Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainYou weren't the only one. In fact, there just doesn't seem to have been any autism epidemic. Of course that doesn't stop the anti-vax quacks from making shit up. Orac and Skeptico are both required reading on this one.
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What I've always heard and read - other than the idea that mercury poisoning might contribute to autism - is that genetics plays a big role. In a study put out last year in the International Review of Neurobiology, they found that a GABRB3 gene-deficiency might be the culprit in the etiology of autism spectrum disorders.
Of course, the theoretical etiology of ASD has always been in question - first is was cold and uncommunicative parents, then it was power lines, then it was lead paint, now it's mercury poisoning. Personally, and I'm no expert, I think that the genetic framework has the most going for it and that's the door we need to keep banging on.
Then there's the question of diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition) - the bible of mental health. I think starting with either the DSM II or DSM III, "explicit" diagnostic criteria were put into place to increase relabiabity of diagnoses across specialists. But I think that, clearly, they still need some work. Words like "reasonable" or "more often than not" lend credance to the notion of multiple interpretations.
Also, certain people in the mental health field also have "pet disorders". Back in the 80's, when repressed memories, childhood sexual abuse and dissociative identity disorder (the artist formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) were all the rage, diagnoses along those lines skyrocketed. I used to know of one clinician where, if you went in with anxiety issues, you'd leave with a diagnosis of MPD. Same thing happened with ADD (I think, I'll explain why in a moment) - in the 90's diagnosis and treatment of hyperactivity went through the roof and continues on into today.
But perhaps there is another explanation when dealing with these issues - the disorders might be better understood. Some people I've talked to, who have nothing but contempt for psychology / psychiatry have told me that "Back in the 50's, there was no alcoholism. Now everything's an illness and everything's got to be treated". Back in the 50's, we didn't really have a good handle on what alcoholism was - not like today. Back then, instead of seeking treatment, people would beat their wives, eat a bullet, drink themselves to death, etc. Why do you think mortality rates have been increasing? We're getting a better understanding about what makes us tick. In short, I think that could also play a role in the increasing numbers of ASD - but given the reports lately, a lot of it seems to do with shenanigans as well.
Just my .02.
What you may have missed out on though are all the quacks who are convincing parents that having their children immunized will give them autism. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that thimerosal in vaccines increases a child's risk of becoming autistic. Further, removing thimerosal from vaccines did nothing to decrease the number of new cases of autism as would be expected if there was a causal link.
What's new though is that this autism epidemic we've been hearing about turns out to have been fully fictional. This is another nail in the coffin of the altie arguments who are blithely repeating pseudoscience and quackery and claiming a government coverup of the link between autism and mercury in vaccines. Morons like Robert Kennedy Jr. are doing a great harm by inciting public fear about the safety of vaccinations.
Did you get a chance to read the two links above? Orac is the more authoritative commentator on this issue, being an actual medical doctor.
I did read through the articles - and I completely agree with the conclusions (perhaps I didn't make that clear in my reply). I guess what I meant to say is that this epidemological "spikes" aren't new nor limited to ASDs and that they can have a variety of sources and causes - this one happens to be quackery.
But in a sense, I think it might actually be a good thing that this quackery has been going on. I think that ASDs have long been the black sheep of the mental health field - little is known about their causes or treatment and little research has traditionally been done on the topic. If anything, I think that this might help underscore the need for more research to be done on ASDs, which in turn might provide new insights into etiology and treatment of them.
But again, it's just my opinion - you really don't have to take me seriously (I'm a 22 year old college student).
But quackery is never good. As for autism research it is true that in the past there hasn't been as much research as one would hope, but the solution is not to promote interest via quackery.
I hope you didn't think I was jumping on your case. There's just so much crap out there disguised as information on this topic that I'm never sure what people know or don't know. And as you know from here and elsewhere that woowoos, conspiroids and quacks just enrage me generally. They prey on people's ignorance and suspicion of authority. Which is why I suppose I see very little of any good coming from the anti-vax crowd. If it does it'll be coming from the debunking of this notion by the likes of Orac, and AutismDiva and Pharyngula.
You don't have to convince me that the faux-scientific crowd needs a size-12 wedged somewhere rather uncomfortable. I didn't think you were jumping my case at all - I should be more careful when composing my posts and replies in order to avoid confusion.
Lately, my favorite faux-scientist was the "psychologist" Paul Cameron (I think that's his name). He's the anti-homosexual "researcher" - you know, the one who said that gay couples were much more likely to sexually abuse their children and such...he published his reports in the magazine "Psychological Reports". Of course that magazine will publish anything - it costs 15 dollars a page I believe. It's by no means a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, but it looks impressive to the layfolks who are looking at the church pamphlets and see scientific looking citations from "Psychological Reports".
I digress - I just want to make it crystal clear that I do, in no way shape or form, condone pseudoscientific quackery. When shit like this hits the fan, it makes people distrust science more and more. It's like telling teenagers that marijuana shrinks brain mass - it doesn't, but then when teens are told that meth does, they don't buy it. It's the same cycle here, I think.
The way most media outlets report science/medical/health stories is just abysmal. They often focus on the conclusions of a study without covering the process -- a rigorous, systematized method of asking questions and judging the answers -- and that process is what science is really about. That or they report on the controversy. So what we end up with is an endless series of "Coffee is bad", "Coffee is good", "Coffee will kill you dead", "Coffee is the elixir of life" (my opinion) type stories. It's no wonder people are confused and mistrustful of scientists and doctors.
was in my local paper about maybe six months back:
"Study- Studies are unreliable"
Kind of like the old "67% of all statistics are made up" one-liner, isn't it?
All too often I find it only makes me want to cry. Yours is perhaps the better adapted behavior.
in all of this is the very high number of children who are not getting their vaccines. When I was teaching a human development class, I covered the autism scare, and got a really scary education from my students. The majority of the students were not going to get their kids vaccinated! Now, that may have been bluster, and some of the students didn't have kids yet, but said they wouldn't get the vaccinations when they became parents.
When I pointed out that thimerosol had been removed from the vaccines, it didn't matter. :jawdrop: Being confronted with a cold, hard fact (the mercury is gone) made no difference in their reasoning. Talk about wanting to cry! Why is it so easy to buy into the latest scare and so difficult to acknowledge realistic fears? Is it really going to take a resurgence in measles, diptheria, and polio to make people think critically.
And sorry, I have one last rant I have to get out about this. If people choose to do things that harm themselves, that's fine. Adults have the right to make foolish decisions. But kids are going to suffer because they were born to people who choose not to use logic. Also, you and I will suffer if infectious diseases dealt with by the vaccines make a comeback. Sure, we got our vaccines, but those vaccines occurred some time ago. If a disease makes a comeback due to a nice unvaccinated population, we may not have full protection from the vaccine.
I realize it may sound like I'm using scare tactics, but I'm basing my argument on what tends to happen when a vaccinated group of people are confronted with the reemergence of a pathogen because the rest of the population stopped getting vaccines. Kids make great vectors for microbes because they're active and go everywhere, and freely sneeze, cough, and puke on everyone around them.
I heard this on NPR, but don't have a confirming source, so treat it as hearsay, but there's been a rise in measles cases in the U.K. precisely because so many parents are subscribing to the anti-vax quackery.
And I don't think you're using scare tactics either. This is basic epidemiology and public health. We all rely on the herd immunity.
Although percentage takeup in the U.K. originally was in the mid-90s before the fall. A great amount of the anti-vax quackery in the U.K. was down to a badly-conducted and widely-discredited study that linked MMR to autism. Unfortunately in Britain's (especially tabloid) press there is a culture of pseudoscience (horoscopes, psychics being taken seriously), and also there is the reality that a 'scare story' gets more attention than good news. Hopefully the news of the over a hundred studies that have conclusively found that there is no link between MMR and autism, and news of various retractions from those who endorsed the original flawed study is finally making inroads into the public mind.
It's a slow process. My mother is still a convinced anti-vax person and I haven't been able to convince her. I had mumps and measles as a young child, if I had died (or suffered from a related disability), I'm sure she would have felt differently.
