Offit Offensive Has Failed, Vaccine-Autism War Continues, Child Vaccine Refusals Increase in U.S.

Breaking News Update:


I had just posted this comment when I read the CP Breaking News update Parents with more education less likely to let their daughters get HPV shots featuring extensive commentary by Field Marshal Paul Offit the man with great vaccine credibility ... with the main stream media ... not so much ... maybe none at all ...  with parents, including apparently better educated parents.  Personally I think including Paul Offit in an article about vaccine safety is counter productive if parents are the audience that authorities are trying to convince. The article despite the education levels of the parents, blames the internet for leading these parents to question public health authorities pronouncements on vaccine safety.  As always the possibility that parental concerns might be legitimate is not referenced in the article.  The Offit Offensive ... the insanity ... continues.

 
The latest news from the Vaccine-Autism front is summarized succcinctly in the CBC headline Child vaccine refusals increase in U.S. The article reports on the study by Philip Smith and his colleagues of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta which found that "between 2003 and 2008, the percentage of parents who refused or delayed vaccination doses "increased significantly from 22 per cent to 39 per cent."  Authorities will scratch their heads over this information, will wonder how they can get through to those stupid, ignorant, hysterical and ill informed parents who do not accept their dictates about what is best for their children.  They will continue to follow the same insane strategy of trying to convince parents, while insulting them,  that all vaccines, and all vaccine ingredients are always safe no matter how many times they are given and no matter what contrary information they might stumble  upon.  

What the authorities will not do, can not do, is acknowledge that they have not always been forthright in addressing public concerns and that they have ignored credible health professionals who in fact do have questions about the state of the "science" on vaccine safety particularly as it pertains to autism. 

If anyone from American or Canadian public health offices reads this blog commentary and decides that what I  say in this comment is typical "anti-vaxxer" nonsense they should know that I have two sons all of whom have received all of the recommended vaccine shots. I have never attributed my youngest son's severe autistic disorder to vaccination although I do have an open mind on the issue now.  I do not  believe the rhetoric of the failed, and insane, strategy of public health authorities and mainstream media giants who simply dismiss parents, health professionals and researchers who question whether "science" has actually determined for all time that all vaccines are always effective and safe.  The strategy has failed and yet the strategy continues to be relied on by the same authorities and media giants hoping for a different result.

On January 24 2009 in Einstein's Reply to Paul Offit I questioned the rationality of public health authorities and professionals who keep following the same failed strategy to convince parents to vaccinate their children and expecting to see different results.  I set out two quotes as an introduction to that comment:

"These outbreaks have not, apparently, been sobering. If anything, the number of parents choosing to delay or withhold or separate vaccines is increasing. So what will it take?

Paul Offit

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein"

It is now 16 months later and Paul Offit and company keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and keep expecting to see different results. The insanity has not ended and there are no signs that it will. There are no signs that  public health officials or the mainstream media will abandon the Offit strategy which has been an utter failure.  The increases in vaccine refusals are clear indicators that it is insane to keep following the Offit strategy and expecting a different result.

Insulting Jenny McCarthy and other parents fighting for their children will not work.  Let me repeat that one since it is quite simple yet difficult for Offit and company to grasp: insulting Jenny McCarthy and other parents fighting for their children will not work.

Ignoring health professionals and researchers  like Dr. Bernadine Healy  and pharmaceutical official Dr. Julie Gerberding, both of whom have previously stated that a study comparing autism rates of existing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations could and should be done will not work. Ignoring a clinical and academic neurologist and parent like Dr. Jon Poling who has called for more environmentally focused autism research, including more vaccine oriented autism research will not work. Ignoring a researcher like Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto who says that the studies allegedly disproving a thimerosal autism connection are flawed and that stronger sceince is needed on the issue.

Playing politics by appointing those like Ari Ne'eman who oppose curing  autism to the IACC will not work.  Allowing an Alison Singer, nominated to the IACC by Autism Speaks, to  abandon that organization's mandate by voting against an historically crucial recommendation for the comparative autism vaccine study before jumping ship to join Paul Offit at the Autism Science Foundation, will not work. 

Parents know that the "science" on vaccines and autism is not as solid as portrayed by the Offit media armies. They know that research of vaccine and other potential environmental triggers of autism has been discouraged since the 1990's.  They know that public health authorities like the IACC have pushed the flawed thimerosal autism studies while refusing to  conduct the comparative studies recommended by Gerberding and Healy and while refusing the Hertz-Picciotto and Poling recommendations for stronger scientific research on thimerosal and other vaccine autism issues.

I am a parent who vaccinates my children but still has questions about vaccines.  I acknowledge the important role that vaccines have played in public health and disease prevention in children.  But there is a resource which is even more important in protecting and promoting the health of children and that resource is parents. It is that resource which has been subjected to unrelenting attack by the Offit armies as part of a failed and insane strategy to convince parents to vaccinate their children. 

It is long past time for the Offit armies, including the new Autism Science Foundation, mainstream media like the NYT, the Chicago Tribune, the Globe and Mail and PBS and internet foot soldiers like the blogging sites listed on the Autism Science Foundation web site to leave the field.  It is time for health authorities and researchers who understand that parents are the number one resource in child health promotion to work with parents and address their concerns instead of dismissing them. 

Will my small voice be heard and have any impact? Highly, highly unlikely.  The odds are good that a year from now, two years from now, vaccine refusals will have increased again in the US and the Offit armies will still be in the field attacking the number one child health resource ... their parents ... and hoping to see a different result.

Vaccine-Autism War: Alison Singer Regurgitated

She is using different metaphors but Alison Singer is regurgitating her beliefs that numerous studies have been done disproving any vaccine-autism connection and now it is time to move on. Ms Singer was interviewed by Newsweek.com immediately after her clandestine vote to help reverse a previous Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee vote authorizing vaccine-autism studies. In an interview published online today on The Observer (Guardian.co.uk) Ms Singer repeats the black and white conclusions she offered at that time using some more colorful language:

"If you keep looking under the same rock, you're going to keep finding the same thing. Over and over, the science has shown there is no causal link between vaccines and autism. It's time to look for answers in new and different places."

Alison Singer, The Observer, January 25, 2009

Ms Singer will undoubtedly give more interviews rationalizing her decision to help prevent credible vaccine-autism research. Hopefully she will do more than regurgitate the same points and offer some informed responses to those very credible sources, like former American Red Cross and NIH head Dr. Bernadine Healy, who have articulated compelling arguments for further studies of possible vaccine-autism connections.

But Ms Singer is on the right track this time. There is wisdom in her comments about looking under different rocks. That is exactly what the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee had decided to do in December 2008 before Ms Singer joined IACC officials in reversing that December decision. Ms Singer with her vote helped prevent new rocks from being lifted, new information from being found.

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Vaccine-Autism War: Albert Einstein's Reply To Paul Offit

These outbreaks have not, apparently, been sobering. If anything, the number of parents choosing to delay or withhold or separate vaccines is increasing. So what will it take?


Paul Offit


Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.


Albert Einstein

How rational are public health authorities and health care professionals who express concern over increasing non-vaccination rates of children of parents concerned the vaccines might trigger the onset of autism in their children? A strategy in place, for over 10 years, of demonizing parents and researchers who claim that vaccines cause or might cause or contribute to the onset of autism disorders has failed. Yet public health spokespersons continue the same failed strategy expecting different results.

Research of a possible vaccine-autism connection has been actively discouraged by public health authorities as was noted by researcher Teresa Binstock in 1999. Ms Binstocks observations can be confirmed in public health documents like the 2004 IOM report on autism and vaccines. At the same time authorities and spokespersons simply choose to ignore and not respond to, public statements by such a credible authority as Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the NIH and the American Red Cross who has pointed out the need for research, beyond epidemiological studies, of possible vaccine-autism connections (1)(2).

Teresa Binstock also pointed out in 1999 that parents offering anecdotal evidence of a vaccine-autism connection, and researchers who attempted to study such evidence, would be demonized by spokespersons for public health authorities and what she has predicted has come to pass. Her predictions are reflected in the recent media offensive, led by Dr. Paul Offit and Alison Singer, to promote demeaning views of parents who believe, based on their observations and knowledge of their own children and their development history, that vaccines played a role in their children's autism onset. At the same time very credible critics like Dr. Bernardine Healy, who has made a case for proper research of possible vaccine-autism connections are ignored.

Still the numbers of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are rising, according to Dr. Paul Offit, suggesting that a strategy of marginalizng parents and critics of vaccine programs has failed. The public is continuing to lose confidence in the safety of vaccines as Dr. Offit implicitly acknowledged in his most recent opinion piece, this time on the Huffington Post:

These outbreaks have not, apparently, been sobering. If anything, the number of parents choosing to delay or withhold or separate vaccines is increasing. So what will it take? Certainly, as more and more children contract measles and pertussis, deaths from these diseases will follow. And it's not a leap to believe that we could see other deadly diseases, like polio and diphtheria; both of which still occur commonly in some areas of the world; and both of which are only a plane ride away from causing outbreaks in relatively unvaccinated communities in the United States.

Dr. Offit's question is rhetorical at best and cynical at worst. He is a very intelligent individual, extremely well educated and very well informed. He knows, or should know, the answer to his own question. It will take credible research of possible vaccine-autism connections to restore public confidence in the vaccine programs. The kind of research that the IACC backed in December of 2008 before reversing itself a few very short weeks later on January 14, 2009.

The demonizing of parents as desperate, delusional and dangerous has not worked. Ignoring their anecdotal evidence has not worked. Ignoring credible critics, like Dr. Bernadine Healy, who have presented a strong case for reliable research of vaccine-autism issues has not worked. Refusing to conduct the necessary research while repeating endlessly the discredited mantra that vaccine-autism connections have been dis-proven will not work. It is time to stop the public relations offensive against parents and do proper, credible research into these issues.

Pursuing the same strategy of marginalizing parents, ignoring credible professionals and refusing to do the necessary research will not produce a different result, it will not restore public confidence in the vaccine programs. To expect otherwise is ...... insanity.

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Vaccine-Autism War: Media Offensive Marginalizes Parents and Ignores Dr. Bernadine Healy

It was only one week ago, on January 13, 2009 that the New York Times published its puff piece promoting Dr. Paul Offit and his pro-vaccine agenda. The NYT praised Offit and vaccines and portrayed parents who assert a causal connection between vaccines and autism disorders as over-emotional, crazed, even dangerous. The article appeared the day before the IACC's clandestine reversal of its previous decision to authorize funding of possible environmental causes of autism, including possible vaccine-autism connections.

The NYT article was followed up on January 16, 2009 by a Newseek.com interview of Alison Singer a former senior officer with Autism Speaks, who resigned from that organization the evening before the vote to reverse. The reversal vote was not specified on the agenda and other public representatives on the IACC received no prior notice. In the Newsweek article Ms Singer portrays parents who question the role of vaccines, and the various toxic substances they contain, as "a small number of people with very loud voices".

On January 19 and 20 the NYT continues the effort to portray parents as over-emotional and untrustworthy sources of information and anecdotal evidence in Trying Anything and Everything for Autism. In this article the NYT presents "behavioral intervention" as the only scientifically validated intervention for autism while portraying parents as desperate for trying alternative, unsubstantiated interventions.

The point of the article though is not to inform parents of autistic children, or the public, about a helpful intervention for autism. If that were the case the NYT article would have expressly referenced the specific "behavioral intervention" that is scientifically validated as effective in treating but not curing autism - Applied Behavioral Analysis. If the article was intended to inform the public it would have given a detailed description of ABA programs, how they work, the detailed record keeping involved and the very considerable and specific evidence in support of ABA as an autism intervention as summarized in the 2007 American Academy of Pediatrics review Management of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders :


Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is the process of applying interventions that are based on the principles of learning derived from experimental psychology research to systematically change behavior and to demonstrate that the interventions used are responsible for the observable improvement in behavior. ABA methods are used to increase and maintain desirable adaptive behaviors, reduce interfering maladaptive behaviors or narrow the conditions under which they occur, teach new skills, and generalize behaviors to new environments or situations. ABA focuses on the reliable measurement and objective evaluation of observable behavior within relevant settings including the home, school, and community. The effectiveness of ABA-based intervention inASDs has been well documented through 5 decades of research by using single-subject methodology21,25,27,28 and in controlled studies of comprehensive early intensive behavioral intervention programs in university and community settings.29–40 Children who receive early intensive behavioral treatment have been shown to make substantial, sustained gains in IQ, language, academic performance, and adaptive behavior as well as some measures of social behavior, and their outcomes have been significantly better than those of children in control groups.31–40

The aim of this latest NYT article, however, was not to inform the public about the well documented, evidence based, benefits of ABA as an intervention for autism. As the title makes clear, the theme of the article is that parents are desperate. The clear implication is that the opinions of desperate parents should not be given much, if any, weight in public discussions about complex, important, issues surrounding autism - issues like the role of vaccines and vaccine ingredients as potential triggers of autism disorders.

In the January 13 article the NYT praised Dr. Paul Offit, a leading critic of those who question the autism related safety of vaccines. Newsweek.com interviewed Alison Singer also a critic of the rabble rousing parents who presume to question the practice of injecting children with mercury and other toxic substances.

The second NYT article of January 19-20 quotes Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, author of “Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion”. "Coincidentally" the two NYT articles (and the Newsweek.com interview) bookend the secretive decision of the IACC to reverse its decision of only weeks earlier to authorize funding for research of the very issues that concern the delusional, desperate, loud parents marginalized in these shameful excuses for journalism.

No mention is made in these three articles of:

1) The IACC decision of December 2008 to authorize funding of research into potential environmental, including potential vaccine, causes or triggers of autism.

2) The clandestine IACC decision of January 14, 2009 to reverse its December decision to authorize environmental and vaccine factors related to autism.

3) The views of Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the NIH and the American Red Cross, who has stated that there are real issues concerning vaccines and autism disorder that have not been researched fully and should be researched.

The above facts do not necessarily show any conspiratorial involvement by the NYT, or Newsweek, to help public health authorities involved with the clandestine move to suppress research of possible environmental and vaccine contributors to autism disorders. But at the very minimum it shows that the authors and editors of these media institutions are dupes of the authorities who did move secretively to prevent such research from moving forward.

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Vaccine-Autism War: The Empire Strikes Back

Whatever one's views about autism, vaccines and alleged government-"pharma" conspiracies it is clear that the recent IACC vote and surrounding events evidence an orchestrated, if panic stricken, attempt by the empire to quell dissent, to quash a simmering rebellion against official vaccine policies and prevent public inquiry into a possible vaccine-autism connection.

The clandestine IACC vote (the vote was not on the agenda and public members had no prior notice) reversed its own decision of the previous month authorizing vaccine-autism studies. In the earlier vote, as reported by David Kirby on the Huffington Post on January 5, 2009:

"In fact, two vaccine-autism studies have been approved by the IACC, which has proposed spending $16 million to:

1) "Study the effect of vaccines, vaccine components, and multiple vaccine administration in autism causation and severity through a variety of approaches, including cell and animal studies, and understand whether and how certain subpopulations in humans may be more susceptible to adverse effects of vaccines by 2011. Proposed costs: $6,000,000

2) Determine the feasibility and design an epidemiological study to determine if the health outcomes, including ASD, among various populations with vaccinated, unvaccinated, and alternatively vaccinated groups by 2011. Proposed costs: $10,000,000

Additionally, under "Research Opportunities," the panel also endorsed this objective:

"Monitor the scientific literature regarding possible associations of vaccines and other environmental factors (e.g., ultrasound, pesticides, pollutants) with ASD to identify emerging opportunities for research and indicated studies."

For proponents of vaccine-autism research, this is a resounding victory. It covers much of what these advocates have been supporting for a number of years. It is also sure to enrage those who are opposed to such research."

Kirby's words were prophetic. On January 13, 2009 the New York Times published a one-sided promotion of Dr. Paul Offit's book Autism’s False Prophets, a pro-vaccine critique of those who argue that vaccines trigger autism disorders. The article portrays Dr. Offit as a pediatrician, ... a mild, funny and somewhat rumpled 57-year-old who carrys on a heroic struggle to protect children around the world despite anger, even death threats, from irrational parents. He is "a lightning rod, a figure who goes charging into the fray.”

Selective quoting is used to present anti-vaccine parents as parasites who should be disregarded by reporters in the same fashion as holocaust deniers, AIDS deniers and those claiming that the moon landing was faked. No reference is made to the position of Dr. Bernadine Healy (former NIH and American Red Cross head) that more research of a possible autism-vaccine connection should be conducted. (Fighting the Vaccine-Autism War, Leading Dr.: Vaccines-Autism Worth Study).

Still on January 13, 2009, the Age of Autism, a rebel stronghold in the vaccine-autism war, sensing something is amiss, questions the NYT puff piece on Offit and the timing of the article:

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get the NYT to mention your book? Let alone a book that came out over five months ago. Why the mollycoddling of Dr. Offit and his book? Why now?


Then, on the evening of January 13, 2009, a public representative on the IACC, Alison Singer, resigns from Autism Speaks "based on her intention to vote on certain Strategic Plan vaccine safety matters in a way that diverged from Autism Speaks' position on this issue." The timing of her resignation suggests that she knew the vote to reverse the IACC December decision to fund vaccine-autism research would be scheduled and would not allow for any media or internet examination of her resignation prior to the vote.

On January 14, 2009 the IACC votes to reverse its decision of a few weeks earlier:

to approve objectives relating to vaccine safety research as part of its deliberations for the Strategic Plan for Autism Research. The decision to debate removing these objectives was not posted on the meeting's agenda, nor were the public members given any forewarning that this section of the plan – which was resolved at the previous IACC meeting in December -- would be revisited. [ Autism Speaks Press Notice]

On January 16, 2009 Newsweek.com publishes an interview with Alison Singer in which Ms Singer declares in respect of a vaccine autism connection that "This Question Has Been Asked And Answered’. She states that dozens of studies have exonerated vaccines as a cause of autism. The dissidents who assert a vaccine autism connection are portrayed as a small number of people with very loud voices. As with the NYT and Dr. Offit, neither Ms Singer nor Newsweek make any reference to the critique of the epidemiological studies by Dr. Bernadine Healy or her view that more research of the vaccine-autism question is needed. Dr. Healy's comments about the limits of epidemiological studies or the continued presence of thimerosal in vaccines are not mentioned.

On January 20, 2009 President-Elect Barack Obama will be sworn in as President of the United States. The mainstream media which co-operated with the empire's campaign to quash dissidence on the vaccine-autism issue will be busy with that historic occasion. There will be little time, space or attention for a bunch of looney, irrational, anti-science parents led by an actress.

The empire has struck back. Will that end the matter? In the Lucas movies it did not. In the very real vaccine-autism war it is difficult to see how those who believe in, suspect, or have an open mind on the vaccine-autism issue will be persuaded by this orchestrated series of events.

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Reseach Based Autism Understanding and Hope for Treatment

Children and adults with autism and their families have been cursed by ignorance. Ignorance of what autism is, what causes it and what treatments are suitable. From Bettleheim, to his heirs in the Neurodiversity movement today, parents have been scapegoated for the challenges faced by autistic children, children who become adults and in some cases face greater challenges alone, without family. A variety of quack treatments have defrauded families of time, money and hope.

Early intensive intervention with Applied Behavior Analysis has been demonstrated and proven effective in helping many autistic persons to overcome their autism deficits or improve their abilities to function and understand the world. But ABA is expensive and time consuming and governments and other service providers have resisted the introduction and proper provision of ABA services. They have been aided in their resistance by ideologues with personal agendas who argue against ABA on any ground they can and who will use distorted caricatures of ABA to advance their agendas.

Today research into the causes of autism and possible biomedical treatments is exploding. An Autism Knowledge Revolution is taking place. The paradigm for researching and understanding autism has shifted to a combined genetic/environmental perspective withtreatments encompassing combined biomedical/behavioral approaches. Each days headlines bring new reports of important developments. With this research is coming greater understanding of autism, its genetic roots and its environmental triggers. And hope for treatments that will help all autistic persons grows.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/

Researchers: New understanding of autism is near

Last month, the Cold Spring Harbor team developed a grand unification theory that stitched together previous notions about the genetics of autism and demonstrated how DNA variants - often transmitted from mothers to sons but not exclusively so - may lie at the disorder's roots. Boys are three times more likely than girls to develop autism, Wigler said. He's calling on the CDC to use laboratory techniques similar to the ones he and his Cold Spring Harbor collaborators have developed to assess the prevalence of autism-related mutations in the U.S. population. Screening would help provide guidance on the rate of autism's growth in the population, he said.

...

Based on his work to date, Wigler surmises a clear genetic understanding of the numerous ways in which autism manifests may be tantalizingly close: "I expect that we'll have a very good bead on a number of the [genetic] causes," of autism in the not-too-distant future, Wigler said. "And I suspect there will be a way to treat children to lessen the symptoms." With his Cold Spring Harbor collaborators, Jonathan Sebat and Lakshmi Muthuswamy, Wigler has found that spontaneous mutations specific to autism occur with a relative degree of frequency in the human genome. These random strikes are technically known as copy number variants, or CNVs. The Cold Spring Harbor team defines these mutating hits as a major cause of autism.

...

Alison Singer, executive director of Autism Speaks, a national advocacy organization, said the Cold Spring Harbor studies are destined to have a strong impact on how parents understand autism.

"We want them to pursue the science wherever it leads," Singer said. "But we don't want to get into a situation where we blame the parents. When some parents read stories about older fathers or older mothers, they can become very sensitive."

Singer said what's missing in Wigler's work is the mechanism that causes genes to mutate. Susceptibility genes, she said, often need an outside stimulus to set off a genetic chain of events. Perhaps parents may be correct who think vaccination underlies autism, said Singer, whose daughter and brother are autistic.

"In the 1960s, when my brother was diagnosed, there was the theory of the 'refrigerator mother,' the mother who was too cold," Singer said. "They were essentially telling my mother that she wasn't interacting and bonding with her child. But, of course, we found out that autism is not the fault of bad parenting."

Wigler thinks his work will yield practical information that aids the lay and scientific understanding of autism. It is even possible that knowing which genes are affected can lead to medications that block the function of variant DNA.