aluminum. But do they know if aluminum might be toxic? Of course not. They aren't toxicologist, or even chemist for that matter. Talk to them.

But wait, maybe their company doesn't even have a toxicologist, so they'll pay someone to tell them it's fine.

There is nobody looking at the big picture in science today. And there are few few people capable. In 15 years I've met plenty of super smart people, but I've maybe met two that I think had the true smarts to look at everything at once.

GInger, I loved this! Great job and I hope they absorbed every last drop of it. Yeah, and the journalists ought to be ashamed of themselves too (excepting the few that are slugging it out in this neck of the woods!).

thank you, Ginger - excellent.

and thank you, John G. you wrote: "There doesn’t seem to be a damn journalist out there worth his salt, anymore."

special interests put out 'press releases' written by themselves and for themselves. The AP picks up only the press releases from 'mainstream'and 'acceptable' sources. The 'Reporter' then copies the information from the AP without question and spreads the info to the masses - undiluted and unfiltered from the press release - originating from said special interest group. 'NEWS' today is advertising and nothing more.

Yes- it all boils down to this:

"Mainstream science: "Here is a study... look no vaccine/autism connection".

Autism community: "Hey... look here... you guys forgot to carry the 3. Wait... half of our kids' medical histories are in the exclusion criteria!".

and this:

"Now pretend that you are a parent who has learned that thimerosal at nanomolar amounts causes mitochondrial dysfunction so severe that it can cause the cell to self destruct, and that HHS has conceded that in the Poling case mito dysfunction + vaccination = autism symptoms. And pretend that one of your questions are that if vaccines are known to cause Guillian-Barre, an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the central nervous system, they why can't they cause autism, an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the central nervous system?....And then pretend that you are confused by the stance of "science" that a fetus contracting Rubella is a known cause of autism, but that that a one year old being given a live virus rubella vaccine couldn't possibly cause autism; while remembering that VICP has ruled that Baily Banks would not have had ASD if not for his MMR."

But Chris Mooney will ignore all of that and instead say something like these comments - from his soap opera article featuring the usual characters, Offit,Arthur Allen, Amanda Peet, and Orac! Notice the theme- hysterical, desperate parents willing to believe and do whatever as autism is so horrible and makes parents "dangerous" to the vaccine program and the safety of pro-vaccine patent holders and pharma paid spokespeople. NO WHERE is there any science showing or describing, what ails our children. No mention of immune issues, bacteria, viruses, GI pain, mitochondria dysfunction, seizures, food allergies, etc. Instead, Chris pulls an As The World Turns script out complete with the dramatic actors who spin opinion and fear mongering. :

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jun/06-why-does-vaccine-autism-controversy-live-on/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

-"You can see where the emotion and sentiment come from. Autism can be a terrible condition, devastating to families."

-"The irony is that vaccine skepticism—not the vaccines themselves—is now looking like the true public-health threat."

-"There was no proof of harm, government researchers said, just reason to worry that there might be."

-"Yet even as vaccine hysteria reached a fever pitch in the wake of Kennedy’s and Kirby’s writings, the scientific evidence was leaning strongly in the other direction. In discounting the dangers of both the MMR vaccine and thimerosal, the IOM had multiple large epidemiological studies to rely on."

-"A hardening of antivaccine attitudes, mixed with the despair experienced by families living under the strain of autism, has heightened the debate—sometimes leading to blowback against scientific researchers."

-"Offit cannot go on a book tour to promote Autism’s False Prophets because of the risk involved in making public appearances. He has received too many threats."

-"It is easy to sympathize with parents of autistic children who desperately want to find a cure."

Chris Mooney laments for the "scientific community" yet he rarely shows science at nanomolar levels at the bare minumum. He is all show, all bravado, all drama, and heavily invested in denial.

Well stated...the science on autism is a "ridiculous mess". This is an excellent piece Ginger and I couldn't agree more. Thank you.

One of the interesting things about Chris Mooney is his complete refusal to question the ethical and economic interests that determine much of what he calls "science" in the US. I think Ginger nailed Mooney when she observed that he can't tell the difference between science and prevailing opinions among scientists. He also fails to see the important distinct between scientific research and medical research. Ask any physician if medicine is a science.

Mooney resolutely refuses to challenge anything about establishment "science". And I think i know why. Mooney has no formal training or credentials in science. His education consists, as far as I can glean from a few minutes googling, is a BA in English from Yale. I wonder if he has taken any college-level science, math or statistics. He has had an impressive run career-wise, the last few years defending the scientific and medical establishment from a "liberal" perspective.

He is very young, very underqualified and probably quite correctly perceives that his career success is contigent on devising glib defenses of the powers that be.

Excellent!! I 100% agree with you. Orac and his ilk are the nitwits in all this. It is quite clear that he and his "friends" are incapable of questioning their own assumptions and paradigms--They can't understand why people don't listen to them and their "Science," quite simply because they are blinded by their faith AND they aren't actually smart enough..

Thank you for writing this Ginger!