Most experts today agree that the belief that childhood vaccines cause autism is based on bunk science. Even still, some advocacy groups claim immunizations are responsible for raising the risk for this neurodevelopmental condition, despite a growing body of research that shows there isn’t a link. (The study that most anti-vaccination groups point to was retracted after it was found to be based on falsified data.)
Despite the science, organizations involved in the anti-vaccine movement still hope to find some evidence that vaccines threaten children’s health. For example, the autism advocacy organization SafeMinds recently funded research it hoped would prove vaccines cause autism in children. But this effort appears to have backfired for the organization—whose mission is to raise awareness about how certain environmental exposures may be linked to autism—since the study SafeMinds supported showed a link between autism and vaccines does not exist.
Between 2003 and 2013, SafeMinds provided scientists from the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine, the University of Washington, the Johnson Center for Child Health & Development and other research institutions with approximately $250,000 to conduct a long-term investigation evaluating behavioral and brain changes of baby rhesus macaques that were administered a standard course of childhood vaccines. (The National Autism Association, another organization that has questioned vaccine safety, also provided financial support for this research.) The latest paper in the multiyear project was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In it, the researchers concluded that vaccines did not cause any brain or behavioral changes in the primates.
This is where you giggle. And maybe they learned something else while doing this study, so really, it’s even more awesome than just them paying to prove themselves wrong.
Baud
Sadly, this is one of the few idiocies that isn’t confined to the right.
Ruviana
I’m glad you mentioned this since it’s amazing how it’s the idea that will not die. But I want to also give a shout out to Orac for also thinking of the waste of the macaques who died to prove yet again what we already know.
A guy
It’s the same bunk science global warming is based upon
SatanicPanic
@A guy: OK I chuckled a little at this.
Because it’s so dumb.
shell
Doesnt matter…With this kind of mindset, the conclusion comes first. Any data or research must be bent to agree with the conclusion.
As the Red Queen would say “Sentence first, verdict afterward!”
trollhattan
@A guy:
Indeed, it is exactly the same.
Punchy
But if you think this will persuade even 0.05% of them to change their views and support vaccinations, I got some oceanfront property in Omaha to sell ya.
Felonius Monk
If only there were a vaccine against the derp of Jenny McCarthy (and A Guy).
Thoughtful Today
!
Hooray for Team Science!
A guy
Punchy – according to al gore Omaha should have had ocean front property 5 years ago.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
This and anti-GMO hysteria.
Roger Moore
Obviously, this is proof of how far the vaccination conspiracy goes. Big Pharma must have gotten to the researchers and made them change their results.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore:
arrrrgh that one irritates me to no end. Good work liberals, let’s not try to use less land to produce more food.
bluehill
SafeMinds can’t be cracked with facts.
Anoniminous
Speaking of Science and Global Warming …
Tropical Storm Oho is forecast to come ashore at Graham Island British Columbia.
Calouste
@A guy: [Citation needed]
A guy
Lol at calouste
Tim C.
@A guy:
Dude…. this is weak sauce. 2/10 Back in my trolls had a lot of fake evidence and sophistry to use in their trollerific habits. Answers in Genesis. Now those are some serious trolls. Context free quotes, old retracted studies, tautologies, discredited experts who’ve gone off their meds. Could you add a socialist conspiracy or satanist something to your climate change denialism? That’s what all the cool trolls do these days.
Uncle Cosmo
@A guy: For the sake of truth in advertising, could you please post from now on under the handle “A moron”?
Frankensteinbeck
I object to this phrasing. ALL experts agree. There is a different term for ‘experts’ who believe that vaccines might cause autism. We call them ‘frauds’.
Joel
@A guy: nope.
Mike J
@Anoniminous: I was just about to comment about that. Some tracks show it hitting closer to Puget Sound.
Good thing global warming is just a liberal conspiracy.
jl
@Roger Moore: From the Newsweek article, the anti-vaxxers suspect that the research team did not do enough data snooping and dredging and data cherry picking. Or the anti-vaxxers say they did not do the correct kind of data cherry picking, since the anti-vaxxers are saying that the research team’s adherence to the pre-established protocol amounts to ‘cherry picking’ the data.
Actually, suppose there is some multivariate interaction involved in vaccines, genetics and environment, that could cause autism in some kids, it is true this study is not designed to find that, but if the data are public there will be plenty of researchers capable of doing some exploratory analysis to generate hypotheses, but the anti-vaxxers are saying they should just go through every outcome recorded and look for something ‘statistically significant’ (Even though the magic words ‘statistically significant’ occur in that phrase, that not a sound way to proceed.)
But even an exploratory analysis would need at least some causal hypothesis to go along with the statistics, given this quote at the end of the linked article:
“First, the proposed association was between the MMR vaccines and autism,” she says. “Then that was disproven. Then it was the thimerosal components in vaccines; now that has been further disproven in a carefully designed animal model study that aimed to specifically examine that question. It has also been suggested that the association is because of vaccine timing, but that too has been disproven. The target always seems to be moving, and the expectation is that scientific resources will be diverted to address each new modification of this hypothesized link.”
So, just grasping at straws has not worked so far.
Gimlet
Silly, it wasn’t the vaccine, it was the Fluoride in the water.
jl
@Gimlet: No, Gluten!
Or candida, a cover up that makes the Our Reptilian Overlords cover-up look like an ice cream social.
Roger Moore
@jl:
That would be fine if they would also agree to use corrections for multiple hypothesis testing, but I sincerely doubt that’s what they want to do. They’re going to mine the data for spurious correlation at p<0.05 and claim it validates their preexisting beliefs- exactly the kind of approach that has created all the problems with failure to replicate when people have gone back and done large-scale replication attempts.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Assholes.
Duane
Anoniminous
@Mike J:
The off-the-charts warm surface sea temperatures in the Pacific is creating conditions for a wild ride this winter.
But Al Gore is fat
Gravenstone
As I’ve shifted from Firefox to Chrome due to the lock up bug that’s been ongoing here, I find myself bereft of Troll-b-Gone. Tried a search but found only a dead mirror site. Anyone have a current update link at hand?
Hungry Joe
Clearly, another study is called for. (See “Benghazi.”) If it, too, concludes that there is no connection, then Big Pharma must’ve gotten to the researchers. Time for another study. Repeat till you get the results you’re looking for. If that never happens, it proves is that conspiracy is wider than we thought. Solution: Yell louder.
Mike J
@Anoniminous: Hitting near the sound would really suck. In addition to having much more population than the hinterlands, I have a sailing race this weekend.
Anoniminous
@Roger Moore:
As usual xkcd has the first* word.
* and last
RSA
From the Newsweek article:
The CDC estimates that autism happens in about 1 in 68 births. Was this just a very underpowered study? Or did the researchers have much stronger causal hypotheses they were testing, not described in this article? Basically, when SafeMinds says, “The majority who get vaccines are fine, but we believe there is a subset that have an adverse reaction to their vaccines,” there’s no guarantee that further analysis will lead to anything except statistical noise, the thing that is fooling the anti-vaxers right now.
Myiq2xu
Jenny McCarthy is a wingnut?
ROFL
Anoniminous
@Mike J:
NWS forecast puts it well north of Puget Sound.
But if you are sailing why complain? Tropical Storm = Lots of Wind = Sailboat-go-Fast
:-)
Gimlet
@Hungry Joe:
Must be done with someone else’s money. Maybe the Republicans can fund it with taxpayer money and financially support even more Republicans.
Wag
@A guy:
According to geologists, there is ocean front property in Nebraska. The oceans left millions of years ago, but if your build on an outcrop of Dakota Sandstone, you are building on a former beach, and I think it should qualify as “beach front,” in a manner of speaking.
Culture of Truth
I can’t get too worked up at Jenny McCarthy over this. If you take your medical advice from a D list celebrity, it’s your fault (and you kids’ bad luck).
swbarnes2
@Roger Moore:
My favorite link about the dangers of multiple testing
https://xkcd.com/882/
Tommy
@Gimlet: LOL. I mentioned when talking about vaccines here my grandfather was a small town rural doctor. But he spent the evenings reading medical journals and attended I don’t know how many medical conferences a year. Eventually became the Chief of Staff of the local hospital and still one of the youngest graduates of the University of Illinois medical school.
Oh and if he was alive now, it might be to the right of Cruz …. but medicine was not politics.*
He was all in with generic drugs before most. When it was found my brother at 11 had the bone structure of a 5-year-old and the docs wanted to put him on HGH, when it was just in the testing phase by the FDA, he flew off the handle being against it.
But if somebody coming to his office, much less my parents said they were not going to vaccinate his grandkids he would have slapped them upside the head.
I got many of my vaccines at school (I was born in 1969). Nobody protested. Nobody I am aware of refused. We got in line in the hallway and a nurse and doc from someplace just gave us a shot. Oh and none of us got sick from diseases we have vaccines for!
*Back when abortion was illegal, it wasn’t even an open secret after hour you could go to his office, which was like a mini-somewhat-like-hospital, to get an abortion, no questions asked. I am sure he was 110% against the idea when he wasn’t being a doctor, but you know he took this Oath and he was damn darn serious about it.
MomSense
@jl:
No, HAARP rings!
Mike J
@Anoniminous:
Rail in the water = thrilling
Mast in the water = very cold and wet.
Tropical storms and sailboat races don’t mix.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Culture of Truth:
1) The kids are the ones affected, and they had no input as to the sources consulted;
2) The D-list celebrity cites all sorts of sources, many of which will sound authoritative if you don’t really understand statistics and scientific inquiry.
I’m plenty angry with McCarthy.
Tommy
@Myiq2xu: Of course not :).
60 Minutes did a story at least a year ago on the anti-vaccines crowd. Went to two small towns, one in Northern Calfornia and the other in Oregon. They both had some of the highest rates of children not getting vaccines.
On Main Street of each a coffee shop next to a yoga studio next to a vegan restaurant.
Not far right towns to say the least. People that lived there very educated with amazing jobs. Clearly loving parents. Driving Volvos and Subarus.
As I watched the interviews with the mother’s I couldn’t stop thinking to myself WTF are you thinking?!
Gimlet
@Tommy:
I was alive back then too. It was a D & C for irregular menses, not an abortion.
Ohio Mom
@RSA: That was one of my thoughts, too small a sampling. Also, can monkeys *have* autism? How do you tell if they do? Considering how many pediatricians miss well-documented and established symptoms in human babies, toddlers and preschoolers (for example, no social smile, no pointing, no imitating), researchers were going to pick up on subtle clues in monkeys? The whole study sounded ill-conceived to me. There might be a moral somewhere in there.
Sign me, Autism mom with fully vaccinated kid, husband and self, up to and including this year’s flu shot.
Roger Moore
@Gravenstone:
I would recommend going back to Firefox and getting Privacy Badger from EFF. It blocks tracking cookies, which coincidentally blocks whatever script is killing Balloon-Juice.
jl
@RSA: I haven’t had time to read the article in detail, but my understanding is that the study endpoint was not a diagnosis of macaque autism, but had multiple endpoints of behaviors and neurological effects that are associated with autism. Many studies will publish a preliminary article describing the study and giving the power and sample size calculations before the study is completed, and there are repositories where study protocols are registered and archived, so may need to look for those for detailed info on study design. If there are any, should appear in references to this article.
Anyway, comparing the incidence of human autism to the number of study subjects is not a reliable guide to power.
And, if the anti-vaxxers now, after several false leads, are suggesting effects in certain unknown types of subgroups, that suggests a causal model involving interactions. So, a randomized trial that looks at individual endpoints or some composite endpoint is not the way to approach that hypothesis. Need some causal model that describes what kind of interactions might be responsible, or some analysis of multivariate structure of outcomes and characteristics of individual subjects (some allele in a particular gene, for example) in this study to develop hypotheses for another study.
But, by this point, seems to me the burden should be on the anti-vaxxers to propose something, anything, that is promising, not to kibbitz and criticize the researchers for not getting the desired results.
Patrick
@SatanicPanic:
I never understood why right-wingers are so adamant that global warming is fiction (in spite of what 99% of the scientists say). Even if it was fiction, why is it so bad to try to keep our environment clean? They claim they are Christian. Well, then shouldn’t they want to keep the planet their God created clean?
And keeping it as clean as possible will make it less likely their children and grand-children will get cancer etc. Or are they so selfish that they don’t even care about that?
Tommy
@Gimlet: Sure the service wasn’t called an “abortion.”
frosty
Good title up there, but I think we need Wayne LaPierre’s picture with the caption “I am responsible for the deaths of innocent children”
(Formerly Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason — it’s past time to change the nym)
RSA
@jl: That all makes sense. Thanks.
scav
I’m enjoying — in a grumpy sense — the overlap in mindset between parental ammosexuals with their propensity to endanger not only their own children but others on pursuit of some quirk of personal self-image (I know better than scientists or mere doctors! I’m the strong heroic cowboy sort twirling the six-shooters, saving the town and riding off into the mythic sunset!) Everyone else is collateral damage to their interior technicolor drama.
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
By being researchers who know what to look for. The reason most pediatricians miss it is because they are potentially on the look-out for dozens or hundreds of different diseases and syndromes, and they only get a chance to look at a child for a few minutes at a time. In contrast, the researchers are looking specifically for signs of autism and they’re getting considerably more time to monitor their subjects.
jl
@RSA: The most obvious interaction I can think of that would be interesting is to look at age of vaccine administration and timing of diagnosis of autism in kids, that is, what percentage of cases of autism that have been, or can conceivably be, attributed to vaccination are just due to the overlap in those age ranges.
Obviously, this is not the kind of interaction that the anti-vaxxers are interested in finding. But that would be an interesting study, but I have not found one.
I am a bit more sympathetic to some of the anti-vaxxers gripes than others, but not for the same reason. The very frequent multi-shot schedules are a pain in the neck for many families, and should be a cause of concern. But for concerns about patient adherence to schedules (that is, my concern is that particular gripe may cause some parents to pay attention to anti-vaxxers would produce immunization rates that are too low, not too high).
Anyway, at this rate, as I said, the burden should be on the anti-vaxxers to suggest some reasonable mechanism and how to look for it, not piss on the researchers for not getting the expected results. And from what I read, the anti-vaxxers are not able to propose anything reasonable. Their suggestions are more likely to produce false positive results, as Roger Moore pointed out above.
Concerned
@Calouste: @SatanicPanic
Better read this first before deciding GMO’s are the way to go, Hawaii is in a world of hurt.
http://www.naturalblaze.com/2015/09/hawaii-sees-tenfold-increase-in-birth.html
Roger Moore
@Patrick:
Because it hurts the profits of Big Oil. SATSQ.
Tommy
@frosty: Let me go on a mini-rant about guns.
I should first say have never owned one, will never own one. Fired a small gauge shotgun a few times.
But I don’t mind if you own a gun. Lots of guns. Big guns. I just ask for some basic things.
Detailed background check. If it takes a few days or a week plus, fine. If you need a gun NOW then well shouldn’t that be a red flag?
You have to close the “loophole” that lets me sell you a gun in the parking lot of a gun show but I can’t legally sell you a joint.
You have to pass a basic gun training course, like I do to drive a car, to own a gun. You also have to have a permit. This freaks out the far right. But I live in a rural area where people work to make money to provide for their family clearly but also to engage their hobby, hunting.
You can’t hunt or fish anyplace I am aware of without a permit. Government has your 411 already if they wanted to come and take your guns away.
Laws have to be changed. A small kid, and we read about it almost daily, finds their parents gun, and bad things happen. They need to rot in jail. I am not married but if I was, pretty sure we’d lock down our sex toys more than most people lock down their guns to their young children.
That is just the first, but my start …
jl
@Roger Moore: Should also be pointed out that looking for intermediate endpoints, that should be associated with a clinical diagnosis, rather than the diagnosis itself is a very common research strategy in public health and medicine and epidemiology. It is used whenever high power is hard to achieve using clinical diagnosis as the endpoint, and is common in studies on human subjects.
It is not something done specially for this study, or anything that should raise suspicions about the study design.
jl
@Concerned: Sounds alarming. Problem seems to be more with how GMO plants are cultivated than dangers of GMOing a plant per se. That is, you GMO a plant so you can spary the hell out of it with herbicides, and then you (obviously) spray the hell out of with herbicides, and lo and behold, non GMO living things nearby get sick from all the herbicides.
Hoodoodanode?
Roger Moore
@jl:
My impression is that this is the elephant in the room. Autism tends to become noticeable at about the same age as most childhood immunizations, so the assumption of causation is a post hoc propter fallacy. Researchers who are looking very carefully now say that it’s possible to see neurological differences between babies who will develop autism and those that won’t much earlier than when the first obvious symptoms appear; I’ve even seen people saying that they may show up before birth.
Ohio Mom
@jl: I think I might understand what you are saying, and appreciate your comment, but I’m still inclined to think it is a study that can never prove or disprove what it asked. There are just too many different autisms, with different etiologys, presentations and outcomes. My feeling remains that it’s no surprise these people came up with such an inane study.
Instead of persevering on the cause(s) of autism, I wish they would put some money and effort into advocating for services and supports for all our loved ones dealing with the challenges of atypical brains.
jl
@Roger Moore: Thinking about it, would be a very speculative and difficult thing to do. Probably more of a ‘thinkpiece with math’ than reliable research. Incidence of autism has been rising, some of it may be to changes in diagnostic criteria, and how people interpret them, and some unknown environmental factor. One idea, that might tie rise in autism to rise in asthma and other disorders related, closely or more distantly, to immune system is the ‘overly sanitized baby’ effect, our immune systems are not stimulated enough early in life from exposure to the outside of the house in general (and I don’t even know whether that is bunk or not).
Anyway, it would be interesting to see the trends and timings put together, even if it would be more a thinkpiece than research.
Anoniminous
@Mike J:
I know. My brother and I sailed/rowed all over the eastern shore of the Sound and up & around Whidbey Island in a boat very much like this – although we had a canvas cover over the bow forward of the mast.
jl
@Ohio Mom: I don’t know if the study is inane or not. I don’t know enough about the varieties of autism to know whether they chose enough or the appropriate, intermediate endpoints and neurological characteristics associated with autism to get required sensitivity and specificity for all the clinical diagnoses that are called autism in humans. That would be an interesting aspect of the study to know about, if anyone comes along who has the knowledge.
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
One of the things that I find most upsetting about the whole immunization/autism story is the way that it’s feeds on parental guilt. Instead of telling parents that autism is just one aspect of who their child is, it encourages them to see autism as a problem that is the result of them immunizing their child. That means both that they’re told to see their child as flawed and that they’re supposed to blame themselves for it.
Ken
I can agree with that, but only if “they” means different people in the two clauses. I wouldn’t be surprised if “they” the researchers learned something from the study. I don’t think it’s possible for “they” the anti-vaccine crowd to learn anything, given past performance.
Anoniminous
@Ohio Mom:
If our Economic and Tax Policies weren’t run by sociopaths and their flunkies we’d be able to fund both.
Chris
@Patrick:
I’m pretty sure they’re adamant about it because liberals are adamant about the other position and for no other reason.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Ohio Mom:
One of the nastiest arguments I got into online was when I said that there is a mitochondrial disease that’s triggered by a high fever that could be mimicking autism, and the person I was arguing with was OUTRAGED that I would even hint that not everything that appears to be “autism” is actually autism. S/he was also outraged at the notion that maybe we should figure out exactly what autism is (and what’s being misdiagnosed as autism) before we stop vaccinating kids.
I really think part of the problem is that certain sets of behaviors are being labeled “autism” when they may not be caused by the same thing.
In our family, I’m 100 percent convinced that ASD is genetic, because my brother in law is pretty clearly high-functioning ASD, and so are my niece and nephew (his sister’s kids).
Mike in NC
@Patrick: Wingnuts are anti-environment because in their minds it pisses off the liberal “tree huggers”. That’s why conservatives in this country are against clean air and water regulations, against recycling, against pretty much everything that is counter to screwing up the planet for a quick profit.
Gin & Tonic
OT, but I’ve read that Frank Zappa’s wife Gail has passed away. I know there are some other FZ fans hanging around here.
RIP.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Autism is at least partially inheritable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s genetic.
Mike E
Again, see the Nova on this subject…no Kocks were involved with this docu’s total takedown of the antivaxx position, tho not surprising per se, it’s just refreshingly thorough.
trollhattan
@jl:
Have read that crops are passing their Roundup resistance to weeds, either that or weeds are becoming Roundup-resistant due to adaption arising from growing in the margins of Roundup-resistant crop fields that are regularly douched with…Roundup.
Unintended consequences: don’t ask, don’t tell.
lamh36
OT: Rupert Murdoch:
https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch/status/651924724960874497
raven
@Gin & Tonic: dang
Freemark
@SatanicPanic: There is hysteria but GMOs are bad in many ways. They may be safe to eat but they have many other intended and unintended bad consequences.
You have Monsanto using GMO patents to terrorize and eliminate smaller farmers.
You have greatly increased use of herbicides around GMO crops which may be linked to health issues. Excessive herbicide use may also destroy habitat required for use by other animals like the Monarch butterfly.
You have pesticide resistant insects which used to be minor pests, such as stink bugs replacing Bt susceptible pests as major problems.
And you have also have GMO gene transference to wild weed relatives of crop plants. We are already seeing issues caused by this but no one knows what the long term effects will be.
There are a large number of issues with GMO crops. Yes there is a ‘hysteria’ like there is with gluten, BPA, and other things. But just because there is hysteria does not mean GMOs don’t have some major issues.
Don’t let pro-GMO hysteria blind you.
Jordan Rules
@lamh36: Oh lordt! And by ‘real’ he means the one that will proudly be his boy and do his bidding.
Concerned
Sorry about the bold. As Perry would say, Oops… The thing is IMO, with Monsanto etal gene splicing Roundup into almost all of its GMOs, who’s to say it’s not the shots the kids are getting causing autism, but Monsanto and other such company genetic testing on us. We’re putting nano particles in baby lotions, hair products, powders, toothpastes. These tiny travelers burrow deep into the deepest tissues. If we put all of these “technologies” together we might find they could very well be killing us – or giving our children autism.
Hkedi
@trollhattan:
Herbicide resistance in weeds is a common problem (like antibiotic resistance in microbes). It’s not just limited to roundup, but overuse and overdependence on a single Herbicide, like with the roundup-ready GMO plants drives up the probability of resistant weeds becoming established.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/crops/weed-management/herbicide-resistant-weeds/
Chris
@Jordan Rules:
I keep saying that the Herman Cain campaign illustrated perfectly the role Republicans see for black candidates – they loved Cain as long as he was validating them and punching down at the 99% of black people who don’t vote Republican. Then he had the audacity to point out that the word “n/gg/r” in the name of Rick Perry’s ranch wasn’t exactly in good taste any more. And the entire conservative movement opened up on him with both barrels until he backed down.
Freemark
@trollhattan: I tried to post that along with some other GMO issues and corresponding links to some studies but they are currently in moderation hell for some unknown reason.
dedc79
Cubs 4, Pirates 0
Patricia Kayden
@A guy: Please don’t wear seatbelts or helmets. Smoke it up. Being sensible is for us Commies.
Sad_Dem
Turns out there are a whole lot of American loons to discredit.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: Because President Obama isn’t a “real” Black President, right? So says the White man.
Anyways, there’s no way in hell that Carson will get anywhere near the White House.
schrodinger's cat
@lamh36: Ben Carson is the biggest nutcase in the line-up of nutcases.
What is his deal, grifter or true believer?
Gravenstone
@Concerned: I think your tin foil hat has gotten a tad snug. It’s cutting off circulation to your brain.
Patricia Kayden
@Tommy: Too bad ANY real discussion about gun control is impossible to have given how much political power the NRA has over Congress.
MobiusKlein
@Concerned: That article seems to indicate it’s the pesticides at fault, rather than the GMOs.
Patricia Kayden
@efgoldman: Dr Carson proves that even brain surgeons can be clueless at times. Sadly, I used to admire him. Good to see how the Interviewer pushed back at him though.
skerry
@efgoldman: The problem is that most Americans don’t understand this issue either and will just nod their heads in agreement with Doc Carson.
Jordan Rules
@Chris: The black-cons always have their, ahem, n/gg/r moment.
But Ben is so damn crazy and arrogant in addition to being deluded with self-hate that his moment would more likely come due to flexing his temporary pass too much rather than having one sane moment of truth that challenged his gatekeepers.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Recent studies indicate it’s probably genetic, especially in the more severe cases:
https://iancommunity.org/autism-twins-study
It is quite unlikely that you are the only person in your extended family to be on the spectrum. Possible, but unlikely.
Chris
@Jordan Rules:
So you’re saying Carson has less sanity and self-regard than Herman Cain.
Not that I don’t believe it, but oyyyyyyyyyy, vey.
I keep watching that part reach lower and lower and wonder if there’s any such thing as a rock bottom for them to hit.
(Or should that be “peak?”)
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: The support for this guy mystifies me. He seems to know absolutely nothing, and he always sounds like he’s on drugs.
Jeffro
@schrodinger’s cat: True believer, as far as his religious belief goes – he is a creationist, climate change denier, and many other really interesting things.
I think he has been in such rarefied air, idolized and listened to and looked up to for so long, that he no longer has much of a grip on reality. In his mind, he leads the charge against school gunmen…he magically gets the national debt to quit accumulating despite an annual deficit…messianic delusions are not something I’m ok with in a potential leader for this country/the free world so GOPers, listen up: WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU to not nominate this quack.
(ok, ok, he’ll never be nominated but still)
dedc79
@Concerned: Are you a scientist? I ask because:
Ohio Mom
@jl: These types of studies are just a long-standing irritation to me, I confess.
I remember when the big new finding was toddlers with autusm had bigger than average heads, and that was because their brain cells weren’t going through the correct pruning-type stage. Well, my kid’s head stopped growing for a while, just when according to the big-head theory it should have been rapidly expanding.
No doubt some toddlers with autism have larger than average heads, my neighbor’s kid did.
Concerned
@Mobius
As I said, Monsanto gene splices Roundup into almost all of its GMO, hence ‘Roundup ready’, that means they are indeed already chemically contaminated even as a seed.
Ohio Mom
@Roger Moore: You are on the same wave-length as the autism self-advocacy movement.
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic: I think the support is based upon GOP voters who see him as the most honestly religious and most genuine non-a$$hole (to them, anyway) outsider candidate of the bunch. (I mean if you are determined to vote against the GOP establishment…until it comes time to line up and support the GOP establishment candidate, anyway…your choices are Trump, Carson, or perhaps Fiorina.) His babble comes off as faith-infused straight talk to them.
I dunno…that’s all I got. It is a reach to put oneself into a Carson voter’s shoes – I pretty much have to suspend every rational thought I’ve ever had and go with, “Well, he doesn’t yell and appears to hear from Jesus a lot”
Calouste
@Jeffro:
I think I have made this joke here before, but as it is so appropriate to Ben Carson, I’ll repeat it:
Q: What is the difference between God and a brain surgeon?
A: God doesn’t think he is a brain surgeon.
Ohio Mom
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): We do have something of a consensus of what autism is — the triad of impairments in language, social skills and restricted interests.
There are lots of things that cause Intellectual Disability, Downs and lead poisoning for two examples, so why can’t there be more than one cause for autism?
And now it’s my bedtime, good night all.
Matt McIrvin
@Patrick: Several reasons.
– Fighting global warming will likely require taxes and regulations on big businesses, things that conservatives and libertarians are generally ideologically opposed to. In terms of money, this is probably the most important reason.
– The libertarians particularly argue that lawsuits brought by directly harmed individuals are the main way to handle polluting behavior. Since global warming is such a diffuse externality that this approach doesn’t really work, it must not be real.
– What Mike in NC said: if liberals like it, conservatives must hate it. In terms of individual motivation, this is probably the most important reason. Al Gore is still this extraordinary hate magnet.
– The Christianists got sold a line some time ago that environmentalism is paganist Earth-worship.
– Some of the really hardcore ones argue that the End Times are coming soon and saving the Earth for future generations is therefore unnecessary.
– More broadly, there are also theological arguments that God made the Earth for humans to exploit, and that only God can change the climate and presuming that humans can is sinful arrogance.
redshirt
@Patrick:
I think it works like this:
1. Addressing global warming might impact the profits of oil, coal, and other fossil fuel providers and energy generators. Thus,
2. The lobbyists of the oil, coal and other fossil fuel providers and energy generators lobby Republicans in Congress to stop any reforms, which
3. Causes the right wing noise machine to turn anti-global warming.
That’s it. There’s no real science or even religious faith involved. Right Wing talking points come down to the nutjob masses, and they duly adopt them and make them their own.
Chris
@Jeffro:
That’s right! Nominate one of your dozen OTHER quacks!
jl
@Ohio Mom: Unless there is an underlying causal model that is consistent with the statistical analysis, all of these kinds of studies are irritating. But I think they are necessary, because often you need to collect a lot of correlational information to develop new useful causal hypotheses to test with new (not old) data.
But, people should not take a single study too seriously.
I don’t take the statistics in every paper on climate change that seriously, though I am a firm believer in climate change produced global warming caused by people releasing lots of carbon and other heat trapping gases into the atmosphere. But, the outlines of the theory and the very general conclusions have been consistent for over 100 years now, and that is what really convinces me.
So, sometimes irritation is necessary for progress. What is significant to me is that the only idea the anti-vaxxers have on what to do next, following this study, is unreliable data snooping.
Matt McIrvin
Also, there’s just general “you can’t tell me what to do” sentiment. Having to control emissions and keep fuel economy up makes driving cars less fun, and the problem was way worse back in the 1970s when modern emissions and mileage standards first appeared; US manufacturers didn’t yet know how to make cars that met them and didn’t suck.
You got people doing things like buying a car and immediately removing the catalytic converter to improve performance. A friend of mine mentioned once that his dad did this automatically to every car he bought. People end up associating environmental standards with some liberal bureaucrat control freak emasculating their car.
redshirt
@Matt McIrvin: True. But today I saw a Prius with a Romney/Ryan 2012 sticker and I had to laugh.
Matt McIrvin
@redshirt: And Teslas are zero-emission cars that blow away regular muscle cars, which gives me hope that these sorts of stereotypes can be broken with the right technology. Granted, they’re still rich-guy toys for the moment.
redshirt
@Matt McIrvin: These stereotypes don’t matter. All that matters is what the Right Wing puke funnel decides they want the wingnuts to believe. They’ll believe what they’re told to believe.
MobiusKlein
@Concerned: Hmm. My understanding regarding “Roundup Ready” is that the genes conferring resistance to Roundup are spliced into crops. This allows Roundup to be applied to the field without killing the target crop, but killing the other plants nearby – a.k.a. weeds. No actual roundup is produced by the crops.
Perhaps you are thinking of the plants that incorporate BT toxins, which is a different GMO application.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_maize for some straightforward information.
redshirt
I have issues with GM food since there is no way it can have been properly tested, which would take generations. Tell me how I’m wrong.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Ohio Mom:
For me, the reason to tease out the difference between “true” autism and other syndromes that mimic it is that people hear about these miraculous “cures” that, say, Jenny McCarthy’s kid experienced, but it almost always turns out that they were not properly diagnosed and they instead had a different syndrome that responded to a medication (and hence was not ASD). Those “miracle cure” stories tend to fuel the anti-vaxxers and charlatans, IMO.
I also agree with Roger that there’s this creepy meme among some parents that their “real” child was somehow stolen from them, and someday there will be a cure to make their child “normal” again if they just look hard enough when instead they should accept their child for the person they are and help them work around their issues. My brother and sister-in-law aren’t married anymore, but fortunately they both agree that their kids should be encouraged to pursue their interests, whatever those are, and get therapy not to “make them normal,” but to make it a little easier for them to navigate the world as they actually are. They don’t waste their time pining for some idealized child that never existed and love their kids as the quirky, interesting people they actually are.
MobiusKlein
@redshirt: re proper testing; what counts as proper testing for the non-gmo food we currently consume?
We still don’t know how much salt is bad, meat vs carbs, which oil is worse in what ways.
Which existing spices actually are harmful in some minor way vs helpful. Our knowledge in basic areas is still lacking.
I suppose GMOs allow our unknowns to grow even faster, with wildly divergent gene base…
Why should we add more unknowns on top of what we have now
But it would help the anti-GMO side to point at proven harm, rather than vague inferences
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@A guy:
Way to go, Doug. What an economical way to troll 1/4 of the thread. Seems like old times. :D
redshirt
@MobiusKlein: No one truly understands the long term consequences of taking genes from disparate species and mixing them. In the short term what may appear fine may not be in the long term. Who knows – because we’re testing it now, in real time.
Forgive me if I don’t immediately accept corporate America’s claims that something is healthy and fine. Given the numerous breaches of this trust in the past, why should anyone trust one of the large multinational agri-businesses that are behind GM? Without ample proof?
50 years ago these same people were telling us cigarettes aided digestion.
MobiusKlein
@redshirt: not to say we should take various biotechnology companies at their word. They could easily pull a VW. on us
redshirt
@MobiusKlein: They believe in short term profits like all multinational corporations and they will do whatever they can to obtain short term profits. Consequences be damned. That’s the spirit of the Free Hand and It truly craves tax avoidance.
J R in WV
@Tommy:
In North Carolina, you have to go to the sheriff and get a permit to buy a weapon. Not sure if this applies to long guns as well as pistols of not. But I’m sure it applies to pistols, as my friend and I target shoot pistols together when we visit one another.
That’s part of why I have a Concealed Carry Permit, to be able to transport target pistols when we travel. Here in W Va you don’t need a permit, just pass the FBI background check, which we now know isn’t the most complete background check there could be.
I am strongly in favor of more complete background checks, however long that may take within reason. I took a class and passed a test to get my CCW permit, so I’m not aginst those either. Turned out next door neighbors were in the same class as I to get their permits.
Tommy, glad to see you posting. In the new version of B-J you are working on, I wonder if independent sizing of different parts of the web page will be possible. I would like to be able to make the column of text as wide or narrow as I want, and the outer columns correspondingly wider or narrower as needed to resize the column of text.
Just a suggestion, I don’t know how difficult that would be in WordPress. I’ve never dealt with WP ever, and so you are the expert, and I’m the ignorant user.
Take care! Thanks for you help with Balloon-Juice!!
JR
sm*t cl*de
@redshirt:
Thanks to horizontal gene transmission, this has been happening for the last four billion years. Is that sufficiently long-term?