Dr. Francis Collins Touts Genomics at SMU Commencement
By Anne Dachel
May 20, 2017, Southern Methodist University commencement speaker, Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health: Francis Collins and his Mea Culpa
Dr. Collins talked about the possibilities of human genome research and his directorship at the National Institutes of Health.
The future of medicine is bright, especially in genomics. Collins said he is hopeful that neuroscience will understand problems like autism.
Collins was contrite about a graduate student working under him who falsified data. Collins took responsibility.
Finally Collins talked about his journey to God. He ended the talk playing on his guitar.
For all his words about building character and taking responsibility, he hasn't applied that to how health officials address autism, and he'll be remembered, just like Julie Gerberding, Thomas Frieden, Coleen Boyle, and Kathleen Sebelius, for doing nothing in the face of the escalating health care nightmare called autism.
For a scientist to be in the midst of a circumstance where you’re responsible for something that was not true, and not true just because you misinterpreted the data, but because you made it up, is about the lowest point that one can have.
For Collins, who over ten years ago admitted that autism is linked to the environment, history's judgment of his inaction will be harsh, I have no doubt.
For all his noble sounding words, Collins has never seen autism as a major concern, despite the fact that in 2006, when he testified in a congressional hearing, he made it clear that autism’s cause was environmental.
…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.
Sadly, that’s never happened under Collins at NIH.
Just recently, Collins did champion music therapy for autism. June 2017, NPR: The Soprano And The Scientist: A Conversation About Music And Medicine
Music therapy can be incredibly powerful for kids with autism, adults with Alzheimer's and everything in between, but we don't really understand most of the time how it works. We can give this field a stronger scientific base, and it can be even better.
NIH has been under Collins’s directorship since 2009 and they’ve repeatedly denied that vaccines are harming kids. He also seemed how missed the CBS coverage of a former head of NIH just a year before he took over.
In 2008 we learned about former NIH head, Dr. Bernadine Healy (1991-1993) and her concerns about the safety of vaccines and the link to autism in a report called, Healy On Vaccine-Autism Link
(Dr. Healy died in 2011 of cancer.)
Almost ten years ago, Healy said the question of a link between vaccines and autism was still open because we have never studied the children who regressed. That hasn't interested Collins who seems quite satisfied that all the science is in on vaccines and autism without ever having looked at regressive autism.
NIH and vaccines:
April 28, 2015, No Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism, Even in High-Risk Kid
By Francis Collins
Study after study has found no link between autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine—or any vaccine for that matter. Yet many parents still refuse or delay vaccinations for their young children based on misplaced fear of ASD, which can be traced back to a small 1998 study that’s since been debunked and retracted
2013 Autism Risk Unrelated to Total Vaccine Exposure in Early Childhood
2010 Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Autism: A Review of Recent Epidemiologic Studies
Epidemiologic studies continue to provide evidence that there is no association between thimerosal exposure and autism. Whereas an infant younger than 6 months in 1999 could have been exposed to approximately 200
mcg of mercury derived from vaccines, the current amount is less than 3 mcg, if certain influenza vaccines are not included.13 Children should receive recommended immunizations to prevent serious disease.12 The known risks of serious complications from preventable infections—e.g., influenza—outweigh the risks of adverse consequences from vaccines, including TCVs.
2009 Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses By Jeffrey S. Gerber and Paul A. Offit
Francis Collins may be willing to take responsibility for the actions of a graduate student who served under him, but not for his nonfeasance when it comes to autism, and his agency’s malfeasance when it comes to vaccine safety. That he seems willing to live with.
Collins has been covered on Age of Autism in the past:
Nov 1, 2009, Age of Autism: NIH's Dr. Francis Collins Gives the Game Away on Autism.
Oct 21, 2009, Age of Autism: NIH Director Francis Collins Blames Resignation of Top Health Official from Autism Panel on “Tension and Lack of Trus By David Kirby
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.
Have we indeed not learned anything yet from the sacrifice of so many brave men who gave everything for us to ensure that we could maintain our self determination over our our basic consent issues . medicalised mandates are not getting our trust confidince or our respect . and i'm sure the maj ority of our hard workng politicians dont have a clue about how bad the standards really are in health and social care. the complaints procedure via the ombudsman service is not going anywhere
the intentions may be clear enough but there is no organisational learning taking place from poverty of care standards whatsoever . How can we let the politicians hear what the true harsh reality is of failed risk assememts.
The wiley old rascals of the last 100 yrs have left their indestructible sensr pf humor to make us work out these issues in the exact same way that they had to do so
Posted by: Morag | June 07, 2017 at 03:58 PM
I wonder why the neurodiversity crowd conveniently tolerates Francis Collins since he refers to autism as "....... developmental brain disorder" in the 2015 article.
Posted by: michael | June 07, 2017 at 11:28 AM
Hi Anne
If I were God I would not necessarily be looking for an endorsement from Francis Collins. The problem with Collins is that he is a genetically hard-wired creep. I remember watching him give a talk to students (at Harvard?). Toward the end he got out a guitar and started to sing a song he'd made up about how important it was for medical people to conform. What was really needed was a cover version by Tom Lehrer. It was puke making.
John
Posted by: John Stone | June 07, 2017 at 06:05 AM