Judy Converse on GMO and Vaccine Damage and How to Fix It
Dr. David Gorski's Unique Brand of Moronism

1 in 38: Autism Speaks’ New Normal is the Biggest Business Bonanza Ever

Money puzzle

Managing Editor's Note: New Autism Speak's tagline? "Don't Be a Mizer, Walk Til You Drop for Pfizer." Or perhaps "You don't know jack, trust us - use Prozac." Or maybe this gem,
"Side Effects May Include Death - Hey! Can We Call Ourselves Cure Autism Now Again?" Numbers continue to rise since AS morphed from NAAR to NAAR/CAN! and now NAAR/CANZER. Break 'em, make 'em and bake 'em. The circle of.... life for our loved ones?

By John Stone

Though it remains unclear why US charity Autism Speaks thought it important to commission a small study into the incidence of autism in the South Korean city of Goyang, the implications of publicising the results – in which a rate of autism incidence of 1 in 38 was apparently detected -  as a new global norm for autism prevalence has disturbing implications. Instead of posing the significant question of what might be causing autism to proliferate in Goyang City - the study, which drew in the participation of such notable figures as Eric Fombonne, Roy Grinker and Bennett Leventhal – has been trumpeted as a new triumph of autism awareness, with the psychiatric profession patting itself on the back at its extraordinary ability to identify ever more autistic people.

While most people will have been stunned at the announcement of such a rate, the rhetoric of the publicity was bizarrely different. Time magazine reported of the lead author, Dr Young Shin Kim:

 “Kim stresses that the results of her study shouldn't alarm parents into thinking that autism has suddenly exploded in schools. "It doesn't mean there is an increase in new cases," she says. "We just didn't know how to find them and diagnose them. Now we know there are kids with social problems who are not being treated, and we know how to help them."”

Troublingly, this came in the same week as Autism Speaks announced a new appointment (HERE):

“The former head of Pfizer Inc.'s autism unit in Groton has landed a new job at Autism Speaks, the nation's leading advocacy group for people with the neurological disorder.

“Robert H. Ring, previously a Pfizer senior director, will join Autism Speaks in Princeton, N.J., on June 1 in the newly created position of vice president of translational research. His focus will be on helping move drug experimentation from laboratories to clinical trials, "with the goal of improving outcomes for individuals with autism spectrum disorders," according to the nonprofit organization.”

Of course, it is evident that if you can detect an autistic spectrum disorder in 1 in 38 children the commercial prospects for the pharmaceutical industry aided by Autism Speaks are almost limitless.

The tie-in becomes abundantly clear in Time magazine’s report (HERE):

“The researchers say they would expect to see similarly high rates of autism emerge in the U.S. and elsewhere if the same data collection strategy were used. "The kids picked up in Korea, many had never been recognized in medical records as having autism," says Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for Autism Speaks. "That's what needs to be done, that kind of broad screening."”

No one from the media had the presence of mind or the intellectual spirit to ask back why they failed to find these cases before. Would not, after all, the medical profession have been deeply negligent and incompetent to have routinely missed most of the cases?

Deftly, Dawson – whose University is heavily bank-rolled by GlaxoSmithKline (HERE ) - and Autism Speaks have moved the goal posts, and without saying anything directly. From now on, the media will simply accept that 1 in 38 is quite normal. Never mind about 1 in 166 or 150 or 110, now it is 3 times the lowest number and everyone is beaming. It also puts in context Dawson’s appearance at the UN last month (HERE): without a bat of an eye-lid it now suits Autism Speaks’ purpose to put it about that the number is three times greater than previously believed.

And yet it is not at all clear that there is any basis for projecting this figure onto the global population. If, indeed, there is broad agreement that environmental triggers are implicated in the incidence of autism (HERE ), why would you necessarily expect a notably high figure in one Korean City to be reflected anywhere, let alone everywhere else? This sounds less like solid science than cynical kite-flying. With remarkable sleight of hand Autism Speaks have transformed ultra-high rates of autism into good news, and a wonderful commercial prospect for the pharmaceutical industry. At the same time detecting any agents of causation would certainly interfere with the plan of making obscene amounts of money from medicating ever further the child population of the United States and the world via Autism Speaks’ new screening programmes. And medicating them without any apparent reference to the causes of the condition, which they still protest are unidentified.

John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.

Comments

oneVoice

The new society where everybody will have a diagnosis for something and we can all run to pharma mommy for medications.New dangers: 12 new vaccines will be introduced in the fall of 2011.Big pharma talks about 35 billion dollars of business & big profit.What will happen to our children in the future? The present 36 vaccines are too many already and they working on more and more.They all want us to be patients.They are already building mega- hospitals with large psychiatric treatment areas.They know what is coming.

Deborah Nash

I think this is one of the most worrying articles yet. Accepting that 1 in 38 is, or will be the norm, is nothing less than a global disaster. Where is the work on prevention? Oh no, I forgot there is no profit in cutting the vaccine schedule.
As always John you ask the right questions and tell us what we ought to know.

Cherry Sperlin Misra

This study simply shows how dispicable our opponents are. Anyone who understands the mercury causation of autism would have known that autism had to be high in Korea- Its like adding one plus one: Put fish mercury together with vaccine mercury and well, possibly a dash of airborn mercury and what a surprise- You get a lot of autistic kids. These researchers knew where to look when they wanted to find lots of autism. Hey there Fombonne- Next time you want to add to your resume, you could do a study in Bengal, where nearly everyone eats fish contaminated with mercury. Come soon, We'll be waiting for you.
Friends at AOA- Here are these guys proving the mercury causation hypothesis for us, but spinning it as something else

Debra

I dont care if it is 1 in 38 or 1 in 8 1 is to many and because it is said that vaccination saves more than it damages , who is going to stand up and take responsibility for the damaged this is the greatest injustice the world has and will possibly ever see Autism is caused by vaccination and i for one do not believe it is just the MMR vaccine that is responsible

Birgit Calhoun

The following phrase put the icing on ethe cake:

"The hire gives the advocacy group a direct link to the pharmaceutical industry just as drug companies are paying increased attention to the market potential for autism spectrum disorders," according to an article in the online site DisabilityScoop.

Shell Tzorfas

Come on now. 1 in 38 children are now Autistic??The more correct number of Autistic and ADHD kids is 1 in 10. I have counted the years it has taken for the truth to appear. This has been since the early 1990's when chidren went from approx 8 vaccines til age 18, to approx 60 before age 7. Most vaccines have no benefits but certainly produce a cash crop for the pharma industry. The new DSM 5 to be released in May 2013, goes on to say that 1 in every 5 children has a Mental Disorder. This investment in vaccines continues to generate money as the child grows. Adderal, Ritalin, Concerta, Hydroxicine, Clonopin, stratera, the new,"Friends and Family" What a business model, hurt them, make them sick, then make continued profits as lives are destryed. the business of PHARMICATE!!
See,"Recovering Autism and Special Needs," on youtube

Garbo

"helping to move drug experimentation from laboratories to clinical trials". "HELPING TO MOVE DRUG EXPERIMENTATION FROM LABORATORIES TO CLINICAL TRIALS."

W. T. F. ?!?!?!?!??!?!

Perhaps it's time to look into the financial structures of Autism Speaks and see how it is they are planning to monetize this little personnel investment. What drugs have they been developing, where, with whom are they partnered, how does the cash flow work? Are they keeping this separate from the non-profit side or do they just plan to abandon their non-profit status? Will all the families who fundraised for AS be shareholders?

John Stone

Julie,

Yes, I don't necessarily think that everybody took it the way the publc relations people intended, nevertheless it is quite clear what they did intend. Based on this little and somewhat failed study they cleverly get out the message that autism is so normal that you really don't have to worry about it much, and anyhow they are going to fix it (God protect us and our children if they try). The message was carefully constructed, with everybody reading from the same script. And all too plainly it is marketing concept which has nothing to do with science.

John

Julie Leonardo

What is interesting is I had taken away from the "study" that there were really that many more kids with Autism, which actually wouldn't surprise me. However I didn't take it as "Gee, look how many there have always been." I took it as, "Oh my gosh, there are so many more kids that are being affected." However now I see it more like you are saying. They are making it more acceptable and trying to say that Autistic kids have been hiding in the NT population. This makes the "they have always been here" thought process more acceptable.

rachel

Angie ,
As the parent of a severely developmentally disabled "autistic" 18 year old I know what you are talking about. My husband refuses to simply refer to our son as autistic because too many people think that means socially awkward or quirky. It is so frustrating how many times I now have to define his disorder because the diagnosis that had once sufficiently described his condition now describes nothing that resembles his struggles or needs. I laughed at my youngest child's cello teacher when she suggested that the child might be autistic because she had minor difficulty focusing at lessons (any child that has 15+ friends, reads 2 grades ahead, no problems with school, nor unusual behaviors or rituals - is not autistic). It is insane to me that we want to keep expanding a diagnosis to the point where any true measurement of the many profoundly effected kids is obscured, and I do believe there are many more kids on the extreme end of this "spectrum" than there were. Frustrating and a lonely position to take on the subject of autism.

John Stone

One conclusion

In view of the appointment of Mr Ring, perhaps we should be told what the products are which are in development, and who will be the commercial beneficiaries.

John Stone

JenB

Indeed, no mention of the fact that the increase of shingles and particularly amonst young people is a direct and known result of vaccinating against chicken pox.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/11/disingenuous-cdc-study-confirms-danger-of-chicken-pox-vaccine.html

This is still one vaccine we don't get in the UK because its negative effects are so well established.

JenB

Thank you, John Stone, for finding the assessment percentages from the study, and I failed to thank you earlier for putting this report/perspective together (I think I was trying to fight off visions of the CDC reporting the latest autism increase with such glib celebration of our improved counting ability and greater opportunities to provide so much help--and never mind the supposed high rate of autism in vaccine injury cases).

Sorry for going OT, but I noticed another "new normal" in the slideshow gallery at CBS re shingles:

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-204_162-10007784.html?tag=page

Angie

Hell is not hot enough.....it is simply just not hot enough!

All I can say is that I know where I am heading with my boys' progress, and I don't care if in the end they are "abnormal" in the "new society" when I am done with their recovery. Pharma has ruined the lives of these children and will continue to hurt, kill, and injure more until the line is too blurred about what they have done. They are playing an evil game on our territory. This organization is supposed to speak for us, not Pfizer. WTF!
or WTPfizer! in this case.

BJ

Pfu*k Pfizer.

Angie

I am sick!

I can NOT believe that it's really getting worse, that it's going to get even HARDER for us parents to get the proper services for our kids because "oh Autism isn't anything too bad, it cant be bad if so many kids have it, and have had it all along, it's JUST a social/friend making thing, and/or JUST a learning disorder"....

I mean it's HARD ENOUGH NOW to get others to understand who don't live with it everyday! Autism is ISOLATING enough now we have to accept that it's "just this or just that"...

I am sorry, I would pick Aspergers or other high functioning dx's for my two boys ANYDAY over what theyblive with and fight for and struggle with each and everyday.

I am sorry, but AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER is NOT a GOOD diagnosis, because someone with "Autism" like in this "study" might be doing good/fine educationally, but not socially.....well this kids ARE FAR FROM my two boys, and I believe so many of our kids here at AoA who have such severe forms along with such terrible co-existing medical conditions.....I mean, to lump everyone together is SO DANGEROUS FOR THOSE OF OUR KIDS who DO have so many issues and struggles!!!

I am just SICK that ANY "Autism advocay organization" would do this or even WANT TO PRESENT THIS information like this, I mean of course I am aware of what AS "really is" BUT I still thought they would at LEAST make a huge distinction between those who were "screened" by a five minute 27 question parent survey, who "might be fine educationally but might have social problems" that you would THINK any organization. WOUD THEN qualify this information with the details of the drastically different symptoms of AUTISM VS ASPERGERS/etc....

I am sorry if this is repetitive or not making clear sense but I am literally seeing blur because inam so angry!

I took a look at this health ministry site in Korea, and as of December 2009, in south Korea, (not just this Goyang area) the number of kids who were DX with Autism was 13,933 (http://english.mohw.go.kr/front_eng/jc/sjc0106mn.jsp?PAR_MENU_ID=1003&MENU_ID=100309)....so, I wonder with this new study info, what they would figure the new rate to be, anyone want to do the math?

Also, does anyone know what the original 27 question, 5 minute parent survey actually contained? I would love to see that!

Also, the percentages of those who completed the full process after the screening flagged them,, was about 33%...ok, great, let's SEE exactly what was meant by "completed"...what was the procedure/qualifications/exact thingsnused to DX ?!!!!!!

And then let's compare, for giggles, the HOURS AND HOURS of testing and evils from various doctors/professionals that my 2 boys had to have before even being considered for an Autism diagnosis, and then what it actually took to GET and Autism DX! In our state, we not only need a medical DX but also a educational DX of Autism..both required HOURS of direct evaluate with medical/psych/and several therapists and even special education teachers/specialists...and then they also required several HOJRS worth of us parents (both me and hubby had to fill out separate forms), but those forms literally took each of us about 2-3 hours total between all forms/questions/surveys to fill out and complete....

Which is another sickening thing here, that this "study" first asked a 5 minute 27 question parent survey? Oh yeah, like it's SO EASY to get into a proper autism evaluate for DX here in the US?..but of course, this who do not LIVE with it here, will think, gosh, those whonhave said it's "easy" to get an autism DX, that us parents just do it for special services/money, or other silly and IGNORANT judgements...and then they use such LAX things to diagnose autism in this "study"...

Without released DETAILS of exactly what was done to DX a child there with Autism, ther can be No real information or ANYTHING of use for ANYONE in this "study"...

Where can we get this info?

Also, just a weird coincidence, but in googling Goyang, it's interesting that they are hosting a huge Pharma conference there this June., gave me a chuckle!

I am tired of having to properly inform those who say "oh autism is JUST this or JUST that" or there just needs to be more structure or discipline, or there is no real increase, just better DX......I usually squash them with this reply:

Ok, then get rid of the "autism" word/DX/label and then tell me WHERE WERE all if the kids like my boys who used to TALK, then went silent, lost language, lost gross motor skills/etc....I know as a child, I never saw those kids..sure there might have been some "late talkers" and then the term "late" was used for kids over 2 who werent talking...now "late" is more like after 3.5 yrs old....

And if that doesn't get them to stop and think, I say even more simple "WHERE were all of the kids like my Alex who is nonverbal at the age of almost 7 yrs old (regardless if at 14/15 months his doctor nktated he had more than the average number of words, at Least 200 words" and then by 18 months was SILENT)...where were all of the NONVERBAL kids? There are at LEAST 20 in a small k-5 school here, and in a smaller district, probably at least 200-250 NONVERBAL KIDS in grades 1-5 and MORE in middle school! Sorry but there just were NOT that many in institutions/where we couldn't see them....

Argh! I wish I coud tolerate alcohol I could use some right now!

Dang it!

Angie
Mom to Ethan, Alex, and Megan

Taximom

Gatagorra, I, too, wondered how many "Tiger Mothers" were interviewed in the Korean study, and how that would have totally skewed the whole study.

Also wondering how many of them will be offered "free" medication by Pfizer...

John Stone

We have this lingering ideology of autism being genetically determined, which most sources if pressed would be forced to repudiate from Francis Collins, Tom Insel, Geri Dawson down. So, why are we perpetually talking about a model of static global incidence, however much the numbers change? Why does Dawson suddenly expect to find 1 in 38 in the US because she has in the Korean city of G, supposing she really has. And why now the gleeful acceptance? To take this study and do what Dawson and Autism Speaks have done with it is extraordinary.

We had the comedy the other week in Britain of the relaunch of the 1 in 100 adult autism survey,

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/uksurveyautismlink/

which stretched credulity but what now if they had to detect 1 in 38 to keep up with the times!

Maurine Meleck

Those who are wiser
give a finger to Pfizer.

GH

Even if all 67% who dropped out were negative, the rate would still be no lower than the *current* US level, so if the assessments themselves were accurate these are very troubling numbers indeed.

It is double jeopardy for the CDC in updating US ASD figures, further rises and the increase will be still harder to deny, a fall would implicate mercury.

Gatogorra

I reacted to the same language as JenB. If our side had the money to do an investigation and retrace the research, what do you suppose would be uncovered? I wonder if there might be a lot of parents who had no idea the study had anything to do with autism. I can just see them, dutifully lining up data on their stringently modest, no-playdate/no-sleepover children's data...

Q: Does your child have a best friend?
Parent: (Proudly) No, no time for nonsense. She practices piano from 5 to 7 and 8 to 10PM every day!
Q: Does your child engage in repetitive behaviors?
Parent: (Proudly) Yes! If she gets a note wrong, she must play the piece again and again until there are no mistakes!
Q: Does your child spend long periods alone?
Parent: (Proudly) Yes! She does homework from 3 to 5, then practices piano from 5 to 10PM!
Q: Is your child bullied at school?
Parent: Oh, the kids from homes with no pride and no tradition listen to Western music and hang out all weekend with nothing to do and no future. They are jealous!

John Stone

Thanks JenB Yes from the study itself:

"For the 1,214 sampled screen-positive students, 869 parents (72%) consented to participate in the full assessment. Of these, 286 (33%) completed full assessments. Of those who completed the assessment, 201 (70%) were confirmed to have ASDs (autistic disorder, N=101; other ASDs, N=100), yielding a crude prevalence for any ASD of 0.36% (autistic disorder, 0.18%; other ASDs, 0.18%)."

The language is a bit flat here. Perhaps it should read:

"Of these, ONLY 286 (33%) completed full assessments." It is pretty odd stuff.

You wonder in a society in which stigma is associated with disability how so many (63%) were induced to participate in the first place (what were they told?) but you also wonder about the level of distrust which caused 67% of those screened positive to withdraw.

It makes you wonder about Geri too, if she proposes to do this to the US population.

cmo

I would suppose Autism Speaks can conduct "Autism Research" in South Korea for ten cents on the dollar compared to similar research in the USA. Standards might vary between locations but who would really care ??? The conclusion is all that matters.

World class "media coverage and hype" is added when the data returns to the USA, and it becomes the new breakthrough international science.

Helen A. Handbasket

A Pfizer researcher named Ring
Became Geri's Autism Speaks king
To sell lots more pills
They hid childrens' true ills
And their bank accounts all went kaching

JenB

@Gatogorra:

I think your comment may help explain this paragraph.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/autism-study-south-korea_n_859231.html

"Very few of the children actually completed the entire diagnosis process. But the researchers say they still were able to use the findings to estimate that about 2.6 percent of the population had some autism traits – compared to the U.S. estimate of 1 percent."

This left me wondering if anything meaningful could be derived from this study, although the next sentence left me wondering about the reliability of the reporting on this study...

"The ambitious study took five years to complete. The U.S. government's approach is quicker and allows more ongoing results, Yeargin-Allsopp said."

But then maybe Autism Speaks has been getting ongoing updates on the current US rate of autism.


Gatogorra

Give your kids more scheizer, Abilify with Pfizer!

(German "scheiße" = sh*t-- okay, a bit of a stretch).

The "being bullied/best-friendless" thing as a criterion for autism is pathethic and dangerous. I agree that autism is now being used as a drug marketing tool-- pharma's bent has always been to uncover druggable niche markets and make every human trait a diagnosable brain disease. YES rates are higher than currently reported in the US and that can't be hidden forever. But one thing that has always stood as proof that autism is environmental are the rate differences between countries with different vaccination schedules. Since they can't get Norway or Singapore to pretend having higher rates, they can go to countries with a vaguer response to cognitive disabilities and find foreign researchers, academic dept.s or even health regulatory bodies which are on the take and willing to subject their populations to false epidemiological studies. Argentina was willing to play ball (due to a corrupt administration which personally profited from the H1N1 vaccination campaign), thus Pinchichero's junk study and the cover up of infant adverse vaccine reactions in one district.

The fact that Grinker handled the "cultural" interpretations stinks in itself. South Korea is a vastly different culture than the US, particularly for child rearing-- for better or worse.

Better-- more extended family orientation; in families who can afford to watch over children's cultural exposures, less focus on pop culture, more focus on disciplined behavior, modesty and academics.

Worse-- rates of domestic violence which exceeded 67% in 2001 with extreme physical punishment and other forms of harsh discipline wrought on children. Some laws were enacted in 1997 which hoped to change these trends.

Or somewhere in between. From a web confession of a Tiger mom-reared daughter:

"So this whole Tiger Mother craze has been going on for a while. I’ve resolved to read the book when I get the chance. But I just finished watching an episode of Stephen Colbert where Amy Chua defends her book stating that it’s not a how-to guide but more of a biography where she learned the error of her ways.

Now, my parents are immigrants from South Korea. Unlike most of the parents of my other Korean American friends, they didn’t attend college and don’t make incredible amounts of money. Both my parents grew up on the countryside of South Korea on farms. Like legit raise livestock to eat and sell cows on the market.

Which is why in the Jeon household, no child was ever going to be justified in complaining. My parents had a comeback for every whiny comment my sister and I had. The bus stop was too far? Mom and Dad had to walk seven miles to and then seven from school. In the rain, snow, and other inclement weather. Couldn’t make my own lunch? Mom knew how to do complex Korean cuisine cooking by age ten while Dad lost his mother by age ten so had to do everything by himself. And it went on and on and on.

My mom also chose the extracurricular activities I did. Piano lessons. Taekwondo class. Ballet. Tap. Tennis. Swimming. Noonoppi (Korean version of super math tutoring). CCD. Korean School. Gymnastics.

This in addition to school work. You know those workbooks at bookstores in the subjects like math and language arts that are meant to give children more practice? Yeah, I remember being forced to do at least 5 pages before being allowed to do anything else–and only if I got everything right. All I remember about my early elementary years are long crying sessions with my mom screaming at me about how I could get anything wrong when it was all so easy."

It's not difficult to imagine what happens to children who are pushed to this level, at least until they hit college and go ape. I studied music as a kid and grew up with a lot of protegees, knew many former protegees as adults, including a woman who'd been a soloist for the NY Philharmonic at 14 whose professional career was derailed after a nervous breakdown. She was a genius and traumatized, but not ASD in the least. But if someone were straining to diagnose her with something, I'm sure her fragility could have been interpreted in many ways. I also had one close friend from South Korea-- she remained afraid of her parents judgment well into her thirties, but she had a sense of humor about it and really was highly accomplished.

As children, they acted like little adults. The other protegees I knew were socially gauche with peers from other "classes" whose rearing is more apathetic or "free" but had their own cliques within like-raised peers at the conservatories. They lived between worlds. Observers seeing a child like this in a setting where the child doesn't fit in could conclude all sorts of things.

If there's violence or severe discipline at home, children may obviously be further withdrawn. The researchers knew this when they chose the odd location for the study-- so much has been written about Korean culture and child rearing from Korean emigrees.

http://tinyurl.com/69e6bwc
http://www.nospank.net/koreancp.htm


Scroll 3/4 of the way down to "Bliss Bunny's" comment (Korean abuse survivor http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9audSK84vwwJ:asktheexpat.blogspot.com/2010/06/reporting-domestic-abuse-in-south-korea.html+South+Korea+domestic+violence&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com ):

"Dear J - your comments are a huge load of shit. My Dad freely beat the living crap out of all us, and he beat my mother too domestic violence is a korean tradition, like making kimchee in the fall or making fun of someone's body for not being perfect. Look at what happens in the Korean parliament - all of the fist fights and shouting. What happens at home is even more insane. Koreans think it is normal to have a completely miserable and abusive home life. They don't know how to live any other way. Signed - A Korean whose dad beat the living shit of her until she ran away from home."

Again, Korea reportedly has both positive and negative differences when compared to the US. This is not to defend US childrearing practices-- here we like to load kids up with chemicals and drugs and stick them in front of the TV. But when I read of the study and the vague assurances of cultural considerations, I suspected that researchers were relying on their own cultural incompetence to achieve a particular pre-ordained outcome. I even suspect that, considering the cultural shame of cognitive diagnoses in Korea (as of a few years ago, children diagnosed with ADHD cannot remain in general ed settings beyond 9th grade-- so no one wants a dx), some parents of subjects had no idea what researchers were trying to label their children with-- some parents might have thought the study meant to find gifted children.

Mary Tormey


http://www.who.int/csr/don/2001_02_09/en/index.html

GH

I wonder what the rate of ASD is in thirtysomethings in the region.

On the subject of spontaneous gene mutations, the immediate question is to ask what is causing those mutations, yet they make no mention of it.

Harry H.

Don't Be a Jerk! Open your wallet for Merck.

Sylvia

Vaccination schedules for children in South Korea are summarized in Table 5. Most vaccines required in the U.S. are also routinely administered in South Korea. Haemophilus influenzae type b conjugate vaccine (Hib), pneumococcal vaccine, hepatitis A vaccine, and the second varicella should be administered to Korean adopted children as needed (CDC, 2007a).

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/704919_13

Zed

Warning: This is likely to make you hurl. Geraldine Dawson just had a "light bulb moment" realizing that autism is having a financial impact on families. Wow! Who knew??

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/742836?sssdmh=dm1.688544&src=nldne

(The Medscape article's title is "Autism Often Associated with Loss of Family Income")

It's time to act.

The ONLY way to reach Autism Speaks in a meaningful way is to pressure their donors with mass letter-writing campaigns. Toys R Us, TJ Maxx, NASCAR, Zales, Build a Bear, GM, Ask.com, Modell's White Castle, Fox Sports, Linda-mood-Bell, etc.

Let's start by writing Donald Trump who has said he believes there's an autism/vaccine link. He just raised a hundred grand for Autism Speaks last month. http://events.autismspeaks.org/site/c.jqLTI1OxGlF/b.6552445/k.7097/A_Blue_Affair.htm
No e-mails. Contact: Donald J. Trump
C/O The Trump Organization 725 5th Ave.New York, NY 10022

We need to thank these generous donors for their commitment to the cause of autism, but explain why their dollars are not helping people with autism.

Cite how low AS is rated as a charity:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12720

Autism Speaks publicizes the terrible Chicago Tribune articles that slam biomed treatment, but never said a single word about the 83 vaccine compensation cases in which the injured parties have autism. It's as if that press conference never happened.

Gerry Dawson has done a 180 on vaccines - from saying research on vaccines/autism should be high priority (2 years ago) to saying "it's time to change the conversation." She pushes the full vax schedule on the Autism Speaks website, with autism siblings being no exception. Children are harmed every day because of her.

Give donors the names of other major autism organizations to donate to instead, including local ones.

There are enough of us to make an impact. All we need is someone to coordinate such an effort.

Autism parents complaining about Autism Speaks to its major donors would not be good PR, especially if we get loud about it.

Vicki Hill

Some of today's young adults may not have been diagnosed early due to the timing of new vaccines coming onto the market. That is, a vaccine now scheduled for 2 year olds may have been given to those who were age 10 the year it first came out. My son was born in 1987. I remember the pediatrician frequently saying, "We have this new vaccine; would you like to have it?" And I was saying "yes" until, as my son's problems started multiplying, I learned to say "no". He wasn't diagnosed until age 12 (although a doctor first suspected Asperger at age 8.) Had he been born 5 years later, likely his symptoms, and diagnosis, would have been earlier.

Carol

John,

You don't have to convince me. I'm just reading the writing on the wall.

It doesn't have to be full-blown epilepsy. Any post-vaccination seizure will be construed as resulting from genetics and be "inevitable." That's already happened. Taking it a bit farther, the seizure will cause the autism or at least will always co-occur and therefore be a result of the same genetics. There will be a lengthy list of genetic variants connected to seizure disorders of varying severity. That already exists. The database will increase in size. That's happening. This laundry list of genetic variants will explain the high rates of autism.

Last night I heard on tv that epilepsy afflicts 1 in 100.

John Stone

Carol

Of course, most of our children do not even have epilepsy - some mercy. As to the new study presumably these at best could only be markers for susceptibility. I continue to note the the remarks of Francis Collins, who was at time director of the human genome project, and now director of the National Institutes of Health:

"But 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. Therefore, GEI will also invest in innovative new technologies/sensors to measure environmental toxins, dietary intake and physical activity, and using new tools of genomics, proteomics, and understanding metabolism rates to determine an individual's biological response to those influences."

http://www.genome.gov/18016846

In that case of course you ought to be rigorously trying to track adverse environmental influences, and not running away from them. And it would have much more practical value than the tracking of random gene mutations.

This is also not distract from the elaborate power grab that Autism Speaks seems to be currently engaged upon, without any solid scientific foundation.

John

Carol

"The results, described in an advance online publication in Nature Genetics on May 15, 2011, give new clues to the molecular pathways that underlie ASDs. Although the results are still preliminary, they also suggest that as many as 20 percent of sporadic autism cases can be explained by spontaneous gene mutations, says Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Evan E. Eichler at the University of Washington School of Medicine. 'This a potentially major finding for a large number of families that are suffering from this disease.'....The team identified 21 spontaneous mutations -- meaning they weren't inherited from either parent -- in the children's DNA. Eleven of these were mutations that would alter the protein encoded by the affected gene. In four of the 20 children, the researchers found mutations that were severe, some of which have been previously linked to autism, intellectual disability, and epilepsy."

http://www.hhmi.org/news/eichler20110515.html

I think a process is underway to cast autism as a consequence of epilepsy and epilepsy as quite common, strongly genetic and inevitable. The above article doesn't talk about SCN1A variants, but there is a database of such variants and their links to various seizure disorders. The the research articles I've looked at so far are less than forthcoming (and perhaps contradictory) about what kind of variation is normal in control populations.

This study gets flogged around a lot:
Berkovic et al. "De-novo mutations of the sodium channel gene SCN1A in alleged vaccine encephalopathy: a retrospective study."

"B]ut the role of vaccination as a significant trigger for encephalopathy is unlikely for several reasons. First, although vaccination might trigger seizures as shown by the increased risk of febrile seizures on the day of triple antigen or MMR vaccination, there is no evidence of long-term adverse outcomes. Second, less than half of our patients had documented fever with their first seizure, which indicates that fever is not essential. Third, our neuroimaging data showed no evidence of an inflammatory or destructive process. Finally, truncation and missense mutations reported in conserved parts of SCN1A have not been found in many hundreds of healthy patients. Thus, individuals with such mutations seem to develop SMEI or SMEB [severe myoclonic epilepsy] whether or not they are immunized in the first year of life...."

You might think that "thus" in the final sentence means that the conclusion is based on something earlier. Not really. And the sentence itself isn't footnoted. It's just one of those red flags that something isn't quite kosher.

Anyway, I think we're in the early stages of epilepsy = autism, epilepsy is genetic, therefore autism is genetic.

Deborah Nash

Absolutely incredible - I am speechless.
I hate to think what the 'clinical trials" will involve and what bogus data they will come up with. Whatever they do, one can be sure that the conclusion will be to recommend medicating the masses.

masses = anyone they 'diagnose' with an ASD

Angus Files


“Robert H. Ring, previously a Pfizer senior director,"

WTF did the interview that’s what I would like to know?

Any conflicts of interest Mr Ring??

Once again we read of the arrogance and infallibility these people believe they have and can project more misery on the Autistic victims through Pfizer Phear Phor Profit in appointing this Judas Horn .


Angus Files

Angus Files

"We just didn't know how to find them and diagnose them"

Not in my autismsphere.

I cant think of 1 minute in time where my/our autistic kids since nappies have just melted in with NT children .

Such bollock`s we all know in recent years (the past 10) the autism diagnosis bar, has been raised.
To have any child diagnosed with Autism these days they have to be severe.

Walking on the moon is closer and easer to accomplish.

As for the Autism Speaks mis management of charity funds the serious fraud squad should be given a phone call.

Angus Files


John Stone

Jenny

Not an uninteresting question but not I think the right one. The right question would be what made Autism Speaks, a US charity, load into Goyang City - Grinker, Fombonne, Leventhal, 'uncle Tom Cobley and all'? And appended to that how can they in all scientific conscience pronounce the incidence detected as a new global norm?

John

Jenny Allan

What we REALLY need to know is whether or not this high level of autism in South Korea is the same in North Korea, or whether the Noth Koreans have a child vaccination programme at all and if so what vaccines? (North and South Korea are both part of the same island and if Autism is an endemic genetic condition, them both populations should have exactly the same levels of autism).

AussieMum

Australia

@ AL

Very, very, very, very funny and clever. Especially loved "Roses are red..."


Elizabeth- AussieMum

Media Scholar

It is nearly impossible to have missed diagnosing autism until 7-12 years old unless there is a very late on-set of symptoms.

As with others in the CDC anti-litigation bloc of autism research if one doesn't like the numbers one gets, one simply makes them up.

Let's test the theory. OK?

-----
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/09/news/la-heb-autism-20110509

....included highly functioning children who appear to have a milder disorder usually called Asperger's syndrome.

The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual -- the text book of mental disorders -- lists Asperger's syndrome as distinct from autism. But a proposal for a new DSM (DSM-5), which will be published in 2013, is to delete the Asperger's diagnosis and lump these cases in with the larger group of autism. That is what the authors of the South Korean study did, which resulted in a much higher rate of autism
-----
Yup. Stupid media. Same kind of stupid that kicks back About 12,400,000 results (0.09 seconds) when you google "panic virus" when interestly, a google of Andrew Wakefield produces About 372,000 results (0.12 seconds).

BTW, what exact good purpose did it serve to count "children who appear to have a milder disorder"?

Fombonne posed as a prudent judge of autism rates before.

----
2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1170424.stm

Claims that there is an "autism epidemic" are unfounded, according to a leading academic.

Eric Fombonne, a psychiatrist from the Maudsley Hospital in London, said any apparent rise in cases was due to wider recognition of the condition.

And he said that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab was not to blame, as some scientists suggest.

In the piece in the New Scientist he said: "Trying to link this with MMR is complete nonsense."
---
Wider recognition, eh? But in 2011, apparently to prove himself right, we plainly see it is Fombonne fudging figures to arrive at whatever he wants to. It's all self-incriminating.

----
2005
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2603542

Researchers from the United States, Canada and Korea will perform a two-year study sponsored by the National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR), an American funding organization established by parents of autistic children.

There are 7,600 autistic people in Korea, 0.4 percent of the total of disabled people. No research, to date, has been performed on the genetic characteristics of the condition in Koreans.

The only government policy on autism has been to include it as a legally identified disability in 2001.

Research will commence August 20 on up to 30,000 elementary school students in a small city in Gyeonggi province.
Around 150 to 200 students are expected to be diagnosed with autism in the sample study.

“I heard that Koreans became interested in autism because of a recent movie and TV dramas dealing with children with autism,” said Mr. Grinker, whose wife is Korean-American and who has an autistic daughter.
------------

You can't make this stuff up.

AL

"Don't Be a Mizer, Walk Til You Drop for Pfizer."

That's the funniest thing I've read in a very long time. LOL

As for the rest? Yeah, the details of the journey have always been fuzzy, but I think most of us of like mind always knew this would be the destination.

"Light it up blue! Pfizer's got drugs for you!"

"Rose are Red, but Violets are Blue. So is Autism Speaks, and their pimps at Pfizer too."

Awe hell, yours is funnier, lol.

Nora

What is to become of my grandson and others like him? The end game is so diabolical. The game is being played so sinister.
Sometimes it seems as if we are in Whoville with no Horton. Our screams keep getting louder as our numbers keep growing and yet the larger world around seems deaf to our warnings.
Autism Speaks is vile and their purpose becomes ever more apparent. It seems as if the tail is forever wagging the dog in regards to autism. And this scenario serves the pupose of AS. Create distractions and confusion and pocket your ill gotten gains to the tune of multi-millions.

AutismDad in PA

It's funny hearing this 1 in 38 stat and it being raised as a new global standard? Isn't the UK rate somewhere around 1 in 68 or something like that. But no one was trumpeting that rate at all.

when i read about this "study", for a moment, it raised my interest. Then i heard that Autism Speaks was involved, and that sunk my interest level. Now that i read this article, i am hoping not to see that stat on highway billboards requesting people to participate in its walks or to donate to their wasteful funds.

Disgusted mum of  twin Autistic boys...

WTF?? Are you kidding me???

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