Thimerosal Does Not Cause Autism 298
jamie found an article over at Washington Monthly discussing the recent finding that there is no link between thimerosal and autism. It seems that after the mercury-based vaccine preservative was withdrawn from use in 1999, no drop in autism rates has been observed in a large California study. Here's the Science Daily writeup on the study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Conspiracy nutters won't be discouraged (Score:5, Insightful)
Inaccurate (Score:1, Insightful)
Thimerasol has NOT been ruled out in causing individual cases of autism. Just that it is not the SOLE cause of autism. It's still a documented fact that US infants exposure to thimerosal increased starting around 1990, and that correlates with a huge spike in autism rates.
It doesn't say thimerosal is safe, the study just shows it's not the ONLY cause of the tenfold increase in the rates of autism.
Re:And it isn't even used in vacciens anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget the added "benefit" that now people are extra scared of vaccines because of all of this.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
They'll just blame something else in vaccines (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a bit like homeopathy in reverse. Many of these guys have a superstitious fear of "toxins," and no matter how low the level might be, they will be convinced that it is poisoning their kids.
Of course, the real problem is that the age at which autism symptoms develop is about the same as the age when kids normally get their shots. A reasoned explanation of the difference between correlation and causality is often beyond the grasp of parents who are desperate for an explanation, or better yet, somebody to blame.
Re:Trigger, not cause (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if it were just "triggering" autism, the removal of thimerosal would, eventually, result in a change of the frequency of observed autism. It doesn't.
Re:Inaccurate (Score:1, Insightful)
You should bare in mind the reason autism rates have increased is because the criteria for autism has been expanded since the 1980's. What previously wouldn't be counted as autism now is.
As demonstrated it's not actually going to discourage anti-vaccine scumbags.
The figure is something like if 10% of the population isn't vaccinated against an illness the herd immunity breaks down and an outbreak becomes possible. That's a nice thought.
Another nice thought is if enough of these jackasses pull the pharmacutical companies to court over vaccines the pharmacutical companies won't see any point in making vaccines (since they get wrongly sued for doing so) so they'll just give up that practice.
Now wouldn't that be a lovely situation?
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Conspiracy nutters won't be discouraged (Score:4, Insightful)
You got that right (Score:3, Insightful)
That's for sure. My nephew is autistic, and I have met some of the other children who receive IBI therapy with him. I know that autism is a continuum and not a binary variable, but I think that calling some of those kids autistic is a bit of a stretch. Admittedly, I an no expert in such matters, and for all I know, the expanded diagnosis criteria is correct.
Still, I wonder if doctors aren't diagnosing some children with autism who would have been diagnosed as mentally disabled a few years ago. Either analysis would be very difficult for a parent to hear, but autism would be the least traumatic assessment.
Not sure I want it back. (Score:3, Insightful)
Until that point, I'm not big on the idea of injecting a solution containing a large amount of ethylmercury into my body. Most mercury compounds aren't really anything that anyone would want to inject.
It's no better to be irrationally pro-ethylmercury just because it's a good preservative...The reason the uninformed freak out so easily is because we leave ourselves open to this crap by not doing to full research.
Re:Inaccurate (Score:3, Insightful)
Correction, there's been a big increase in the rates of diagnosis of autism, which is an entirely different thing. Right before the so-called "spike" the medical journals were full of articles which resulted in the reclassification of behavioral problems previously classified under a plethora of different labels. This is natural, and a part of what happens when our understanding of a disorder improves.
In a related note, there are precious few cases of "consumption" being diagnosed lately, and yet the number of people with drug-resistant TB continues to rise.
Another example: for many decades, the estimate of the number of stars in our galaxy rose and rose, more each time a new monster telescope was built. Were the number of stars actually increasing, or was it just our ability to detect them that changed?
Autism Isn't Rising (Score:2, Insightful)
Age and volume vs. thimerisol (Score:3, Insightful)
Anecdotally, of the 6 children in my son's special education kindergarten class, 3 of the children developed seizure disorders within a week of similar vaccinations, one of which was administered at one week of age. Most countries wait until at least 6 months of age before beginning the injections of MMR and DtAP vaccines.
Personally I think that thimerisol is a red herring distracting folks from considering any contributing factors of age and volume of vaccines administered. I think we'd do well to compare current vaccinations correlation to autism versus a program that staggers vaccinations with individual vaccines starting at 6 months of age to see how much that contributes to the rate of autism.
Re:Any contradictory beliefs must be beaten down (Score:4, Insightful)
Here are my top five "better suggestions":
5) Increased genetic susceptibility among the human race as a whole.
4) Increased awareness of autism spectrum disorders.
3) Better diagnostic methods.
2) Relaxed criteria for positive diagnosis.
And my #1 favorite:
1) Any of a number of synthetic chemicals children might be exposed to in increasing amounts today, rather than decreasing amounts like thimerosal.
It could be any combination of any, all, or none of the above. Chances are it's more than just one thing and, as this study suggests, thimerosal does not appear to be one of them.
Re:Conspiracy nutters won't be discouraged (Score:3, Insightful)
He puts the same level of fact (and coincidentally, about the same mix of ad hominem and frustration) as in your original post, and you tear him apart.
Re:Inaccurate (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
What the worlds needs now is empathy and more understanding. But that is just my opinion.
Put my child on the "alter" of science? No. (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, children can die by water, even in a bath. ANd that is fact, not just "alter" of science. I know. I have pulled them from the bottom of a lake. You going to keep your children out of the tub as well as not allow them to drink water?
Fallacy != falsity (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps your response would have been satisfactory and appropriate on a fallacy-identification exam in a college course on debate or formal logic. In a casual discussion on a social forum - actually, even in a formal debate this would be true - your response is inappropriate and nearly meaningless.
The fact that someone modded you up for posting a 300-word version of "bad form!" is ridiculous. This isn't class and you aren't the teacher. Grow up.
Re:Conspiracy nutters won't be discouraged (Score:3, Insightful)
I also wonder whether the vaccines themselves aggravate a tendency towards autism disorders. Thimerosal may well be a red herring masking something real. Our kids get hep-b shots pumped into them immediately after birth and a whole rainbow of shots come in the first year. Vaccinating is done much more aggressively then when I was a kid. 20 or 30 years ago, many of these shots weren't given until between the ages of 4 and 6. The most critical neurological developments take place in the first five years of life and it is only recently that we started vaccinating the hell out of kids that young.
When my child was less than a year old and we were new parents, it seemed to me that the relative risk of disease versus negative effects of vaccines favored getting the shots. We've had a lot of anguish over whether that was the right thing to do. So I'm no conspiracy theorist but you might want to try a mile in these shoes before dismissing concerns about vaccines so readily.
Re:Conspiracy nutters won't be discouraged (Score:2, Insightful)
The argument should stand on its own, without recourse to celebrity.
To me this seems to be implying that expert opinion is not a valid thing to base an argument on. However this isn't true. If we do not take into consideration who, for example, conducted a medical study, it's much harder to place a value upon its conclusions. Appeals to authority are not all fallacious.
Re:And it isn't even used in vacciens anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it's possible to reach that conclusion, the evidence has not ever supported the supposed link with autism. This new study is nothing more than another nail in the coffin of this conspiracy theory.
As for "safety", what is much more unsafe than a tiny amount of mercury is vaccinating less people against horrible diseases. Many vaccines have always been slightly unsafe (e.g. those made from weakened but complete germs) and that has never been an argument for avoiding vaccination.
A descriptive demonstration I like to repeat... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oxygen and hydrogen are explosive and flammable gasses. Water is made of oxygen and hydrogen. It is obviously wrong, though, to posit that drinking water will cause a person to catch fire and explode.
It's not a completely parallel situation, natch, but it's vivid enough an example that people might actually listen.