No link between the Thimerosal used in vaccines and autism

In 2005, when I read Robert F. Kennedy's Rolling Stone article about the supposed link between autism and Thimerosal (a mercury-based preservative) found in childhood vaccines, I was deeply concerned. I send copies of that persuasive and detailed article to several friends. New evidence strongly there is no link, however. Even more than the epidemiological studies, consider this observations, as reported by Discover Magazine:

[A]lthough thimerosal is no longer present in any recommended childhood vaccines save the inactivated influenza vaccine—and hasn’t been, beyond trace amounts, since 2001—no one is hailing the end of autism. “If you thought thimerosal was related to autism, then the incidence of autism should have gone down,” Harvard’s McCormick explains. “And it hasn’t.”

Given that we haven't been injecting our children full of Thimerosal since 2001, we should be seeing a significant decrease in autism (if the anti-Thimerosal crowed were right). We aren't seeing any decrease in rates of autism, however. This lack of correlation seems compelling to me. As indicated in the Discover article, there are many reasons for getting your young children vaccinated.

The CDC estimates that thanks to vaccines, we have reduced morbidity by 99 percent or more for smallpox, diphtheria, measles, polio, and rubella. Averaged over the course of the 20th century, these five diseases killed nearly 650,000 people annually. They now kill fewer than 100.

There is now one less big reason for refusing to do get your children vaccinated: There is no link between the Thimerosal used in childhood vaccinations and autism. As reported by the Discover article, however, the urban legend prevails that Thimerosal causes autism.

Continue ReadingNo link between the Thimerosal used in vaccines and autism

Backhanded celebration of homeopathy

It's homeopathic awareness week! Neurologica wants to take full advantage:

According to the British Homeopathic Association . . . June 14-21 is Homeopathy Awareness Week. I would like to do my part to increase awareness of homeopathy. . . I am all in favor of homeopathic awareness. The scientific community should use this week to make the public acutely aware of the fact that homeopathy is, put simply, utter rubbish. Neurologica has put together a detailed account of the world's most over-embellished version of the placebo effect. Consider the homeopathic advocates' arguments for why homeopathic drugs can't be tested:

Many homeopaths have argued that homeopathy cannot be subjected to the same type of studies as are conventional drugs. This is because each patient, from a homeopathic perspective, is unique, and cannot be lumped into a single category. Whereas conventional medicine can compare treatments of 1000 diabetics with two different medications, homeopaths cannot produce large numbers of patients with the same totality of illness requiring the exact same treatment. In making this argument, that of untestability, such homeopaths are securing their position in the halls of pseudoscience, for if their is one single quality which separates scientific theories from nonscientific ones, it is falsifiability. If homeopathic remedies cannot be tested, then they can never be grounded in science.

Neurologica's article is well written and well documented. I agree entirely.

Continue ReadingBackhanded celebration of homeopathy

Medicating the kids . . .

As a parent, I have participated in many discussions regarding the medication of kids for a variety of reasons. I have friends who have kids with serious problems for whom medication has been a godsend, allowing them to function with relative normalcy. Kids who were unable to participate in a typical classroom for one behavioral issue or another. We've also had many discussions about the problem of over-medicating children, and how some schools push for difficult children to receive behavioral meds, whether they truly need them or not. How some of those adult medications should perhaps not be so quickly prescribed for children. We've talked about education reform, changes in teaching methods and school culture and administrative philosophies that would allow for wider ranges of learning styles. I've heard parents rant about how unfair it is for their well-behaved child to not receive the same level of attention as the "problem kid" in the class commands, and I've seen them answered by the parents of said problem kids with an invitation to trade shoes, just for a day.

Continue ReadingMedicating the kids . . .

Robert Reich explains the “public option” re health insurance reform.

In this video at Bill Moyers' Journal, Bill Moyers and and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich rolled up their sleeves to discuss Barack Obama's objectives regarding national health care reform, including the (potentially feasible) "public option" and (not unlikely option of) "single payor." The bottom line: Barack Obama has an uphill struggle against some extremely powerful (monied) interests, including the private insurers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and other profit-driven corporations that have each hired fleets of lobbyists yelling "socialism." At the 14-minute mark, listen to Reich describe how the financial sector has "pulled the wool over the eyes" of the Obama Administration. He warns that the lobbyists are enormously powerful, and that we need Obama and average citizens to start standing up to the lobbyists. As things are, nothing has fundamentally changed regarding the financial system, other than the financial sector's new ability to paper over its scandalous practices and its ever-increasing massive transfer of wealth from America's middle class to the financial sector. In 1980, the top 1% of the country took home 9% of the total national income. By 2007, the top 1% was taking home 21% of the national purchasing power. Reich explains that the middle class has been drained of financial and government power. What has happened is that "capitalism has swallowed democracy." Reich explains that when the government fails to set boundaries, we have the law of the jungle, and we then have super-capitalism, which is capitalism without democracy. The culprits were the lobbyists who made sure that there was no effective regulation of the financial sector.

Continue ReadingRobert Reich explains the “public option” re health insurance reform.

Tobacco money at work at Congress

When a product kills 450,000 Americans every year, don't you think it deserves a high level of scrutiny and regulation? I mean, aren't you a bit surprised that it's even illegal, given that marijuana, which kills nobody (except due to insanely reactionary law enforcement), is completely outlawed? Consider that the bodies of the people killed by tobacco every year would stretch more than 500 miles, if laid end to end. Every one of those dead people were using tobacco products exactly as anticipated by the manufacturers. Those dead bodies could stretch from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina (or pick your own 500 mile radius). Can you imagine the tobacco executives walking along one of those 500 mile lines of dead bodies, justifying the carnage? Walking, whistling and thinking, "Just look at all of those people who were dumb enough to buy that highly addictive product that I promoted and sold . . ." And now consider the morals of some of our politicians. Step forward, Senators who oppose the new law that subjects tobacco to FDA regulation. Thanks to McClatchy Newspapers, we know that many of you are tobacco whores:

Among the 17 senators who voted against allowing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco are some of the top recipients of campaign contributions from the tobacco industry, which has donated millions of dollars to lawmakers in the past several campaign cycles.

If you want more details who which tobacco whore has received how much money, visit OpenSecrets.org. Consider, too, that the corruption that exists with regard to tobacco, also exists with regard to any major industry. For instance, consider health care, defense contracting, farming (including wasteful corn ethanol subsidies), and last but not least, the financial "services" industries. Serving themselves to our tax-dollars. Now I'm not for outlawing tobacco. But I am for unleashing a torrent of high-profile prime-time advertising that would show the death and destruction caused by tobacco up close and in nauseating detail. And I am for allowing the FDA to join in the war against smoking. Why? Consider this comment from Dick Durbin from a report by MSNBC:

"This is a bill that will protect children and will protect America," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a leading supporter. "Every day that we don't act, 3,500 American kids — children — will light up for the first time. That is enough to fill 70 school buses."

Continue ReadingTobacco money at work at Congress