Thankyou, onevoice, re: info on polysorbate.
I recall Dr. Larry Palevsky also makes an easy to understand reference to it: it can allow/carry things across a cell's membrane. Where as in a normal (immune/histologic? can't remember which) reaction, the substance would just need to contact the cell membrane to initiate a reaction, when polysorbate 80 is present, the substance can go inside the cells and the reaction follows there, i.e., AUTO-immune reaction. Body attacks the cells themselves.

@betty: Can you explain more about polysorbate 80? I am unable to find much about it.

I was only surprised they invited AoA to begin with, and the cynic in me wonders if the plan wasn't to un-invite AoA from the beginning. Journalism is dead anyway. Columbia only shows, by the stench, how many days the corpse has been rotting. They don't realize the money and dumbing down to which they have succumbed.

Congratulations on being invited. Maybe someone in Columbia's MFA for Creative Non-Fiction would be interested in doing an essay about your un-invitation by the "journalism" department. In which department will one really be able to read about truth in history? That being said, maybe the history department would be interested, too.

AOA's uninvitation would be a good story for media critic and NYU journalism professor Mark Crispin Miller to cover. Miller covered the Pharma storm directed at Jenny.

It used to be that when true journalists saw powerful interests trying to silence a story they realized they were looking at Pulitzer Prize worthy controversy. Something so big they would stay up nights trying to find a pattern from those most affected, those closest to the story -- trying to track down the truth, balancing perspectives ---like Dan Olmsted! . They would realize that the answer to the controversy was to find out why it was being silenced and to follow the silencer and the money to the root cause.
They would consider the likely motivations of those involved. They would remember that there is no hysterical need to coverup and silence and attack the reporter if there is no crime.
And they would dig in. But now in this day of corporate controlled media, suddenly the reaction to controversy is to duck and cover. I hoped that at least in our finest universities the quest for truth was more important than antagonizing money interests. I will never think of Columbia School of Journalism with admiration and respect again. Cowardice thy name is Columbia. The next time an infant suffers because he was given toxins in shots --a practice by your silencing AOA you condone--it's on everyone on this committee too afraid of their career to listen to the truth. And when you are made obsolete by sites like age of autism because people no longer believe propaganda when they see it lies about their own lives, you will wish you had learned from AOA how to actually create vibrant, life changing journalism,speak truth to power, and ask the questions that will change the world instead of the questions that protect your paycheck. My only hope is that this denial to age of autism inspires some very bright students to look at age of autism from their curiosity. Sometimes censorship is the best publicity. And yet I am sad for you guys who work so hard and deserve this honor.

Good news about football. It brings to mind an article written by a young man who got into college football and as he saw how much physical violence was involved, thought for a brief moment, "Is this legal????"

Wear it as a badge of honor. Dan, you are in a class by yourself. You and others who are side-lined don't need any recognition from those who measure their worth by how many drug companies they can align with.

The answers lie clearly in front of those who wish to see.

Merck the maker of the MMR vaccine had to fire 16,000 employees and lost $884 million in profits this year. Your critics are scared of more people hearing the truth. You should be proud of their panic to get you removed from this. Merck is projected to keep losing big time. Dr. Proffit isn't going to like that! lol

Kim here = we've been using Social Media for Avonte - Twitter and FB actively. We can add a post too. Thanks.

Whether they didn't initially know, or they did know and then caved to pressure, either way, not impressive, downright embarrassing, for a school of journalism.

Paul Offit's propaganda (I mean books) publisher is COLUMBIA U PRESS. Within moments of this post going live the paid and unpaid trolls started placing phone calls, scared the gal who now has egg all over her face and pulled strings to have Age of Autism removed. Low rent. Low class. Low integrity. Journalism today is public relations - an arm of the marketing department of every corporation in America. Must keep the ever smaller slices of bread buttered.

Jennifer, Age of Autism has done a lot of stories on wandering. Just type "wandering" or "missing" in the Google Site Search to the left and you will see.

If you go to the AoA facebook page you will see a post about Avonte Oquendo - the missing 14-year-old from Queens - and on Kim Stagliano's page as well.

Dan

This is so sad. Unfortunately, many of us also recall the dead-beat views of Curtis Brainard in Columbia Journalism Review earlier this year which is the real voice of modern journalism, an obsequious, uncritical purvenyor of received opinions that find easy patonage.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/05/columbia-journalism-review-casts-eye-on-vaccine-safety-writers.html

John

Re the update: I'm sorry to AOA. You are all deserving of recognition, but because you don't have a price, it did seem too good to be true. It's kind of comical and pathetic that a big fancy school of journalism didn't know who they were inviting to be in their network. Makes them look like a joke, journalistically speaking.

So, they only want niches represented that they personally agree with. So yeah, that is journalism with integrity.....ignoring the legions of parents who are believe autism and vaccines are linked. I guess our niche isn't legit despite 1 in every 4 parents sharing this belief.

Congrats on being chosen as 1 among 20.
I think you should be just the *ONE*

Twenty years and Brick Township - nope goes back furhter than that and it was in significant number further back too.

That is why this is one of the toughest nuts to crack --ever.

Dan and all at AoA ... congratulations on your well-earned "honor" of being "chosen as part of Columbia Journalism School's inaugural Single Subject Nets Network".

I agree with your observation the "two decade trajectory of denial" by the NFL that followed growing suspicions that repeated concussions by professional football players was causing many retired players serious neurological problems .. including death by suicide .. closely resembled the very same trajectory of denial exhibited by the CDC in the mid-1990's when they were first alerted to the pronounced spike in autism first observed in Brick Township.

The analogies between the NFL and CDC "denial tactics" are unavoidable .. such as .. only one of many .. that both attacked the messenger .. in the NFL it was medical examiner Dr. Bennet Omalu who conducted the original autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster .. and .. Dr. Andrew Wakefield who conducted original research that a connection between "gut issues" and "autism". Both these men were vilified and both lost their professional reputations due to the onslaught of sustained negative accusations brought against them by very powerful vested interests who were desperate to prevent either man's research from being validated. Classic "kill the messenger" to prevent his "message" from being heard.

However .. on the subject of being "fair and balanced" .. Frontline's "League of Denial" presentation closely resembled their patently "unfair and unbalanced" report on "Vaccine Wars". Both reports claimed the "scientific research" they presented was clear and convincing evidence that .. #1 .. concussions alone are solely responsible for the neurological deterioration suffered by former football players during their careers .. and .. #2 .. that vaccines are not responsible for any neurological damage .. including "regressive" autism .. that a child experiences.

The "research science" they presented .. at least to me .. did not prove "conclusively" either theory.

Indeed, there are so many questions I would love to have asked those who claim to have irrefutable proof that concussions alone "cause" the neurological damage "identified" in the brains of football players.

No doubt the symptoms of neurological damage over years .. such as .. anxiety, depression, insomnia, behavior and mood alterations, early onset dementia, difficulties concentrating, memory loss, on and on .. are symptoms exhibited by literally millions of people being treated with medications that "cause" these very same symptoms .. even though millions of those people never played football or suffered a concussion in their entire lives.

Indeed, is this particular research .. or something similar .. conducted on the brains of the many attackers .. such as .. Columbine, Newtown, Annapolis, Colorado theatre .. who exploded in violent episodes costing the lives of so many innocent men, women and children?

Indeed, is anybody doing this type of "brain research" on the active and retired military members who are committing suicide at the inexplicable rate of 22 a day? If not .. why not? Surely a suicide rate of 22 veterans a day cannot be attributed exclusively to combat concussions .. because .. the rate of combat concussions was probably far higher during the extended years of WWI .. WWII .. Korea .. Vietnam ..?

By the way .. I wonder if Boston University will take extra precautions to protect the brains they have been privileged to study .. then Harvard University did with the brains of autistic children they were entrusted with were destroyed due to "mal-functions of two fail safe monitoring systems"?

Congratulations Dan, Kim, Mark and the Age of Autism crew,

Well deserved recognition. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the discussions around putting AoA in the group. Keep up the good work. In this post-jourrnalism era we are in your work is absolutely essential.