J.B. Handley: The New Lie: 65% of Our Kids Have the "Autism Gene."
It’s amazing to watch how a new lie about autism can be born, raised, and launched into the world.
Let’s follow this lie in action:
Wired Magazine writer Amy Wallace, October 2009 (parroting something Paul Offit told her):
“In fact, the growing body of science indicates that the autistic spectrum — which may well turn out to encompass several discrete conditions — may largely be genetic in origin. In April, the journal Nature published two studies that analyzed the genes of almost 10,000 people and identified a common genetic variant present in approximately 65 percent of autistic children.”
Paul Offit on the Are We Alone? Radio program, December 4, 2009:
“If you look actually at the information...it's all very consistent in terms of what appears to be the cause. There was recently an article published in the journal Nature ...And what he found in 65 percent of children with autism spectrum disorder ... they had something called neurocell adhesion molecule defect”
Time Magazine, December 8, 2009, discussing the “Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2009”:
“Working with the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange — a DNA database of more than 2,000 families affected by autism, and the largest genetic study of the disorder ever attempted — researchers zeroed in on variations in genes that code for proteins involved in forming connections in the brain. Differences in these particular genes are extremely common — present in more than half of healthy people — but they are even more common in people with autism, affecting 65%.”
Background
Let’s go back, first, and think about some of the misdirection that both Amy Wallace and Paul Offit (because she was just his parrot) have engaged in when discussing genes and autism and compare that to where the scientific world really stands.
Amy Wallace’s suggestion that the “the growing body of science indicates that the autistic spectrum may largely be genetic in origin” is extraordinarily misleading given what a crisis the current world of genetic researchers are going through, as described in an excellent article published in the New York Times in April 2009 called, “Genes Show Limited Value in Predicting Diseases”:
“The genetic analysis of common disease is turning out to be a lot more complex than expected. Since the human genome was decoded in 2003, researchers have been developing a powerful method for comparing the genomes of patients and healthy people, with the hope of pinpointing the DNA changes responsible for common diseases. This method, called a genomewide association study, has proved technically successful despite many skeptics’ initial doubts. But it has been disappointing in that the kind of genetic variation it detects has turned out to explain surprisingly little of the genetic links to most diseases…Unlike the rare diseases caused by a change affecting only one gene, common diseases like cancer and diabetes are caused by a set of several genetic variations in each person. Since these common diseases generally strike later in life, after people have had children, the theory has been that natural selection is powerless to weed them out. The problem addressed in the commentaries is that these diseases were expected to be promoted by genetic variations that are common in the population. More than 100 genomewide association studies, often involving thousands of patients in several countries, have now been completed for many diseases, and some common variants have been found. But in almost all cases they carry only a modest risk for the disease. Most of the genetic link to disease remains unexplained.”
Autism is one of the many diseases where the search for common variants has been a bust. Like clockwork, a new finding of a variant in autism is announced in one study, only to be unreproducible in the next (due to random chance common in genome-wide analysis) and explained perfectly by Mark Blaxill (HERE). If autism were genetic, children would need to have specific genes in order to have the disorder, and none have been found.
Additionally, a new genome-wide study on autism (more on the study in a moment) appeared in the journal Nature in October 2009. The researchers, from Harvard and MIT, were surprisingly forthright in characterizing the current state of gene research and autism:
“Modern approaches that harness genome-scale technologies have begun to yield some insights into autism and its genetic underpinnings. However, the relative importance of common genetic variants, which are generally present in the human population at a frequency of about 5%, as well as other forms of genetic variation, remains an unresolved question…Although the Nature paper identifies a handful of new genes and genomic regions, the researchers emphasize that the findings are just one piece of a very large — and mostly unfinished — puzzle.”
Unresolved? Mostly unfinished puzzle? These researchers don’t sound very definitive. In fact, in the study itself, the researchers spell it out even more clearly, saying “attempts to identify specific susceptibility genes [to autism] have thus far met with limited success.”
When Ms. Wallace discusses this “growing body of scientific evidence” pointing to genetics I say, “where?” Not to be outdone, I’ll leave you with a quote from Dr. Francis Collins, who just happens to be the current Director of the entire National Institutes of Health:
“Genes alone do not tell the whole story. Recent increases in chronic diseases like diabetes, childhood asthma, obesity or autism cannot be due to major shifts in the human gene pool as those changes take much more time to occur. They must be due to changes in the environment, including diet and physical activity, which may produce disease in genetically predisposed persons."
Did Dr. Collins say “autism”? Yes, he did. On one side, you have the Director of the NIH and every real scientist in the autism field. On the other side, Mr. Offit and Ms. Wallace, now joined by Time Magazine, provide the world with a take on genetics in the autism world they won’t find anywhere else.
The 65% Lie
Getting back to the “65% gene” and the birth of this remarkable new lie, Amy Wallace wrote in Wired:
“In April, the journal Nature published two studies that analyzed the genes of almost 10,000 people and identified a common genetic variant present in approximately 65 percent of autistic children.”
To be fair, Ms. Wallace is correct, two studies were published in Nature in April 2009 related to autism and genetics. (Interesting that Ms. Wallace fails to mention is that both studies came from the same place: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which happens to be Paul Offit’s employer.)
And, Ms. Wallace is right, one of the studies did find a common genetic variant present in 65% of autistic children. But, what Ms. Wallace, Paul Offit, and Time (although they are a bit more clear, at least saying a majority of people carry this gene) all fail to mention, a fact that might leave the reader with a very different impression, is that 61% of the controls in the study – the children without autism – had the same variant. 65% vs. 61%? As is typically the case in genome-wide findings, this “remarkable” new discovery, the one Time magazine puts in its Top 10 medical breakthroughs for 2009, was likely the product of chance, nothing more.
(For those of you keeping track at home, read the study (Wang et al). If you go to table 2 on page 3, find the column labeled “Case MAF” and subtract the listed number from 1.0: So, 1.0-0.35=65%. Doing the same math with “Control MAF” gets you the 61% number.)
It actually gets better. Autism studies on genetic variants are plagued by this failure of replication issue. One set of researchers runs data on hundreds of thousands of genes. Invariably, they find correlations. A new set of researchers use different subjects and try to replicate the findings and finds nothing, and then the cycle repeats itself. In the case of the genetic variant that Ms. Wallace noted, the one that 65% of the kids with autism had (5p14.1, SNP rs4307059), it didn’t take long for the failure of replication to take place -- six months to be exact.
Remember the first journal article in Nature I quoted above, the one with researchers from Harvard and MIT? It came out in October 2009, six months after the 65% paper from CHOP was published. It’s called, “A genome-wide linkage and association scan reveals novel loci for autism” and the article states:
“Although there was significant overlap between study samples, each of these scans contained a large set of unique families, so we sought to evaluate independent evidence of the top SNP (rs4307059) reported at 5p14 [this is the gene from the CHOP study Ms. Wallace cites at 65%]. This SNP happens to be directly genotyped by both Affymetrix and Illumina platforms. We have a sizable number (n 5 796) of affected subjects with two parents genotyped (and of predominantly similar European background). However, we observed no support for association at this locus (T:U 354:335 in favour of the minor allele, a trend in the opposite direction as reported).”
English translation: not only could they not find an association on the gene where Ms. Wallace, Paul Offit, and Time Magazine mention 65% of children with autism carried it, the researchers actually found that when they ran the numbers, the kids WITHOUT autism were MORE likely to carry this gene!!
Said differently, the chances that this variant means anything related to autism is zero.
Conclusion
Amy Wallace in her Wired Magazine piece, Paul Offit on Are We Alone radio, and now Time Magazine all report on the remarkable breakthrough of a gene found in 65% of children with autism. None mention that 61% of controls have the same gene, and none mention that like many genes before it, the gene in question has already failed the replicability test in a more recent study and almost certainly means absolutely nothing for solving the autism puzzle.
The devil is in the details, AoA readers, and with Amy Wallace, Paul Offit, and Time Magazine explaining the science of autism to the world, we’re all headed straight to hell.
Author’s note: If parts of my writing here seem familiar, it’s because I have borrowed and paraphrased myself from past AoA articles I have written, having already tackled the 65% issue in the context of Ms. Wallace’s piece for Wired.
J.B. Handley is the co-founder of Generation Rescue, he can also be found twittering at www.twitter.com/jbhandley
Autism is one of the many diseases where the search for common variants has been a bust. Like clockwork, a new finding of a variant in autism is announced in one study, only to be unreproducible in the next (due to random chance common in genome-wide analysis) and explained perfectly by Mark Blaxill (HERE). If autism were genetic, children would need to have specific genes in order to have the disorder, and none have been found.
Additionally, a new genome-wide study on autism (more on the study in a moment) appeared in the journal Nature in October 2009. The researchers, from Harvard and MIT, were surprisingly forthright in characterizing the current state of gene research and autism:
“Modern approaches that harness genome-scale technologies have begun to yield some insights into autism and its genetic underpinnings. However, the relative importance of common genetic variants, which are generally present in the human population at a frequency of about 5%, as well as other forms of genetic variation, remains an unresolved question…Although the Nature paper identifies a handful of new genes and genomic regions, the researchers emphasize that the findings are just one piece of a very large — and mostly unfinished — puzzle.”
Unresolved? Mostly unfinished puzzle? These researchers don’t sound very definitive. In fact, in the study itself, the researchers spell it out even more clearly, saying “attempts to identify specific susceptibility genes [to autism] have thus far met with limited success.”
When Ms. Wallace discusses this “growing body of scientific evidence” pointing to genetics I say, “where?” Not to be outdone, I’ll leave you with a quote from Dr. Francis Collins, who just happens to be the current Director of the entire National Institutes of Health:
“Genes alone do not tell the whole story. Recent increases in chronic diseases like diabetes, childhood asthma, obesity or autism cannot be due to major shifts in the human gene pool as those changes take much more time to occur. They must be due to changes in the environment, including diet and physical activity, which may produce disease in genetically predisposed persons."
Did Dr. Collins say “autism”? Yes, he did. On one side, you have the Director of the NIH and every real scientist in the autism field. On the other side, Mr. Offit and Ms. Wallace, now joined by Time Magazine, provide the world with a take on genetics in the autism world they won’t find anywhere else.
The 65% Lie
Getting back to the “65% gene” and the birth of this remarkable new lie, Amy Wallace wrote in Wired:
“In April, the journal Nature published two studies that analyzed the genes of almost 10,000 people and identified a common genetic variant present in approximately 65 percent of autistic children.”
To be fair, Ms. Wallace is correct, two studies were published in Nature in April 2009 related to autism and genetics. (Interesting that Ms. Wallace fails to mention is that both studies came from the same place: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which happens to be Paul Offit’s employer.)
And, Ms. Wallace is right, one of the studies did find a common genetic variant present in 65% of autistic children. But, what Ms. Wallace, Paul Offit, and Time (although they are a bit more clear, at least saying a majority of people carry this gene) all fail to mention, a fact that might leave the reader with a very different impression, is that 61% of the controls in the study – the children without autism – had the same variant. 65% vs. 61%? As is typically the case in genome-wide findings, this “remarkable” new discovery, the one Time magazine puts in its Top 10 medical breakthroughs for 2009, was likely the product of chance, nothing more.
(For those of you keeping track at home, read the study (Wang et al). If you go to table 2 on page 3, find the column labeled “Case MAF” and subtract the listed number from 1.0: So, 1.0-0.35=65%. Doing the same math with “Control MAF” gets you the 61% number.)
It actually gets better. Autism studies on genetic variants are plagued by this failure of replication issue. One set of researchers runs data on hundreds of thousands of genes. Invariably, they find correlations. A new set of researchers use different subjects and try to replicate the findings and finds nothing, and then the cycle repeats itself. In the case of the genetic variant that Ms. Wallace noted, the one that 65% of the kids with autism had (5p14.1, SNP rs4307059), it didn’t take long for the failure of replication to take place -- six months to be exact.
Remember the first journal article in Nature I quoted above, the one with researchers from Harvard and MIT? It came out in October 2009, six months after the 65% paper from CHOP was published. It’s called, “A genome-wide linkage and association scan reveals novel loci for autism” and the article states:
“Although there was significant overlap between study samples, each of these scans contained a large set of unique families, so we sought to evaluate independent evidence of the top SNP (rs4307059) reported at 5p14 [this is the gene from the CHOP study Ms. Wallace cites at 65%]. This SNP happens to be directly genotyped by both Affymetrix and Illumina platforms. We have a sizable number (n 5 796) of affected subjects with two parents genotyped (and of predominantly similar European background). However, we observed no support for association at this locus (T:U 354:335 in favour of the minor allele, a trend in the opposite direction as reported).”
English translation: not only could they not find an association on the gene where Ms. Wallace, Paul Offit, and Time Magazine mention 65% of children with autism carried it, the researchers actually found that when they ran the numbers, the kids WITHOUT autism were MORE likely to carry this gene!!
Said differently, the chances that this variant means anything related to autism is zero.
Conclusion
Amy Wallace in her Wired Magazine piece, Paul Offit on Are We Alone radio, and now Time Magazine all report on the remarkable breakthrough of a gene found in 65% of children with autism. None mention that 61% of controls have the same gene, and none mention that like many genes before it, the gene in question has already failed the replicability test in a more recent study and almost certainly means absolutely nothing for solving the autism puzzle.
The devil is in the details, AoA readers, and with Amy Wallace, Paul Offit, and Time Magazine explaining the science of autism to the world, we’re all headed straight to hell.
Author’s note: If parts of my writing here seem familiar, it’s because I have borrowed and paraphrased myself from past AoA articles I have written, having already tackled the 65% issue in the context of Ms. Wallace’s piece for Wired.
J.B. Handley is the co-founder of Generation Rescue, he can also be found twittering at www.twitter.com/jbhandley
Posted by: Patrick | December 12, 2009 at 05:41 PM
It's tough to breach the BBB. This article gives an example of how the Blood Brain Barrier can be breached.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/06/19/26554.aspx
They use a short protein (peptide) from the rabies virus.
Posted by: Patrick | December 12, 2009 at 02:26 PM
Another example would be tics or tourettes. Does the story of the boy who recovered via antibiotic treatment to treat systemic strep infection mean that tourettes is a bacterial-induced disorder?...or does it not only take the presence of bacteria, but also a weak immune system and a weakened blood brain barrier.
Posted by: Patrick | December 12, 2009 at 01:44 PM
"Does this make HIV-induced autism a genetic disorder?"
I don't know about polymorphisms, but I would say a viral-induced neurological disorder.
Posted by: Patrick | December 12, 2009 at 01:31 PM
About a third to a half of HIV infected children develop autistic neurological symptoms. No all children and adults develop NeuroAids – the suceptibility seems to be determined by their genetic make up, their inherited polymorphisms in the gene that encodes one of membrane receptors that HIV uses for entry into (brain) cells. Does this make HIV-induced autism a genetic disorder?
Posted by: Natasa | December 12, 2009 at 04:33 AM
In the meantime, let's just keep dumping stuff like Rotenone in our water supply:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone
to kill a carp:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/05/AR2009120502591.html?hpid=topnews
Wonderful
Posted by: TJ | December 11, 2009 at 06:38 PM
Its "genes" today - to distract, delay and deny the truth of vaccine damage. But what tomorrow.? Coincidentally- I think I saw the future today itself !- an article about how BT eggplant, soon to be approved for Indian farmers could cause cancer (A French toxoicologist says so and adds that perhaps it could cause neurological disorders too!)
There it is, said I : Offit et all will turn on a dime, decide that in fact autism is increasing and its all the fault of bioengineered food !Now I really do think we had best get that vaxed/unvaxed study done ! - before we have to defend the evil eggplant from autism accusers. Its so kind of JB to write these terrific articles, but lets just do the damned study and give him a break.
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | December 11, 2009 at 02:13 PM
Paul Offit on the Are We Alone? Radio program, December 4, 2009:
“If you look actually at the information...it's all very consistent in terms of what appears to be the cause. There was recently an article published in the journal Nature ...And what he found in 65 percent of children with autism spectrum disorder ... they had something called neurocell adhesion molecule defect”
So it appears that Dr. Offit is discussing evidence of injury-
http://www.autism.com/triggers/vaccine/mercurylong.htm
Rat pups dosed postnatally with methylmercury had significant reductions in neural cell adhesion molecules (NCAMs), which are critical during neurodevelopment for proper synaptic structuring. Sensitivity of NCAMs to methylmercury decreased as the developmental age of the rats increased. “Toxic perturbation of the developmentally-regulated expression of NCAMs during brain formation may disturb the stereotypic formation of neuronal contacts and could contribute to the behavioral and morphological disturbances observed following methylmercury poisoning" (Deyab et al, 1999). Plioplys et al (1990) have found depressed expression of NCAM serum fragments in autism.
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | December 11, 2009 at 11:07 AM
This company called Genzyme in developing stage and clinical trials for treatment of something called nonsense-mutations. Would this neurocell adhesion molecule defect fall under nonsense-mutations?
This is from a press release of Genzyme:
"PTC124 is an orally delivered, investigational new small molecule drug
for the treatment of genetic disorders due to nonsense mutations. Nonsense
mutations are single-point alterations in the genetic code that prematurely
stop the translation process, preventing production of a full-length,
functional protein. In phase 2a clinical trials in
nonsense-mutation-mediated cystic fibrosis and in
nonsense-mutation-mediated Duchenne muscular dystrophy, PTC124 has
demonstrated the ability to produce functional protein across a variety of
nonsense mutation types."
"The
FDA has also granted PTC124 Subpart E designation for expedited
development, evaluation and marketing."
Posted by: Patrick | December 11, 2009 at 09:43 AM
It's been so sad to watch this whole thing unfold the way it has. I've been an autism parent since 2001 and watching our government and scientific institutions and academies has been...surreal.
All this science has nothing to do with our children, but everyone is disillutioned that it is.
So now they are going to use every resource they can to get the public to believe that autism is genetic, end of story. To think otherwise is conspiracy and unscientific and irrational! There's just one problem. The number of children with autism keeps going up and that means more parents with the drive to actually research the whole story, and we all know where that leads...right here at A of A.
Posted by: Amber | December 11, 2009 at 09:08 AM
I think the better response is:
"That's great, now tell me what the gene is for"
And when the answer eventually comes back that it is for a enzyme in the detox. pathway, or mito enzyme, or a methylation enzymes I'll say, "thank you very much, you've proved our point, not yours."
These morons treat genes like they are magic. Saying "the gene does it" without making an effort to figure out what biochemical process is invovled is like saying "God did it" which isn't a very scientific position to take.
Posted by: Jack | December 11, 2009 at 08:27 AM
Speaking of parroting....prepare for me to say the same thing over and over. Whenever anyone comes up with the latest state of the art, cutting edge research on the elusive autism gene (genes), I'm going to say, "PROVE IT." Whatever you've found, go find the same mutation or whatever in those mislabeled autistic adults you keep telling us are out there somewhere. If you can't, then it's proof that this is all garbage and autism only exists as an epidemic among our children. THEN...you better all run for cover.
Anne Dachel
Media
Posted by: Anne Dachel | December 11, 2009 at 01:41 AM
An Example of an environmental influence on genes...
Abstract
Epidemiology has highlighted the links between season of birth, latitude and the prevalence of brain disorders such as multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia. In line with these data, we have hypothesized that ‘imprinting’ with low prenatal vitamin D could contribute to the risk of these two brain disorders. Previously, we have shown that transient developmental hypovitaminosis D induces permanent changes in adult nervous system. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of prenatal hypovitaminosis D on gene expression in the adult rat brain. Vitamin D deficient female rats were mated with undeprived males and the offspring were fed with a control diet after birth. At Week 10, gene expression in the progeny's brain was compared with control animals using Affymetrix gene microarrays. Prenatal hypovitaminosis D causes a dramatic dysregulation of several biological pathways including oxidative phosphorylation, redox balance, cytoskeleton maintenance, calcium homeostasis, chaperoning, post-translational modifications, synaptic plasticity and neurotransmission. A computational analysis of these data suggests that impaired synaptic network may be a consequence of mitochondrial dysfunction. Since disruptions of mitochondrial metabolism have been associated with both multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia, developmental vitamin D deficiency may be a heuristic animal model for the study of these two brain diseases.
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | December 11, 2009 at 12:59 AM
NPR is also mentioning Wired magazine.
What a shame. They was my last great hope.
Posted by: dugmaze | December 10, 2009 at 08:42 PM
It is so helpful to see the history and connections to these lies. "Genetic and autism" are no longer "peanut butter and jelly" nor should they be the bread and butter to every NIH funded CHOP wannabe.
Epigenetic may be a better word to describe damage from the environment or it's possible a new word is needed. 'Genetic' though, is just an archaic key into the treasure box of MONEY.
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | December 10, 2009 at 07:46 PM
Oh, and by the way, just to satisfy our curiosity about genes, we did a large microarray analysis, plus SNPS...we found something on Chromosome 4p. Only this is also a synpase thing...but then they couldn't quite justify it was the actual gene, it wasn't right on the gene...whatever...so we tested our daughter with HF autism, and myself and husband. We all didn't have any of it, except my husband ever so slightly...who is a normal as pie highly social functioning NT. In other words, if my husband is non affected, they can't say this is the gene that is the cause to my son's autism. So what that means to me, is, that this gene is a SUSCEPTIBLE gene...that is, it may be disturbed by things that ruin the synapse. Hmmm...seems to me the Calgary mercury video easily explains the neurons and axons and synapse theory, that mercury thimerosol would essentially shrivel it up...so, no, I don't believe there is A gene for autism (it is possibly a mutliple gene interaction), and in fact the same place, shares commoniality with SEIZURES/autoimmunity (which my son indeed has), and with METABOLIC problems (which both of them have)...again, is that THE causal factor, or, is it a gene that can be easily influenced by severe oxidative stress such as what mercury can do, or some retroviruses/bacteria or other toxic contributors before they are born and able to make connections without those assaults?
Eye on the prize people...we should be pushing for the gene environmental interactions of putting clean DNA and RNA under the stress of infections and toxins and our ability to handle them...not die in the wool cemented you can't change your genes...methylation genes are always changed by lack of methylation....or, lack of balance of oxidants and antioxidants and free radicals? Even the coats of mice are changed by an adequate or inadequate diet of folate? So get a clue researchers, we are on to you...and we don't think it's important you find such things, when you never explain how it also can be manipulated by environmental hits THAT YOU yes YOU subject us under by vaccines, toxins in our water, air, and food?
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | December 10, 2009 at 07:34 PM
Sorry, I am not buying it...I think many of the synapsis of our children are routinely disturbed by BPA, by Mercury, by Fluoride, by ASpartame and MSG, etc...I don't buy this is genetic...and a pinch or two of retroviruses to boot...what is genetic really?
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | December 10, 2009 at 07:22 PM
With all the new technology in genetics, lets hope they find a "lung cancer gene" which will revive the tobacco industry and make it safe for our children to start smoking again.
A new vaccine could then be developed, (similar to Gardisil) to treat the lung cancer gene.
Posted by: curtis | December 10, 2009 at 06:17 PM
My children have had tens of thousands of dollars in genetics testing. There has never been even a blip of a hint of a sniff of anything "abnormal." We've tested with some of the nation's top doctors - in the top institutions. Since our very first chromosomal anaylsis in 1998 - normal normal normal. Just like our EEGS and CATS and MRIs. Even our telomeres are shiny and pretty. (Insert eye roll.)
Posted by: Stagmom | December 10, 2009 at 05:55 PM
I just had this conversation with a woman at the playground, I told her Ben was diagnosed with autism and she said something about the GOOD NEWS that thankfully they have pinned it down to a few genes. I asked her what she meant by that and she said "they" have found an autism gene. Little did she know that JB hipped me to the truth! Had I have met her yesterday I might have stuttered and not known what to say.
Thanks JB and AoA!
Posted by: bensmyson | December 10, 2009 at 05:11 PM
Thank you, Kent. These are the important talking points. I ran into a woman a few months ago whose pregnant neice was getting "genetic counseling" because she'd had two sons who developed aspergers. She talked about the gene they'd discovered for autism and I recalled something about nearly equal number of normal controls having the same gene. I mentioned environmental toxins. The poor woman scurried away, white as a sheet.
I get no pleasure out of raising that kind of alarm but I'd get less thinking about the alternative. Could it be that some Boston hospital has jumped the gun and is already telling patients they can screen for autism in utero? Say it ain't so.
It's frankly unbelievable Offit and his walking echoes are crowing such faulty evidence to make their case. They truly are cheap PR generators, nothing more.
Posted by: Gatogorra | December 10, 2009 at 04:39 PM
When I first learned of this statistical sleight-of-hand during the summer it was a watershed for me.
Any time I read someone quoting the 65% number, without seeing a mention that 61% of non-autistic kids have it, I know I'm reading propaganda and dismiss it as such.
Posted by: Schoolteacher in NYC | December 10, 2009 at 04:21 PM
So this study says half the population has a vulnerability to toxic substances.
A little misleading to look at one gene.
If they look further at all the genes they will find that we are all vulnerable to toxins or autism (depending who we marry it could compound).
A gene for weak enamel on teeth is going to make a predictable part of the population vulnerable to toxins as they will have more mercury fillings.
A gene predisposing one to improper toxin removal cycle is going to make one extremely vulnerable but compound this one with the one above and other genes predisposing one to toxic susceptability compounds chances of neurological dysfunction.
The gene argument supports the fact that the risk of vaccination is far greater than the risk of relying on our natural immunity.
The day has come where the predominance of neurological dysfunction proves that the cause is the toxic environment we live in.
A gene predisposing one to trust for example everything one sees on T.V. like pharmaceutical commercials could make one extremely vulnerable to neurological side effects. They might buy it. Environmentally that person may have less vulnerability if they financially can't afford the drugs.
The interaction with environment ofcourse is huge. That same person with the believe in everything on T.V. gene, but grew up in an affluent family so went to college graduating in the science field will have some protection from the pharm. commercials. Same gene, but different environment is going to give the one that went to college much more protection from toxins, but also the one that can't afford the drugs has some protection (some drugs are "free" these days (well we already paid for them in tax dollars ie..H1N1)).
What is neurocell adhesion molecule defect? It probably means that their Mother and Father gave the autistic child this gene, but the general population only got the gene from one parent so it is latent.
It just reminds me of the O.J. Simpson defense. Only successful because most of the world doesn't understand genetics so people like Offit can lie about what genetics are telling us.
On looking up what neurocell adhesion molecule defect is I found that this gene also makes one vulnerable to Down's Syndrome.
The adhesion molecule defect can lead to something called morphogenesis in mice, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenesis , from what I understand, but I am doing a quick scan of material. What environmental substance causes morphogenesis or what environmental substance has caused the mutation to take place originally in our genes are questions that I would like answered not just labeling genes we all have.
Posted by: Patrick | December 10, 2009 at 03:46 PM
J.B.:
Thanks for a 100% great job on sifting through the devilish details and providing this report to us.
Posted by: David Taylor | December 10, 2009 at 02:59 PM
I am really begining to think that there is something going on out there. Forget us... I mean against anyone in the environmental camp.
Look what popped up today...
People Affected by Autism Believe Increase Is 'Real,' Not Diagnostic
ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2009)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091209114154.htm
Despite
UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute study shows California's autism increase not due to better counting, diagnosis
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/20090218_autism_environment/index.html
I think this deception is a lot bigger than our corner (vaccine injured) of the environmental world. The larger "environmental" world includes: older parents having an impact on health of sperm/egg/gestation, pestisides, chemical exposures, lead exposure, anything exposure, viral exposure, preemies, etc.
The "genetic" camp is terrifying me. Forget vaccines guys. If we cannot have "science" behind us that something is happening environmentally. We have much bigger problems.
Posted by: henderson | December 10, 2009 at 02:08 PM
I think some precedent has been set here. I don't necessarily agree with all of your conclusions in this entry, but this is the first time I have ever seen an essay that is mostly factual (as far as I can tell) and at least vaguely balanced.
Though I have to admit I think it is only because the effects they are finding are so limited and hence easy to attack as being insignificant.
It's almost like ya'll are trying to argue scientifically rather than using pure ad hominen attacks which are your norm.
You're still wrong... but at least this represents (in my view) the "right" way to go about trying to prove your claims.
Posted by: Joshua DeWald | December 10, 2009 at 12:20 PM
We've never had anything like this in my family either. My son's genetic screening which was done at Childrens Hospital Boston was very thorough and came back "normal" per the lab report.
It only takes a high school level understanding of genetics to know that it's impossible that the increase in autism is soley genetic. Doubtful that 1 in 91 kids carries an autism "gene"
Not to mention statisically improbable that we'd see a mass expression of an autism gene in a large population of children at the roughly same time.
Genetics doesn't work that way and if anything autism would have been selected out as the human population evolved because it does not favor survival. So theoretically it would become more rare not more common.
This points directly to an environmental trigger.
Posted by: Sarah | December 10, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Paul Offit is not a scientist.
If he was a scientist, he could place some Thimerosal in a petri dish with some neuron tissue, study it a few minutes, and then say "Oh ship!! what the hell in going on here ???" (...this child has a genetic defect, and is not as good as other children !!! he should not have been allowed to be born !!!)
I would suppose a few hundred million doses of "free flu vaccines" will be "left over" this season.. Sadly we may see the "4 dose flu shot toddlers" in the spectrum by January.
The vaccine prostitues are setting themselves up another hit.
Posted by: cmo | December 10, 2009 at 10:43 AM
The "autism gene" comment is the kind of sexy news lede that editors and now bloggers love. They replicate it unthinkingly and the lie grows out of control like Internet kudzu, choking out truth. Thanks, J.B., for continuing to beat back the weeds.
Posted by: nhokkanen | December 10, 2009 at 10:43 AM
I will never deny a genetic component to autism. I have two on the spectrum, and my sister has three. I have various relatives of all ages to whom I definitively apply an undiagnosed ASD. However, it is so disturbing to me that genetic studies are all that are being done! As stated numerous times here, there is no genetic epidemic that explodes in 20 or so years. It is so demoralizing to sit by and see the money go to one-sided, limited studies that prove inconsistent.
Posted by: Katie | December 10, 2009 at 10:26 AM
I think it would be more productive to take the money dedicated to gene studies and put it towards developing a time machine (so that we can go back in time and not vaccinate our poor kids). Which do you think would happen first? I think it's a toss up!
Posted by: Joanna | December 10, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Amy Wallace is in over her head. Cares she nothing for her credibility?
She should cover dog & pony shows, not science.
Posted by: Erik Nanstiel | December 10, 2009 at 10:07 AM
Let us also not forget that Francis Collins was also the founder and director (at the time he made the statement to a US senate committee) of the Human Genome Project. It is evident that by May 2006 - three and a half years ago - Collins had accepted that there was overwhelming evidence that the rise in autism was real and that there would be no purely genetic model which could explain its proliferation.
It is interesting that although Collins had a powerful competing interest and professional investment in the humen genome project he had nevertheless concluded this. This puts the efforts of those still striving after this goal in context: the theory has been disproven - it is simply not compatible with the facts.
Posted by: John Stone | December 10, 2009 at 08:51 AM
Great. So let's keep throwing money at those gene studies. Let's throw in a few more eye gaze studies too while we are at it. That will Keep Offit wealthy and revered and Newsweek and Wired w/ ad revenue. I wonder how many parents can say that they had autism in the family before their kids were diagnosed? In both my husband's family and mine there are ZERO cases of any developmental disabilities before our daughter who was three months premature and very low birthweight but still was fully vaccinated and had regressive autism. Yeah - I am sure it was the genes and not the HepB shot and the host of others (prior to the Thimerosal removal)she had when she weighed under three pounds.
Posted by: JulieC | December 10, 2009 at 08:41 AM
Offett's statement that the common genetic variant is also present in over half the general poplation is wrong. The common genetic variant (5P14) was reported in 65% of autism cases taken from the AGRE database. In fact, the same genetic variant is also found in 60% of the general population.
http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2009/04/common_variant_identified_for.php
What could explain the small difference? Common genetic variants can vary by ethnicity and gender. The authors controlled for ethnicity by selecting only autistic children with a white European ethnicity to control for ethnic differences in common genetic variants since the control group was from Iceland. So far, so good.
The authors did not control for gender. The male female ratio in the autism group was Male=83% Female 17%. However the control group was male_52%, female= 48%.
The small difference between the autistic group (65%) and the control group (60%) can be entirely explained by the unrepresentative control group with respect gender.
Posted by: Bob Jensen | December 10, 2009 at 08:32 AM
Of course it has to be genetic! If it's not then that means there is a causative factor somewhere (whether or not we agree on what the factor is).
This sort of info gives unsuspecting parents the ammo they need to feel "OK" with marching their kids to the peds to get those shots - gotta get kids into day care and school! We don't want to tick off our doctor by asking too many questions! Heaven forbid if our careers or schedules are disrupted.
Posted by: Parent | December 10, 2009 at 07:31 AM