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February 7, 2015 at 3:49 PM #782731February 7, 2015 at 4:38 PM #782732
njtosd
ParticipantOne factor that I think influences the discussion about autism is that autism has a strong genetic component. In other words, on average, the rate of autism spectrum symptoms is much higher among the parents of autistic children. That would suggest that the people most interested in elucidating the causation of autism (parents of autistic children) are very likely to be afflicted with some level of autism-like symptoms themselves. These symptoms, in turn, may influence their view of the disorder and its causation. For example, parents of autistic children would be expected, on average, to have more trouble with preoccupations and more difficulty perceiving the whole of a situation vs. the parts. They may also have more difficulty factoring in the social influences that gave rise to the autism/vaccine scare (I.e. Lawyers paying Andrew Wakefield in hopes of getting big $ judgments for themselves and their clients). Which is not to say they are wrong …. But it does make you wonder.
February 7, 2015 at 5:02 PM #782733scaredyclassic
Participanti didnt know parents mattered in those things autistic. i know a guy who is very very organized, hyperorganized, and demanding of order, and he has an autistic kid. i wonder if that is correlated somehow.
February 7, 2015 at 6:19 PM #782734SK in CV
Participant[quote=harvey]
Speaking of the “I read something on the internet” brand of “science” …[/quote]“don’t believe everything you read on the internet”
Abraham LincolnFebruary 7, 2015 at 8:06 PM #782735Hatfield
ParticipantI’ve always felt that if you’re willing to reject the science that gives us vaccines, you should also be required to forego everything else science has given us: television, radio, telephones, air travel, the internal combustion engine, nutrition, modern dentistry, and so on. Some goes for those who reject evolution.
February 7, 2015 at 8:19 PM #782736Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]i didnt know parents mattered in those things autistic. i know a guy who is very very organized, hyperorganized, and demanding of order, and he has an autistic kid. i wonder if that is correlated somehow.[/quote]
I’m sure it is. For example: “When you look at “extreme” autism symptoms, genetics plays almost the only role, according to [a] study, led by clinical psychologist Thomas W. Frazier II of the Cleveland Clinic.”
http://iancommunity.org/autism-twins-study
There is some suggestion that the rise in autism has to do with assortive mating. In other words, in the 50s (and earlier), geeky math professors married the nice girl that they met in high school or the secretary at work or a nice salesgirl – so the geeky-ness (aspergers) was diluted. Now geeky male math professors (engineers, etc.) have the opportunity to meet geeky female math professors (engineers, etc.) at work and tend to marry them. According to the theory, there is a resulting concentration of whatever genes these are, rather than the dilution that may have happened in the past, thus giving rise to an increasing rate and severity of these symptoms.
February 7, 2015 at 9:43 PM #782737flyer
ParticipantMy wife, ever the “Mom,” among a myriad of other things she embodies, shared this article on one mother’s perspective on autism with me. It’s quite touching, so I’m passing it along.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carrie-cariello/i-know-what-causes-autism_b_6503398.html
February 7, 2015 at 10:13 PM #782738CA renter
Participant[quote=harvey][quote=CA renter]I’m talking about incredibly dramatic and permanent changes happening within ~24 hours after a vaccination. A perfectly normal child becoming totally unresponsive to their own parents and siblings within a day.
There are thousands upon thousands of people who’ve had this very experience. […][/quote]
Speaking of the “I read something on the internet” brand of “science” …[/quote]
No, two families we have known in person. One family had one child with a reaction (they didn’t vaccinate their other child), and the other family had two children who reacted negatively to their vaccines (with one child having very severe autism, and the other with a mild-moderate form).
In all three cases, their reactions happened within about 24 hours after getting the vaccines. Again, these were *perfectly normal* children who had very dramatic changes within a day of getting vaccinated. This was not progressive or regressive, nor did they have any indication of being autistic before these vaccinations.
In the first case (with one child), the child just walked into the parents’ bedroom the next morning with his eyes glazed over. He didn’t smile or react in any way when his parents spoke to him. When I last saw this family about ten years ago, their son was still severely autistic, though he was making some progress because of the daily work with his one-on-one therapist who came to their house for hours each day.
In the other case, the children got very sick, had rashes and very high fevers, were screaming in pain, etc. As they recovered from their illnesses (they were basically catatonic during their illnesses), the parents noted that they were not responding to them, either. One child eventually responded to some extent (though never fully recovered), and the other ended up being extremely autistic.
February 7, 2015 at 10:53 PM #782740Participant[quote=njtosd]Unless you have a child with a demonstrated thimerosal sensitivity (and I”ve not seen any recorded cases of such), the portion of my text that you bolded doesn’t come into play. BTW, when you are quoting me, please do not add emphasis without noting “emphasis added by CARenter” (or whoever) or better yet, please don’t change my text at all and instead use your comments to express your views. You have sort of changed the meaning of what I said by bolding – as that text describes a very minor exception.
Please see Am. Acad. Of Ped. Summary of vaccine studies showing (among other things) complete lack of evidence of problems with thimerosal or a benefit in stretching schedule of vaccination. But perhaps the AAP is part of a conspiracy against children – you never know …….. https://www2.aap.org/immunization/families/faq/vaccinestudies.pdf
PS when did you buy the non-thimerosal vaccines?[/quote]
1. You don’t necessarily know if your child has a sensitivity to thimerosal.
Though some have indeed shown a sensitivity to thimerosal, it is usually fairly mild and localized.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2044374
2. I was agreeing with the portion of your post where you stated that being vaccinated is safer than not being vaccinated. I was just adding, parenthetically, that this was why we went ahead with the vaccinations ourselves. At the time (early 2000s), there were still questions about the safety of vaccines, particularly the combined MMR vaccines and mercury toxicity. It was then that we opted to separate the vaccines and get thimerosal-free vaccines whenever possible (of all vaccines…some were already thimerosal free, and some were not). By the time our youngest was born, in 2005, many/most of the vaccines were thimerosal-free…which I’m sure they didn’t do “just because.”
This is why the scientific community will fight any claims that vaccines cause problems:
“Further, the committee stated that the benefits of vaccination are proven and the hypothesis of susceptible populations is presently speculative, and that widespread rejection of vaccines would lead to increases in incidences of serious infectious diseases like measles, whooping cough and Hib bacterial meningitis.”
http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228
Which is how I read what you had said in the portion of your post that I had bolded.
—————
As for bolding your text, the reason I had bolded that portion is because I do NOT like to clip or edit portions of other people’s posts, so tend to include their entire post when I respond specifically so that nothing can be taken out of context. I’ve had Harvey, in particular, absolutely butcher my posts with the clear intention of trying to twist what I’m saying into something completely different, so am very sensitive to having people edit another person’s posts.
I was only responding to the bolded portion (the portion that I had bolded) of your text. It’s is VERY common for posters to do that around here.
I always note when I emphasize text from another (non-Pigg) source, but didn’t do so in this case because your post is just two posts above mine, and I was only referring to that part of your post. I will be sure to clearly state when I am emphasizing any portions of your quotes from this point forward. My apologies for not doing so in this case.
February 7, 2015 at 10:58 PM #782743zk
Participant[quote=CA renter][quote=harvey][quote=CA renter]I’m talking about incredibly dramatic and permanent changes happening within ~24 hours after a vaccination. A perfectly normal child becoming totally unresponsive to their own parents and siblings within a day.
There are thousands upon thousands of people who’ve had this very experience. […][/quote]
Speaking of the “I read something on the internet” brand of “science” …[/quote]
No, two families we have known in person. One family had one child with a reaction (they didn’t vaccinate their other child), and the other family had two children who reacted negatively to their vaccines (with one child having very severe autism, and the other with a mild-moderate form).
In all three cases, their reactions happened within about 24 hours after getting the vaccines. Again, these were *perfectly normal* children who had very dramatic changes within a day of getting vaccinated. This was not progressive, nor did they have any indication of being autistic before these vaccinations.
In the first case (with one child), the child just walked into the parents’ bedroom the next morning with his eyes glazed over. He didn’t smile or have react in any way when his parents spoke to him. When I last saw this family about ten years ago, their son was still severely autistic, though he was making some progress because of the daily work with his one-on-one therapist who came to their house for hours each day.
In the other case, the children got very sick, had rashes and very high fevers, were screaming in pain, etc. As they recovered from their illnesses (they were basically catatonic during their illnesses), the parents noted that they were not responding to them, either. One child eventually responded to some extent (though never fully recovered), and the other ended up being extremely autistic.[/quote]
I think scaredy’s right. Humans in general are wired to understand the world by anecdote. For many people, any scientific theory or fact or test or idea that takes into consideration more information than they’re really able to comprehend doesn’t compute for some them. So they ignore it.
I bet back when scientists first showed that the earth revolved around the sun, most people didn’t believe it. Because they could look up in the sky and see the sun going around the earth. It probably took centuries, or at least decades, for that fact to be accepted. Of course, back then, ordinary people didn’t have access to the latest science like we do now. But if they did, there still probably would’ve been a large percentage of the population that would refuse to believe that the earth revolves around the sun.
Cleverness and ingenuity were an evolutionary advantage when humans were evolving. You have to figure that’s why we (some of us) have it. But when we were evolving, we didn’t have the ability to collect that much data (i.e., more than a reasonably intelligent human could understand). So the usefulness of our cleverness was restricted to relatively immediate concerns. But once we learned to write stuff down and keep data over periods of time and such, science progressed to the the point where a hypothesis could be formed and tested using more data than a pre-science person would’ve been exposed to in his lifetime. For some people, given their wiring, and possibly their lack of ability to think very well in the abstract, this is too much for them to comprehend. So they ignore it.
But, hey, it takes all kinds. Everybody has their flaws. If we were all abstract thinkers and data crunchers, that would suck, too.
February 7, 2015 at 11:26 PM #782745ParticipantHmmmm, sounds a bit like a personal attack…which you know never helps your side in an argument.
I’m very much a numbers, facts, and figures type of person with an IQ above the 99th percentile, and I’m also intelligent enough to know when a conflict of interest exists. Some don’t have that same ability, or they’re too naive to understand why or how it might exist.
Again, anecdote almost always precedes science. People thought that Dr. Semmelweis was an “idiot” for thinking that washing hands might bring down hospital fatality rates. There are so very many examples where the medical community was doing something that was completely harmful to patients…and there were always “discredited idiots” who would cause an outcry about these practices…and they were eventually proven right. There are countless stories like this.
February 7, 2015 at 11:35 PM #782746Participant[quote=CA renter]Well, I’m very much a numbers, facts, and figures type of person with an IQ above the 99th percentile, and I’m also intelligent enough to know when a conflict of interest exists. Some don’t have that same ability, or they’re too naive to understand why or how it might exist.
Again, anecdote almost always precedes science. People thought that Dr. Semmelweis was an “idiot” for thinking that washing hands might bring down hospital fatality rates. There are so very many examples where the medical community was doing something that was completely harmful to patients…and there were always “discredited idiots” who would cause an outcry about these practices…and they were eventually proven right. There are countless stories like this.[/quote]
Wait – you believe in IQ tests?? The data against those is mountainous compared to the data supporting a vaccine autism link. In any event, I would point to the helicobacter pylori controversy as a more modern example of what you are saying (ulcers caused by bacterial infection rather than acid/stress). In that case, the ridiculed doctor provided clear experimental data that he was right, the ridicule stopped, and those that discredited him had to eat crow. You never hear of people having surgery for ulcers anymore (good meds also contribute to this improvement). When (and if) similar data is generated to support your view, enough reasonable people exist who will take notice. The problem is that data supporting a vaccine/autism connection don’t exist other than anecdotally.
February 8, 2015 at 12:07 AM #782748Participant[quote=njtosd]
Wait – you believe in IQ tests?? The data against those is mountainous compared to the data supporting a vaccine autism link. In any event, I would point to the helicobacter pylori controversy as a more modern example of what you are saying (ulcers caused by bacterial infection rather than acid/stress). In that case, the ridiculed doctor provided clear experimental data that he was right, the ridicule stopped, and those that discredited him had to eat crow. You never hear of people having surgery for ulcers anymore (good meds also contribute to this improvement). When (and if) similar data is generated to support your view, enough reasonable people exist who will take notice. The problem is that data supporting a vaccine/autism connection don’t exist other than anecdotally.[/quote]
Let’s just say that if you had personally experienced what these other families had, my guess is that you would feel differently. Sometimes, anecdotal evidence is enough to make one question the official message.
And, just as you’ve noted in your other posts, the benefits of vaccination to society generally outweigh the risks to certain individuals who might be genetically(?) predisposed to autism which might be triggered by vaccinations. That is reason enough for the medical community to circle the wagons and refute any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that might cause people to stop vaccinating their children in large numbers.
BTW, these parents were all very well-educated and financially well-off. They were not uneducated “idiots” who were looking for a payout from the pharmaceutical industry.
February 8, 2015 at 7:48 AM #782750Anonymous
Guest[quote=CA renter]I’m very much a numbers, facts, and figures type of person with an IQ above the 99th percentile […][/quote]
Thanks for posting that.
With all the sober talk about tragic medical conditions, this thread really needed a laugh.
February 8, 2015 at 7:49 AM #782749Participant[quote=CA renter]Hmmmm, sounds a bit like a personal attack…which you know never helps your side in an argument.
[/quote]
A personal attack? I’ve gone out of my way not to make personal attacks against you in this thread. Every time I’ve typed something that could’ve been construed as mean or personal I’ve erased it and replaced with something else.
You keep stating your same argument (“if you’d seen this, you’d feel different, too”). I keep bringing logic, reason, and science to the table, and you keep ignoring all of that.
Your IQ is irrelevant. I joined Mensa back in the ’80s, because I like smart women and I thought I might meet some. I did meet some, but I also met some… how do I say… idiots. My IQ is in the 99th, percentile, also. You know why I never mention that? Because it’s basically meaningless (which I hadn’t figured out yet in the ’80s). IQ measures a narrow area of brain function, an area that has little to do with actually living life. Among the countless important things that IQ doesn’t measure is one’s ability to see one’s own flaws and shortcomings. It doesn’t measure one’s ability to see one’s own biases and blindnesses. This is where it appears to me that you are falling short on this thread. Your emotion is clearly getting in the way of you seeing a clear picture.
Letting emotion get in the way of logic is extremely common. It’s the way we’re wired. And to restate, it takes all kinds. You seem like a warm, caring person. Always generous with praise. But you do let your emotions cloud your thinking sometimes, this thread being a prime example. You can take that as a personal attack if you want. But I don’t know what else would explain the irrational things you’re saying.
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