CDC’s Own Expert Vaccine Court Witness Confirms Vaccines Can Cause Autism - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14979471
XogGyux wrote: it is at the VERY FKING BOTTOM


It's not at the very bottom. :lol:

wacko cookoo doctors


The CDC, the National Academy of Medicine, the DOJ, and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims have all certified them as competent, qualified experts.


60k pediatricians


So expert opinion is evidence when it comes down in your favor but it's "shyt" when it doesn't? How does that work exactly?
#14979486
At Michelle Cedillo's hearing last year, Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne, a pediatric neurologist who is a professor at The New School in New York, testified that he thought the measles vaccine was a "substantial factor" in causing the girl's autism. Traces of the measles virus were found in Michelle's gut, leading the Oxford University-trained doctor to conclude the girl's immune system had not rejected the virus. Kinsbourne told the court the measles virus invaded cells in Michelle's brain, resulting in her autism.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/cond ... index.html

Kinsbourne obtained his M.D. degree (styled B.M., BCh., Oxon.) in 1955 and D.M. degree at Oxford University in 1963, where he served on the Psychology Faculty as of 1964 before relocating to the United States in 1967. He has held Professorships in both Neurology and Psychology at Duke University and the University of Toronto, and headed the Behavioral Neurology Research Division at the Shriver Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He also served as Presidents of the International Neuropsychological Society and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.[6]

Kinsbourne's published around 400 articles in multiple areas of cognitive neuroscience, including brain-behavior relations; contralateral brain organization; consciousness; imitation; laterality among normal and abnormal populations; memory and amnestic disorders; unilateral neglect; attention and Attention Deficit Disorder; autism; learning disabilities; intellectual disability, and dyslexia.[5]
#14979491
Sivad wrote:At Michelle Cedillo's hearing last year, Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne, a pediatric neurologist who is a professor at The New School in New York, testified that he thought the measles vaccine was a "substantial factor" in causing the girl's autism. Traces of the measles virus were found in Michelle's gut, leading the Oxford University-trained doctor to conclude the girl's immune system had not rejected the virus. Kinsbourne told the court the measles virus invaded cells in Michelle's brain, resulting in her autism.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/cond ... index.html

Kinsbourne obtained his M.D. degree (styled B.M., BCh., Oxon.) in 1955 and D.M. degree at Oxford University in 1963, where he served on the Psychology Faculty as of 1964 before relocating to the United States in 1967. He has held Professorships in both Neurology and Psychology at Duke University and the University of Toronto, and headed the Behavioral Neurology Research Division at the Shriver Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He also served as Presidents of the International Neuropsychological Society and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.[6]

Kinsbourne's published around 400 articles in multiple areas of cognitive neuroscience, including brain-behavior relations; contralateral brain organization; consciousness; imitation; laterality among normal and abnormal populations; memory and amnestic disorders; unilateral neglect; attention and Attention Deficit Disorder; autism; learning disabilities; intellectual disability, and dyslexia.[5]


I have little/no doubt that the MMR vaccine was a factor in this girls autism. Have you ever listened to the disclaimers for the drugs advertised on television? The list of side effects is as long as the ad.
#14979492
Suntzu wrote:I have little/no doubt that the MMR vaccine was a factor in this girls autism. Have you ever listened to the disclaimers for the drugs advertised on television? The list of side effects is as long as the ad.


I have doubt, I have no idea whether or not vaccines cause autism, the point here is that we really don't know and so the claim that vaccines are safe as milk is unsupported. Here we're only talking about one disorder and one susceptibility pathway, there are many serious debilitating disorders besides autism in which vaccines are implicated and there are multiple susceptibility pathways by which vaccines could be triggering these disorders. When you start to consider all the unknowns, the establishment pretension to certainty just comes off as ludicrous. We haven't exhausted the science, we've only barely scratched the surface and there's still a hell of a lot more that we don't know about the effects of vaccination than what we do know.
#14979497
CDC’s immunization safety director says it’s a “possibility” that vaccines rarely trigger autism but “it’s hard to predict who those children might be.”

Dr. Frank DeStefano, Director of the CDC Immunization Safety Office, in a telephone interview last week acknowledged the prospect that vaccines might rarely trigger autism.

“I guess, that, that is a possibility,” said DeStefano. “It’s hard to predict who those children might be, but certainly, individual cases can be studied to look at those possibilities.”

It is a significant admission from a leading health official at an agency that has worked for nearly 15 years to dispel the public of any notion of a tie between vaccines and autism.
https://sharylattkisson.com/2018/12/10/ ... er-autism/

As vaccination has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry, children have gone from being inoculated against four diseases in 1953 to today’s recommended schedule of shots for 16 diseases requiring 49 doses by age 6.
#14979535
Sivad wrote:It's not at the very bottom. :lol:

I guess not. Reading off a Ouija board or from the tarot cards might actually be lower. But just above that is expert opinion. Of all possible "reasonable" evidence that medical community deems reliable, expert opinion is at the very bottom.

The CDC, the National Academy of Medicine, the DOJ, and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims have all certified them as competent, qualified experts.

That means squat. There are plenty of crazy people that manage to get credentials and then go wacko claiming silly things.

So expert opinion is evidence when it comes down in your favor but it's "shyt" when it doesn't? How does that work exactly?

Expert opinion means squat. Like I said before, it is not "expert opinion" if it's not based on fact/quality evidence, and if it is, then it is the actuals fact and quality evidence that becomes the gold standard, not the opinion itself. I merely pointed it out to show how fking retarded your position was by clinging to fringe people that are exploiting people's fear and irrational beliefs for their own gain.
Here are a few of the HUNDREDS if not thousands of studies performed in the topic with their respective conclusions.


A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism.

CONCLUSIONS: This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism.


Time trends in autism and in MMR immunization coverage in California.

CONCLUSIONS: These data do not suggest an association between MMR immunization among young children and an increase in autism occurrence.


Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism: negative ecological evidence from Danish population-based data.

CONCLUSIONS: The discontinuation of thimerosal-containing vaccines in Denmark in 1992 was followed by an increase in the incidence of autism. Our ecological data do not support a correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and the incidence of autism.



Mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine and the incidence of autism recorded by general practitioners: a time trend analysis.

CONCLUSIONS: Because the incidence of autism among 2 to 5 year olds increased markedly among boys born in each year separately from 1988 to 1993 while MMR vaccine coverage was over 95% for successive annual birth cohorts, the data provide evidence that no correlation exists between the prevalence of MMR vaccination and the rapid increase in the risk of autism over time. The explanation for the marked increase in risk of the diagnosis of autism in the past decade remains uncertain.


Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association.

INTERPRETATION: Our analyses do not support a causal association between MMR vaccine and autism. If such an association occurs, it is so rare that it could not be identified in this large regional sample.

Serious adverse events after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination during a fourteen-year prospective follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS: Causality between immunization and a subsequent untoward event cannot be estimated solely on the basis of a temporal relation. Comprehensive analysis of the reported adverse reactions established that serious events causally related to MMR vaccine are rare and greatly outweighed by the risks of natural MMR diseases.

Lack of association between measles-mumps-rubella vaccination and autism in children: a case-control study.

CONCLUSIONS: The study provides evidence against the association of autism with either MMR or a single measles vaccine.


The combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines and the total number of vaccines are not associated with development of autism spectrum disorder: the first case-control study in Asia.

CONCLUSIONS: In this study, there were not any convincing evidences that MMR vaccination and increasing the number of vaccine injections were associated with an increased risk of ASD in a genetically homogeneous population. Therefore, these findings indicate that there is no basis for avoiding vaccination out of concern for ASD.

Association of autistic spectrum disorder and the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: a systematic review of current epidemiological evidence.

CONCLUSIONS: The current literature does not suggest an association between ASD and the MMR vaccine; however, limited epidemiological evidence exists to rule out a link between a rare variant form of ASD and the MMR vaccine. Given the real risks of not vaccinating and that the risks and existence of variant ASD remain theoretical, current policies should continue to advocate the use of the MMR vaccine.

MMR-vaccine and regression in autism spectrum disorders: negative results presented from Japan.


It has been suggested that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) is a cause of regressive autism. As MMR was used in Japan only between 1989 and 1993, this time period affords a natural experiment to examine this hypothesis. Data on 904 patients with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were analyzed. During the period of MMR usage no significant difference was found in the incidence of regression between MMR-vaccinated children and non-vaccinated children. Among the proportion and incidence of regression across the three MMR-program-related periods (before, during and after MMR usage), no significant difference was found between those who had received MMR and those who had not. Moreover, the incidence of regression did not change significantly across the three periods.

Sivad wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-sWZx6DOMM

Bogus.
Here is the "study" published by Dr. Hooker
https://translationalneurodegeneration. ... -9158-3-16
And here is the retraction of said study.
https://translationalneurodegeneration. ... -9158-3-22
Brian S. Hooker is the father of an autistic child. He has a degree in biochemistry, but has no formal training in statistics or epidemiology, nor is he trained in any field pertinent to the study of vaccines or autism (e.g., immunology, vaccinology, childhood development, developmental psychology, etc.). Hooker has an open case claiming vaccine injury for his son before the Vaccine Court. He is also a board memberof an anti-vaccine organization called Focus Autism.

https://www.immunizeusa.org/blog/2015/m ... the-media/

Seriously guys. This is pathetic, it does not even take 20secs to debunk all this silly conspiracy theory you guys are spreading and there is a good chance you are going to contribute to the misinformation of ignorant parents and possibly to the sickness and posibly morbidity and mortality of small children. Grow the fuck up.
#14979564
XogGyux wrote:I guess not. Reading off a Ouija board or from the tarot cards might actually be lower. But just above that is expert opinion. Of all possible "reasonable" evidence that medical community deems reliable, expert opinion is at the very bottom.


I mean it's not at the bottom of your stupid chart, it's above like five other things.


That means squat. There are plenty of crazy people that manage to get credentials and then go wacko claiming silly things.


It means that the establishment accepts them as authorities so when the establishment's own authorities say vaccines cause autism the establishment can't then turn around disavow them as cranks.

Expert opinion means squat. Like I said before, it is not "expert opinion" if it's not based on fact/quality evidence, and if it is, then it is the actuals fact and quality evidence that becomes the gold standard, not the opinion itself. I merely pointed it out to show how fking retarded your position was by clinging to fringe people that are exploiting people's fear and irrational beliefs for their own gain.


They're not fringe people, they're preeminent authorities from the most prestigious institutions in all of babbittdom. Their opinions are based on fact/quality evidence and expert opinion is all the public ever has to go on anyway because nonexperts are not competent to assess the evidence. I know you're not competent to assess any science because you don't even have basic epistemology down.


Science is all just an appeal to authority, but don't take my word for it, here's a top babbitt to explain:





Experts provide us with a reason for believing a claim in their special areas because:

They have access to more information on the subject than we do; and
They are better at judging that information than we are.

Note, however, that expertise in an area is not only a matter of knowing more facts pertaining to that area. It is a matter of having a detailed overview of the area – knowing how various facts are connected and thus whether and the extent to which an observation is evidence for a claim.

If one believes a claim p because experts say it is true, one’s belief is justified (by proxy) by the evidence the expert has access to. In other words, it is, strictly speaking, not that one has good reasons to believe p because experts say so, but because there is plenty of evidence for p – the experts have access to that evidence, and when one tailors one’s belief to expert opinion one’s belief will also be supported by that evidence (even if one may not be aware of what that evidence is).
#14979571
Sivad wrote:I mean it's not at the bottom of your stupid chart, it's above like five other things.




It means that the establishment accepts them as authorities so when the establishment's own authorities say vaccines cause autism the establishment can't then turn around disavow them as cranks.



They're not fringe people, they're preeminent authorities from the most prestigious institutions in all of babbittdom. Their opinions are based on fact/quality evidence and expert opinion is all the public ever has to go on anyway because nonexperts are not competent to assess the evidence. I know you're not competent to assess any science because you don't even have basic epistemology down.


Science is all just an appeal to authority, but don't take my word for it, here's a top babbitt to explain:





Experts provide us with a reason for believing a claim in their special areas because:

They have access to more information on the subject than we do; and
They are better at judging that information than we are.

Note, however, that expertise in an area is not only a matter of knowing more facts pertaining to that area. It is a matter of having a detailed overview of the area – knowing how various facts are connected and thus whether and the extent to which an observation is evidence for a claim.

If one believes a claim p because experts say it is true, one’s belief is justified (by proxy) by the evidence the expert has access to. In other words, it is, strictly speaking, not that one has good reasons to believe p because experts say so, but because there is plenty of evidence for p – the experts have access to that evidence, and when one tailors one’s belief to expert opinion one’s belief will also be supported by that evidence (even if one may not be aware of what that evidence is).


Whatever dude. You make absolutely no sense. If you really value expert opinion then you wouldnt blindly follow some crazy cookoo guy that has no expertise on this field claiming something that other HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of experts do not agree with.
Do you like TED talks?
Here have at it.

No fucking relationship between vaccines and autism.
#14979584
XogGyux wrote:Whatever dude. You make absolutely no sense. If you really value expert opinion then you wouldnt blindly follow some crazy cookoo guy that has no expertise on this field claiming something that other HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of experts do not agree with.


How are Zimmerman and Kelly not experts? They're experts according to the CDC and the National Academy of Medicine, that's about as qualified as experts come. They don't get any more qualified than that. You calling them crazy cookoo guys doesn't mean shit, you'd have to provide some actual substantive reasons that are based in reality for why we should disregard their opinions?


HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of experts do not agree with


We don't have the opinions of hundreds of thousands of experts, the number of people with expertise in this one specific area worldwide is probably in the low thousands and the guys I'm citing are at the top of that field.

Science is an appeal to authority between and among scientists as much as it is for the public:

John Hardwig (1985) articulated one philosophical dilemma posed by large teams of researchers. Each member or subgroup participating in such a project is required because each has a crucial bit of expertise not possessed by any other member or subgroup. This may be knowledge of a part of the instrumentation, the ability to perform a certain kind of calculation, the ability to make a certain kind of measurement or observation. The other members are not in a position to evaluate the results of other members' work, and hence, all must take one anothers' results on trust. The consequence is an experimental result or finding, the evidence for which is not fully understood by any single participant in the experiment.


So given that reality, your "HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of experts" doesn't really mean all that much. Those hundreds of thousands haven't all made independent inquiries, they're just going on what the literature says.
#14979589
Sivad wrote:How are Zimmerman and Kelly not experts? They're experts according to the CDC and the National Academy of Medicine, that's about as qualified as experts come. They don't get any more qualified than that. You calling them crazy cookoo guys doesn't mean shit, you'd have to provide some actual substantive reasons that are based in reality for why we should disregard their opinions?




We don't have the opinions of hundreds of thousands of experts, the number of people with expertise in this one specific area worldwide is probably in the low thousands and the guys I'm citing are at the top of that field.

Science is an appeal to authority between and among scientists as much as it is for the public:



So given that reality, your "HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of experts" doesn't really mean all that much. Those hundreds of thousands haven't all made independent inquiries, they're just going on what the literature says.


OK I'll bite. Please post the reference to the peer-reviewed papers of the studies that your "experts" published to support their non-sensical opinion.
#14979596
Sivad wrote::knife: Expert opinions are evidence, that's why they're used in courts. Appeal to authority is only fallacious if the authority isn't an actual authority or if the authority is presented as conclusive proof.


I thought you were presenting Zimmerman’s opinion as conclusive proof.

If not, then we agree that Zimmerman’s opinion is just that: one person’s opinion.

The case specific finding?


I am pointing out that Zimmerman does not support the claim that MMR vaccines or thimiseral cause autism.

If you think this man is expert enough that we should take his opinion seriously, then you should ligically accpet his findings that MMR vaccines and thimoseral do not cause vaccines.

He's done case studies.


As far as I can tell from Zimmerman’s own testimony and affidavit, he has not made any case studies. Instead, he has speculated about one causual chain, and he believes he witnessed it one time.

If he actually has written case studies, please provide links.

Please note that the causal chain he is talking about is the one where vaccines cause a fever, and the fever then causes autism-like symptoms in kids with mitochondrial disorders. It is not the MMR and thimoseral claim.

Sivad wrote:What? The expert clearly stated that it's well accepted in his field.


No. In his affidavit, he claims that there is a possibility that vaccine induced fevers can be a trigger injury for symptoms like autism in kids with mitochondrial disorders. He also says that there are no studies to confirm this hypothesis.

Ths hypothesis of his is based entirely on the observations he made of a single child. The only other point if evidence suggesting this hypothesis is another case that Kelly witnessed, which you have also cited.

Sivad wrote:At Michelle Cedillo's hearing last year, Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne, a pediatric neurologist who is a professor at The New School in New York, testified that he thought the measles vaccine was a "substantial factor" in causing the girl's autism. Traces of the measles virus were found in Michelle's gut, leading the Oxford University-trained doctor to conclude the girl's immune system had not rejected the virus. Kinsbourne told the court the measles virus invaded cells in Michelle's brain, resulting in her autism.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/cond ... index.html

Kinsbourne obtained his M.D. degree (styled B.M., BCh., Oxon.) in 1955 and D.M. degree at Oxford University in 1963, where he served on the Psychology Faculty as of 1964 before relocating to the United States in 1967. He has held Professorships in both Neurology and Psychology at Duke University and the University of Toronto, and headed the Behavioral Neurology Research Division at the Shriver Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He also served as Presidents of the International Neuropsychological Society and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.[6]

Kinsbourne's published around 400 articles in multiple areas of cognitive neuroscience, including brain-behavior relations; contralateral brain organization; consciousness; imitation; laterality among normal and abnormal populations; memory and amnestic disorders; unilateral neglect; attention and Attention Deficit Disorder; autism; learning disabilities; intellectual disability, and dyslexia.[5]


Zimmerman has said that the MMR vaccine did not cause autism in this case or any other.

You are now contradicting yourself.
#14979810
CDC Director Julie Gerberding acknowledges vaccines can cause autism
@3:40

"My understanding is that the child has what we think is a rare mitochondrial disorder and when children have this disease anything that stresses creates a situation where their cells just can't make enough energy to keep their brains functioning normally. Now we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids, so if the child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccine, then if you're predisposed with a mitochondrial disorder it can certainly set off some damage, some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism." - Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)


That would be the spin time and again: Hannah’s case was unique, she had a “mitochondrial dysfunction,” it had no bearing on the larger debate about vaccines and autism. Dr. Jon Poling deemed it a complete mischaracterization of the facts, writing, “The only thing unique about my little girl’s case is the level of medical documentation—5 to 20% of patients with ASDs have mitochondrial dysfunction [a number today we know is higher].”25 In an interview on CNN with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Poling would make his case even more emphatically:

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviews Dr. Jon Poling on 4-4-08


Dr. Gupta: We’ve talked to a lot of experts about this, and they say that vaccines in no way cause autism. You’re a neurologist, you’re also the father of Hannah; what do you say?
Dr. Poling: The Department of Health and Human Services conceded that my daughter’s medical problems, which are autism, encephalopathy, seizures, were brought on by vaccination.

Dr. Gupta: But that’s startling for a lot of people to hear, because we’ve been taught for so long there’s so many good things about vaccines, but in your daughter’s case it turned out to be a problem?
Dr. Poling: I wouldn’t have believed it until it happened to me. As a doctor, until it happened to me, until I saw the regression, until I saw a normal 18-month-old toddler descend into autism, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible.

Dr. Gupta: The experts I’ve talked to, including the director of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding, say, “that was a rare case, that is not likely to be the norm, that’s likely to be an exception.” What do you say to that?
Dr. Poling: Well, I think a lot of media outlets have put out a statement that says, “rare underlying genetic mitochondrial disease.” Now that’s five words. Four of those are not accurate in the sense that we know now—we didn’t know back in 2001—that mitochondrial dysfunction is not rare. Two, we don’t know if it was underlying or if something that developed later. The only correct word is mitochondrial.

Dr. Gupta: So what you believe is that Hannah did have some sort of predisposition and then vaccines tipped her over the edge into developing autism. What is your belief now?
Dr. Poling: Well, I don’t think vaccines are the only way that you can tip over a child like Hannah to regress and have an encephalopathy and regress into autism. There are probably multiple triggers. In my daughter clearly it was vaccinations; that was our experience.26


Last edited by Sivad on 14 Jan 2019 10:10, edited 1 time in total.
#14979814
Pants-of-dog wrote:I thought you were presenting Zimmerman’s opinion as conclusive proof.


I take all expert opinion with a large grain of salt, especially in areas like medicine where the complexity and scale of the systems under study are well beyond the theoretical and empirical limits of current science.

If not, then we agree that Zimmerman’s opinion is just that: one person’s opinion.


No, it's a qualified opinion based on an expert assessment of the available evidence. It's definitely not just some guy's opinion, it carries the same weight as all other expert opinions(all else equal of course), so it has to be taken on board and given its due weight in informing our perspective on the issue. I know you're eager to go deliberately obtuse and just dismiss it but you can't rationally do that.

I am pointing out that Zimmerman does not support the claim that MMR vaccines or thimiseral cause autism.

If you think this man is expert enough that we should take his opinion seriously, then you should ligically accpet his findings that MMR vaccines and thimoseral do not cause vaccines.


He emphasized that that was not intended as a blanket statement, it only applied to that one specific case. So you either have a problem with basic reading comprehension or you're just pulling the old deliberately obtuse routine.


As far as I can tell from Zimmerman’s own testimony and affidavit, he has not made any case studies. Instead, he has speculated about one causual chain, and he believes he witnessed it one time.


No, he published on Hannah Poling and conducted a review of 159 other cases at Johns Hopkins.

Developmental Regression and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in a Child With Autism
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2536523/


Please note that the causal chain he is talking about is the one where vaccines cause a fever, and the fever then causes autism-like symptoms in kids with mitochondrial disorders. It is not the MMR and thimoseral claim.


Please note that I don't require your notes, your notes are always stupid.

No. In his affidavit, he claims that there is a possibility that vaccine induced fevers can be a trigger injury for symptoms like autism in kids with mitochondrial disorders. He also says that there are no studies to confirm this hypothesis.


He says that the hypothesis is well accepted in his field, and as we can see from the testimony of other top experts in these cases, his claim is accurate.

Zimmerman has said that the MMR vaccine did not cause autism in this case or any other.


From everything I've read he's saying exactly the opposite, but feel free to quote him directly.

You are now contradicting yourself.


No, I'm not. My point has always just been that there's legitimate controversy in this area(the science isn't settled) and Kinsbourne's opinion further demonstrates that.
#14979820
A fever caused by a vaccine, under certain circumstances caused autism. It was one case. They acknowledged it can happen, albeit very rarely. This is still not justification for the type of fear-mongering that I am seeing, here.
#14979823
Godstud wrote:It was one case.


There were over 5,000 cases, this case was difficult for them to get rid of because the father was a top pediatric neurologist at one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the world. It was so well documented they couldn't deny it.


This is still not justification for the type of fear-mongering that I am seeing, here.


Autism is only one disorder, mitochondrial disease is only one susceptibility pathway. When you consider that there are multiple disorders and multiple pathways it becomes clear that there's cause for grave concern.

I get that you people want to downplay this as much as possible but that's just not intellectually honest, that's what babbitts do and that kind of intellectual fraud has real world consequences for real people like Hannah Poling.
#14979824
Dear Dr. Novella,

Your assertion that the scientific question of Autism etiology belongs to the medical community rather than Hollywood Stars is correct. I also agree that Hollywood opinions are more likely to be broadcast to millions because of their position in the media. This heightened awareness is nothing but a positive thing for the million families struggling with this difficult, and all too common, disorder. Jenny McCarthy is an Autism Mom looking for answers and rattling some cages—good for her. Amanda Peet is a new mom who believes in the importance of vaccines to protect her baby—good for her too. Don’t attack the moms, listen to them.

These issues are very complex as we exchanged before and not amenable to soundbites. Regarding your entry on Hannah’s case, your blog entry unfortunately propagates several of the mistakes from the media.

In criticizing the journalism of Mr. David Kirby, you wrote:

“He refers again to the Hannah Poling case, a girl with a mitochondrial disorder who developed a neurodegenerative disorder with “features of autism” after getting a fever from vaccines.”

Actually—Hannah has diagnoses of DSM-IV Autism (by JHU/KKI psychology) and mitochondrial disorder (by two metabolic experts). The only ‘degeneration’ that occurred (along with 6mos of total growth failure) after 18mos of NORMAL development followed vaccination and nothing else! Of course, any ‘scientist’ can obviously point out that temporal correlation in a single case never proves causation. Rule number one of pediatrics though is “LISTEN TO THE MOM.” Are 10s of thousands of autism moms over the last decade suffering from mass hysteria induced by Hollywood? Not likely.

You also noted:

“This special case - which is not a case of autism being caused by toxins in vaccines - says nothing about the broader vaccine-autism debate.”

The only thing unique about my little girl’s case is the level of medical documentation—5 to 20% of patients with ASDs have mitochondrial dysfunction. Many other cases where mitochondrial testing is WNL is because "we never looked" not because the testing would be "within normal limits." Most mitochondrial experts will tell you that the dots of autism and mitochondrial disorders are strongly connected.

Finally, you say:

“The case was settled (not judged in Poling’s favor, but settled) because both sides realized it was a special case that could not be extrapolated to other vaccine-autism cases.”

The case was not settled, it was conceded by medical representatives of Sec HHS. We are obviously pleased with the HHS decision to concede our case, but we had NOTHING to do with the concession. This was a unilateral decision from HHS (recall that HHS is the respondent, rather than the vaccine maker, as manufacturers have blanket liability protection afforded by the Vaccine Injury Program established in 1986) I will not speculate on the obvious question—why concede? Hannah’s case was positioned to set precedent as a test case in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings for potentially thousands of other cases.

With regard to the science of Autism, I have no argument with the assertion that a single case does not prove causation of a generalized autism-vaccine link. What the case does illustrate though is a more subtle point that many physicians cannot or do not want to comprehend (ostensibly because vaccines are too important to even question). Autism is a heterogeneous disorder defined by behavioral criteria and having multiple causes. Epidemiological studies which have not found a link between autism and aspects of vaccination do not consider the concept of autism subgroups. Indeed, in a heterogeneous disorder like Autism, subgroups may indeed be ‘vaccine-injured’ but the effect is diluted out in the larger population (improperly powered study due to inability to calculate effect size with unknown susceptible subpopulation). I think former NIH Director, Dr. Bernadine Healey explained it best in that population epidemiology studies are not “granular” enough to rule-out a susceptible subgroup.

Furthermore, ‘science’ has not systematically studied the children who fell ill following vaccination to determine what the cause(s) for their adverse reaction was. It would follow that if you never tried to understand why a single child developed encephalopathy following vaccination—you wouldn’t have the first clue as to what aspects of vaccination you could alter which could increase the relative risk of that adverse event (whether it be thimerosal, live virus, or ‘too many’). Could the susceptibility be a mitochondrial genetic haplogroup similar to Chloramphenicol toxicity—sure it could! Why did a few Alzheimer’s patients die of fatal encephalitis following administration of the failed AN-1792 vaccine, but the majority had no ill effects (vaccine didn’t work though)?

Definition: Autism is a heterogeneous systemic disorder with primary neuropsychiatric manifestations due to complex genetic and gene-environmental interactions likely affecting synaptic plasticity early in childhood development. This new theory of Autism is rapidly replacing the ‘old guard’ dictum that Autism is a genetically predetermined developmental brain disorder of synaptic formation/pruning that is set in motion prenatally. By the ‘10 year rule of science,’ your time is about up!

Until the biological basis of ASD subgroups are better understood, further epidemiological and genetic studies regarding “Autism” causation will be relatively meaningless. We need good science to be able to address these complex issues which parallel nicely the emerging story of genetic and environmental influences in Parkinson’s disease. Perhaps some Parkinson’s researchers want to take a crack at Autism?

Recommended SCIENCE reading for the evening:

Altered calcium homeostasis in autism-spectrum disorders: evidence from biochemical and genetic studies of the mitochondrial aspartate/glutamate carrier AGC1. Mol Psychiatry 2008 Jul 8. (The discussion includes thimerosal as a potential toxin that could trigger further perturbations of calcium homeostasis leading to neuronal injury—and in a mainstream Nature publication no less)

Thank-you Dr. Novella and his band of skeptics for continuing the debate.

Dr. Jon Poling

Jon S. Poling MD PhD
Managing Partner, Athens Neurological Associates
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, Medical College of Georgia
Diplomate, American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine
ASN Certified in MRI and CT Neuroimaging
MD and PhD, Georgetown University School of Medicine(1997)
Residency in neurology at Johns Hopkins University's department of neurosurgery(2001)
#14979853
Sivad wrote:I
take all expert opinion with a large grain of salt, especially in areas like medicine where the complexity and scale of the systems under study are well beyond the theoretical and empirical limits of current science.

No, it's a qualified opinion based on an expert assessment of the available evidence. It's definitely not just some guy's opinion, it carries the same weight as all other expert opinions(all else equal of course), so it has to be taken on board and given its due weight in informing our perspective on the issue. I know you're eager to go deliberately obtuse and just dismiss it but you can't rationally do that.


Since no ine has made any attempt at dismissing this, you are simply being combative again.

As it currently stands, he has an opinion, and his opinion does carry weight, and we should look into fevers as a trigger injury for kids with mitochondrial disorders.

He emphasized that that was not intended as a blanket statement, it only applied to that one specific case. So you either have a problem with basic reading comprehension or you're just pulling the old deliberately obtuse routine.


Zimmerman clearly stated that MMR and/or thimoseral do not cause autism. He was very clear about this.

No, he published on Hannah Poling and conducted a review of 159 other cases at Johns Hopkins.

Developmental Regression and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in a Child With Autism
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2536523/


Exactly. He discussed a single case: Hannah Poling.

The other 159 cases that he discussed in that study were cases of kids with mitochondrial disorders who had autism-like symptoms.

Thank you for providing evidence that supoorts my claim.

Please note that I don't require your notes, your notes are always stupid.


As long as we agree that the immunization/fever/mitochondrial disorders/autism claim is not the same claim as the MMR/thimoseral/autism claim.

He says that the hypothesis is well accepted in his field, and as we can see from the testimony of other top experts in these cases, his claim is accurate.


He can say what he wants, and even if he was syaing it was well accepted, it would not matter without actual studies.

From everything I've read he's saying exactly the opposite, but feel free to quote him directly.


    There is no scientific basis for a connection between measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine or mercury (Hg) intoxication and autism. Despite well-intentioned and thoughtful hypotheses and widespread beliefs about apparent connections with autism and regression, there is no sound evidence to support a causative relationship with exposure to both, or either, MMR and/or Hg. Michelle Cedillo had a thorough and normal immunology evaluation by Dr. Sudhir Gupta, showing no signs of immunodeficiency that would have precluded her from receiving or responding normally to MMR vaccine.

There. Zimmerman’s own words clearly stat8ng that the MMR/thimoseral claim is wrong.

No, I'm not. My point has always just been that there's legitimate controversy in this area(the science isn't settled) and Kinsbourne's opinion further demonstrates that.


You seem to have confused the two claims.
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