newberry wrote:Guys, could you please start a new thread or stay on topic? Thanks.

Sorry, I agree with you. I didn't address most of his dumb shit. I just felt like I had to respond to the gross dishonesty of editing a wikipedia entry to agree with himself, and then quoting it at me in an argument. Er, if he did do that. It's possible someone else edited the entry to say exactly what he believes, and then 38 minutes later, he quotes it at me. It's totally possible.

Mercury talk now! It's terrible stuff!

When they put the thimerosal in the vaccines, autism rose! When they started taking thimerosal out of the vaccines, autism rose at the same rate! When they were no longer using vaccines with thimerosal, autism rose at the same rate!

Correlation doesn't always mean causation, but shouldn't causation generally entail correlation?

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Au ... 72008.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 181551.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 071735.htm

And yes, Clocker Bob did, a few posts back, describe a mechanism by which thimerosal could cause autism. But then we do science. Here's a theory. If this theory is true, we would expect to see certain things. We don't see those things. The theory is probably not true. Scientific method in a nutshell.

I'm no fan or friend of mercury in children's blood, and I'm no fan or friend of giving these drug companies immunity from lawsuits even before the data were in. That made me sick. And, IIRC, they slipped it into some military appropriations or terrorists-are-bad legislation or something, so you couldn't vote against it without proving how much you hate America. Which was also sickening.

Rick Reuben wrote:

Mc Clatchey newspapers, 1-25-08 wrote: In another tantalizing link between the immune system and autism, researchers at the University of California Davis have found 11 genes, all governing “natural killer“ immune cells, that are more active in autistic children than in other youngsters.

While the study is small and very preliminary, it bolsters theories that some sort of infectious agent, early in life or even in the womb, might play a role in autism, said Jeffrey Gregg, director of molecular diagnostics for the UC Davis Medical Center.

Come on. How hard do they have to work to NOT see the vaccine connection??? What infectious agent early in life could possibly be altering the immune systems of children with regressive autism??? GEE, WHAT COULD IT BE?

from 01/27/08, in the comments section of the article from the above quote..........

someone named sarah wrote:come on! how hard do they have to work to NOT see the vaccine connection??? what infectious agent early in life could possibly ber altering the immune systems of children with regressive autism??? GEE WHAT COULD IT BE?

That's weird, right?

I'd imagine less, actually, because you'd probably not post as much.

The science really doesn't look good for this cause-effect link. This article does a pretty good job summarizing the most recent studies:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=14

Tellingly, it seems the same database of patient information most used by the proponents of the mercury hypothesis was used in a recent study that found autism rates had continued a steady increase despite the removal of practically all thimerosal from vaccines 6 years ago.

LVP, you'll probably find the first half of the article particularly interesting. It addresses specifically why thimerosal appeared in vaccines originally and why it was ultimately removed, including the same argument you make, ie, if it was removed, then it must've been dangerous in the first place.

I was just reading a Wired article today on some of the latest neuropsychiatric research into autism. The article was focused primarily on the debate about whether to look at autism as a disease at all, but it did give some details on how the diagnostic criteria have changed and continue to evolve. It lends credence to the hypothesis that the so-called "epidemic" really is due primarily to increased rates of diagnosis.

http://www.aware4autism.org/Biomedical_ ... tions.html

Interesting article by an M.D. who treats children with autism.

We are also concerned about heavy metal toxicity in our patients. Many people with chronic disorders have mercury, lead and other heavy metals accumulating in their body. Often, this is due to dysfunction of the detoxification pathways (see below). These metals can directly damage the cells of various organs, including the brain and nervous system, liver, kidneys and hormone glands. Testing for the presence of these metals is difficult, since often they are no longer circulating in the blood and are instead bound to the tissues and organs they are damaging. A blood test is significant if it shows the metals to be present, but a negative result could indicate that the metals have moved out of the blood stream and into the organs. Hair testing often misses the metals as well. Since hair is an excretory organ, people who do not properly eliminate metals will not have it excreted into the hair. We have found that a chelation challenge test is the best way to identify the presence of toxic metals. By comparing a baseline urine sample to a sample taken after the administration of a chelating agent which extracts heavy metals from the tissues, we can demonstrate 1) the presence of heavy metals in the body, 2) the body is not a screening the heavy metals on its own (assuming the baseline is normal), and 3) that the chelating agent works for that individual. We have protocols for oral, rectal, transdermal and IV chelating agents.

Interesting advert

FYP. Did you not see the link to Wholistic Pediatrics ('We are thrilled to announce the introduction of Healing Hyperbarics!) at the bottom of the page? An absolutely disgraceful article.

Read the link Ty has kindly posted above, when you're done, read it again. You can then draw your own conclusions from a balanced and thorough review of the studies to date using for-real peer reviewed science, free from vested interests and the hidebound noise of minds permanently tuned to Bullshit FM.

Rick Reuben wrote:You think that metal toxicity in brains is a myth because you found a link to a business below the article?

No, I think the article is worthless and has as much validity as me writing any half-baked thought that occurs to me in the condensation on a window and proclaiming it as fact. It is textbook bad science and nothing more than a collage of unsubstantiated assertions with no authentic reference to any published studies. That it also serves as a shop window for a crank's array of spurious tests and therapies should serve as a warning as to the quality of the information presented.

To quote someone much brighter than me, evidence-based medicine is beautiful, elegant, clever and, most of all, important. The above article is none of these things. Though you might need to perform some mental gymnastics to absorb arguments which run counter to your beliefs I hope you'll read the link Ty posted, there may well be a valid and rewarding discussion that can be had about this topic but you need to recalibrate your position, every single point put forward by the thimerosal/mercury poisoning tub-thumpers has been deftly addressed in well-designed studies and via calm statistical analysis. I truly cannot see why someone clearly not lacking in intelligence would so doggedly persevere with a theory taking on increasing amounts of water. Why is it so important to believe this?

My cousin is a medical neurologist in canada so I get to hear about medical doctors who are getting incredible clinical results and aren't slaves to big pharma. Getting incredible clinical results can unfortunately cause all kinds of problems!

CJH wrote:

Did you not see the link to Wholistic Pediatrics ('We are thrilled to announce the introduction of Healing Hyperbarics!) at the bottom of the page? An absolutely disgraceful article.

I would be thrilled as well if I didn't have to travel far for a certain type of therapy. If something isn't working, the smart thing to do is to try something else. If you keep missing the free throw the smart thing to do would be to analyze all possible variables that are affecting your outcome.
http://visp.rutgers.edu/measure2.htm

http://www.perlhealth.com/hyperbaric-center.php

http://www.burzynskiclinic.com/

I had never heard of this before:

We have found that a chelation challenge test is the best way to identify the presence of toxic metals. By comparing a baseline urine sample to a sample taken after the administration of a chelating agent which extracts heavy metals from the tissues, we can demonstrate 1) the presence of heavy metals in the body, 2) the body is not a screening the heavy metals on its own (assuming the baseline is normal), and 3) that the chelating agent works for that individual.

and I found it interesting.

Rick Reuben wrote:

d865 wrote:http://movies.commons.ucalgary.ca/mercury

Good video, thanks.

Brand new column from David Kirby at Huffington Post:
Government Concedes Vaccine-Autism Case in Federal Court - Now What?

Bob, read this article from the same site that Ty posted.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=66

And maybe read this one, if you think that site is part of some big pharma conspiracy.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=60