Internet Autism Discourse: False Allegations from Knight Errant Sir Kev

Don Quijote by Honoré Daumier(1868)

Discussing autism issues on the internet often invites wild and baseless accusations no matter what point is being made.  Mention the word vaccine though and you can be guaranteed someone will react irrationally.  Such is the case of Kev Leitch, a knight errant  in search of a battle in which to prove himself,  who has falsely accused me of being an "anti-vaxxer".  For the record both of my sons have received the recommended and required vaccines,  I have never attributed my youngest son's autistic disorder to receipt of any vaccines and I have often recognized the important role of vaccines as a public health tool which has prevented and controlled some deadly diseases.  So why does Kev call me an "anti-vaxxer"?

My sin? I keep an open mind on issues about vaccine safety, the extent to which vaccines are used today and the way in which they are pushed and promoted in our modern society.  I particularly object to the constant smearing and marginalizing of anyone who questions vaccine safety.  Kev Leitch is one of those who, for reasons unknown to me, feels compelled to twist and slant comments of anyone, even this humble blogger, who do not treat vaccine issues as though they have been decided for all time by some holy text. 

Sir Kev's need to defend vaccines from all threats real or imaginary, present or anticipated, emerged again in this post  in which he accused me of  being an anti-vaxxer and making "implied" false statements.  Making an implied false statement is quite a trick.  I have no idea how I did it or what false statement I implied but I will leave that explanation to Sir Kev:

"However, as ever in the world of autism, the world of the anti-vaccinationists are never far behind. This passage from Harold Doherty demonstrates this bizarre need to always conflate the two:

The Poling family was successful in advancing a vaccine injury claim on behalf of their daughter Hannah Poling to the point of settlement by US authorities. Hannah’s father is Dr. Jon Poling, a practicing neurologist in Athens, Georgia, and clinical assistant professor at the Medical College of Georgia. He reviewed his daughter’s case in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on April 11, 2008. In his comments Dr. Poling explained how mitchondrial dysfunction was related to his daughter’s case and to the existence of a possible mitochondrial dysfunction subgroup of autism disorder. He also discussed, as a medical doctor who expressly recognized the importance of vaccines in preventing serious diseases, the need for public health authorities to abandon fear tactics and conduct research to restore confidence in public health authorities and vaccines

In order to try and staunch the upcoming flood of misunderstandings and false statements like those implied by Doherty (and John Poling whom other mtDNA specialists such as John Shoffner clearly don’t trust on the issue), I contacted Professor Giulivi and asked her three simple questions about the study she is lead author of. She supplied three simple answers.

KL: Do you think, based on available science (including your paper) that vaccines cause autism?

CG: We do not have any evidence for this in our study. Our study was cross-sectional not longitudinal so it cannot point to any cause (not just vaccines), meaning we do not have anydata supporting one way or another."

At no point in my comment did I state that vaccines cause autism. I have never, ever stated that vaccines cause autism disorders and that was not implied in my article.  My position on autism disorders generally is that we do not know specifically what causes them but they appear to be caused by the interaction of genetic and environmental factors.  We do not know what specific environmental factors are involved because so little research has been done on the environmental side of the equation.  There are many possible environmental factors which MAY cause autism disorders including vaccines, particularly those given to pregnant women. I have maintained, and still do, that more research should be done on all possible environmental causes or triggers of autism disorders including possible vaccine triggers.  For taking these positions Kev Leitch falsely accuses me of being an "anti-vaxxer".

Nor did I state or insinuate in my comment that mitochondrial dysfunction causes autism disorders.  I did indicate that the study will prompt much more research on possible connections between mitochondrial dysfunction and autism disorders.  I also  commented on the fact that any mention of  a possible connection, and of a possible vaccine connection, would result in more of the kind of smearing and marginalization that was seen in the Economist article that I had referenced.

The Economist article that I quoted in my comment was a knee jerk attempt to find a target (lawyers) in anticipation of issues arising from the Autism and Mtiochondrial Dysfunction study.  Kev Leitch has, once again, done exactly the same ... as expected.

On to the next windmill Sir Kev.

Is Autism Epidemic Denialism Starting to Crack?

Kev Leitch has reluctantly, very reluctantly, begun to acknowledge that maybe there are environmental factors involved in causing autism. For reasons that just aren't clear he calls his LBRB comment on a New Scientist article on autism increases  The autism ‘epidemic’ no more  even though the article does not provide any evidence to support the conclusion asserted in that title.  In the New Scientist article  Autism explosion half explained, half still a mystery Jim Giles reports that Dr. Peter Bearman and colleagues  at Columbia Unviersity conducted a three year study and found that only approximately half of the startling increases in autism diagnoses can be explained by diagnostic change, increased awareness and increased parental age.

Giles  references two primary sources to comment on the implications of the unexplained half of the autism increases, Dr. Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville, Maryland and  Roy Grinker, anthropologist at George Washington University. Dr. Tom Insel:

 But now a series of a studies have shown that diagnostic changes alone cannot account for the increase. They suggest that other causes, perhaps environmental factors, are also contributing to the rise in cases.

"These studies give me the feeling that there must be a true increase in the number of children affected," says Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville, Maryland.

...

Insel says that environmental factors are most likely to be behind the rise, although research to pin down which are to blame will take years.

For a contrary view Giles referred to Roy Grinker of George Washington University who trotted out his pet theory, the "stigma" theory,  to question the existence of a real increase in autism:

"Autism used to be highly stigmatised, in part because it was thought to be due to poor parenting. The removal of that stigma has made doctors and parents more willing to recognise the disease, which will have contributed to [some of] the extra cases, says Roy Grinker, an anthropologist at George Washington University in Washington DC.

This and other social causes, together with uncertainty in the number of cases that can be attributed to the factors already studied by Bearman, could account for much or all of the unexplained half, says Grinker."

The article does not explain what Professor Grinker meant by the "uncertainty" in the number of cases that can be attributed to the factors already studied by Bearman and his colleagues who studied these cases over a three year period and explained roughly half of the increase on diagnostic change and awareness. To my knowledge Grinker has not conducted a similar lengthy or extensive study to substantiate his "stigma" theory that autism is not really increasing. 

Kev Leitch, a Neurodiversity blogger,  who has long denied the existence of an autism epidemic grapples with the Bearman study implications with even more confusing and convoluted logic than Professor Grinker:

"So what can we take from Bearman’s work? In my opinion we can take the fact that as soon as the questions regarding non-environmental causes were actually looked at and studied, there were numerical values that could be applied to their contribution. There are other non-environmental causes which Bearman didn’t look at which would probably be found to contribute to the other half.

What about the alleged environmental causes? It would not surprise me in the least if it were found that there were some."

From that observation we then go back to the title of Leitch's comment "The Autism Epidemic No More" which makes absolutely no sense at all in light of the Bearman study, the New Scientist article or Leitch's own painful acknowledgement that environmental factors might be involved in explaining the increases in autism diagnoses.  Autism epidemic denialism is beginning to crack but it is a painful process for those, like Roy Grinker and Kev Leitch,  who have been loath to admit that environmental factors are involved in causing or triggering autism disorders. 

Perhaps Professor Grinker and Blogger Leitch will have less difficulty accepting the role of environmental factors in causing autism if and when the grotesque imbalance which favors genetic autism research over environmental autism research by 19 or 20  to 1 is eliminated in favor of more balanced distribution between genetics and environment.  Perhaps then they will see the Autism Epidemic that has been staring at us in recent years.

Autism Rising? Dr. Eric Fombonne Says Yes It Is

Despite the recent figures from the CDC revising autism prevalence rates upward from 1 in 150 to 1 in 110 die hard deniers of the existence of an autism epidemic refuse to acknowledge the obvious.  One of the most stubborn deniers is Kev Leitch at LBRB a Neurodiversity driven "autism" blog. 

In a recent lbrb post  denying the reality of the increasing rates of autism disorders Kev clings to the 1994 diagnostic changes and to social and ascertainment factors.  He does so even though Dr. Tom Insel, head of the IACC, has recently stated that studies can only attribute slightly less than 50% of the startling rates of increases to such diagnostic and ascertainment factors. The onus, according to Dr. Insel, is on those who would deny that autism is actually increasing to make their case.

Kev's diagnostic and ascertainment factors accounting for less than 50% of the autism increases what is left? Well Kev drops a few names without much explanation.  One of the names he drops, somewhat curiously is Dr. Eric Fombonne.   What makes Kev's reference to Dr. Fombonne so curious is that the good Doctor has previously indicated that autism actually is rising and quite dramatically.  He did so in the context of "debunking" claims that the mercury based preservative thimerosal used in vaccines (including recently in the H1N1 vaccines) does not cause autism disorders (as reported by Scripp news) :

"One of the main pieces of evidence against the vaccine theory, Minshew said, is that thimerosal has been banned from most childhood vaccines in America since 2001, and yet reported autism rates have continued to increase.Dr. Eric Fombonne, an autism researcher at McGill University in Montreal, has an even more telling example of that. In Quebec, children who got vaccines from 1987 to 1991 had about half as much mercury exposure as those in the United States; from 1992 to 1995, they had the same amount; and from 1996 on they had no exposure at all because mercury preservatives were removed. Yet the autism rates in Quebec increased steadily through that entire period, and actually went up faster after the mercury was eliminated."

I do not know if Dr. Fombonne is correct in stating that mercury was removed from all Quebec vaccines or not.  What is relevant for Kev's argument  who cites Dr. Fombonne as an authority for the view that autism is not really rising is the fact that well ... Dr. Fombonne has argued exactly the opposite in trying to prove that mercury based thimerosal in children's vaccines has been exonerated as a cause of autism disorders.   If the increase in autism diagnoses relied on by Dr. Fombonne in defending thimerosal was not a real increase, if it was due entirely to diagnostic and social factors, then Dr. Fombonne's thimerosal defence would be destroyed.

The factors cited by Kev Leitch and other autism epidemic deniers do not account for more than 50% of the autism epidemic. Name dropping of experts like Dr. Fombonne  does not change that fact. Especially when they themselves have publicly relied on real autism increases in arguing against thimerosal as a factor causing autism disorders.

Autism is rising and it is long past time that we started doing the research to find out why.

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Autism Insanity: Kev Leitch Makes It Up As He Goes

UPDATES:


(1) Kev Leitch has now commented on this post but instead of either backing up his claim or admitting error he sticks to his original false statement. HLD.  


(2) Since the original update KL has twice submitted posts (which I rejected as off topic)  in which he fails to acknowledge that he wrongfully included me in the highlighted quote below which I took directly from his blog site. Instead, as per past practice, Mr. Leitch changes the topic, fails to admit his error and fails to substantiate his false claim. HLD   

The Autism Insanity comment I posted today provoked a knee jerk reaction from ... Kev Leitch at LBRB.  That is not a surprise. Kev fits every fact, news item or commentary into his Neurodiversity ideological blender and jumps quickly in an effort to discredit any contrary views.  His knee jerk post this time though resorted to an outright false statement.  Kev states that I am claiming that:

"Both Dachel and Harold (and David Kirby come to that) are claiming that epidemiology can be ursurped by individual experience"

The fact is that nothing in my post makes that claim.  Kev simply and falsely attributed that claim to me.

If anyone can point to where I said that in my post I would be happy to acknowledge error on my part.

Since Kev obviously reads this blog faithfully I encourage him to man up and point to where I claimed in my comment that "epidemiology can be usurped by individual experience".  If  Kev can not come forward and either point to that claim in my comment, or admit that his attribution to me of that comment is false,  then I would caution anyone about taking any of his comments too seriously.

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A ScienceBlogs Blogger Who Discusses Autism Rationally!

I am only a layperson, a humble parent, and small town lawyer, who makes no pretense to being a scientist. But I have a hard time reading blogs like Respectful Insolence by Orac (Dr. David Gorski) and believing that his blog is anything remotely resembling scientific discourse. His cheap and repetitive insults about Jenny McCarthy, David Kirby, the Geirs, Dr. Wakefield, biomed autism parents and professionals, etc do not resemble the science classes I attended in High School. "Woo", "quackery" and "lunacy" and other such terms that litter his every post do not seem to belong in a truly scientific lexicon, as this humble observer understands science.

Apart from Dr. Gorski and his ranting I have looked for other alleged science bloggers at ScienceBlogs who have commented rationally about autism. I haven't found too many that deal with autism at all, other than to deride the persons listed above, and anyone who questions the possible role played by vaccines in causing autism in some children. I have found one exception though at Greg Laden's Blog.

In Autism Study Examines Cause of Apparent Rise in Rate  Mr. Laden, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology, published a comment, on January 12, 2009, on the subject of the study by Irva Hertz-Picciotto and Lora Delwiche of the M.I.N.D. Institute, UC Davis, which examined the apparent (Dr. Laden's adjective)  rise in the frequency of diagnosed autism in California. That study noted that diagnostic definition changes, increased awareness and other social factors did not appear to explain the increases in autism noted in the study and suggested the need for more even funding of autism research to include possible environmental causes for autism.

Dr. Laden's remarks were fair, balanced and objective.  He noted the limitations of the study as well as some of the possible implications.  Dr. Laden addressed the fear that the study in question might have been overly influenced by anti-vax groups with an expanded 'environmental' focus but acknowledged that the study could, and should, stand or fall on its own merits in the long run. To this layperson Dr. Laden's approach smacked of .... well,  of science ... as I was led to believe it existed in my school science classes:

The fact that a careful look at reporting and diagnostic effects does not readily explain the level of magnitude of the change we see here suggests that more explanation is needed. 

In the absence of a correlation between these data and a list of causal effects (which could then lead to some effective hypothesis testing) it important to keep an open mind about what causes autism. I can think of no reason that this study's validity or lack thereof informs us in this regard. Those who wish to insist that no matter what there is no increase in autism rates are no less a failure at explaining autism as those who see a real increase in graphs like this one. 

Meanwhile, the authors of this study and others are looking into the data further to test for environmental links.

I don't know if Dr. Laden has since retreated from his reasonable response to  he UC Davis Mind study under pressure from alleged science bloggers  and Neurodiversity ideologues or not.  The  comment section following his commentary contains diatribes from the usual Neurodiversity ideologues  like Kev Leitch and Mike Stanton and of course "science" blogger Orac\Gorski who throws personal insults at Dr. Laden about his knowledge of the autism spectrum. (I am not sure what expertise, if any, Dr. Gorski  has concerning autism disorders, I understand he is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery).

I was unable to find any commentary at Greg Laden's blog about the recent CDC figures on autism prevalence now estimating that 1 in 110 children are affected by an autism disorder.  The study results were released just prior to Christmas with the obviously forseeable consequence that people would be occupied with other matters and not paying attention to the announcement.  Perhaps he would rather just not wade again into the dirty waters inhabited by the Insolent Dr. David H. Gorski and Neurodiversity ideologues Kev Leitch and Mike Stanton. 

Perhaps Greg Laden will offer commentary on the new CDC autism figures in the New Year.  Whatever the situation I hope that actual science bloggers and commentators are not scared off by the likes of Gorski, Stanton and Leitch.  Autism disorders, particularly Autistic Disorder, are very serious disorders that impair the lives of many.  Autistic children and adults can use good scientific analysis and discussion  about autism research and not the trash talk which is offered by so many alleged "science" bloggers listed at ScienceBlogs.

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