Dan Olmsted Fails To See The Problem
March 5, 2010 by Do'C 
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Over at the AoA blog, Dan Olmsted is stil ranting about the Andrew Wakefield saga. This time it’s about some of the mainstream media’s coverage of the Lancet retraction. The Wakefield Inquisition: Case Series Insanity
I’m not going to bother trying to explain to Dan why he’s attacking a straw man - a likely false position of the Lancet that the retraction of Wakefield’s 1998 Lancet paper is grounded in statistical error due to “selection bias”. Instead, I’m simply going to present a few selected quotes from Olmsted’s piece, evidence from a document he states should have been read, and ask him to reconcile the contradiction (without resorting to conspiracy theory).
The “EPA Mercury Limit” Canard
February 5, 2010 by Do'C Printer-Friendly Version
If there’s one thing typical of anti-vaccination trolls on the internet, it’s that they are fairly predictable. Amidst tons of logical fallacies, they’ll persistently ignore evidence, cite things that don’t say what they think they say, provide supporting information in the form of links to conspiracy theory stories, repeat things that have already been pointed out as incorrect, and pretty consistently ask for proof of a negative wherever they can. In addition to all that usual fare, it’s fairly common, that they’ll jump right into something about “evil toxins” when advocating against vaccination. A perfect example of this is persistent use of what I’ll call “The EPA Mercury Limit” canard.
In a recent article by Trine Tsouderos at the Chicago Tribune, the anti-vaccination brigade infested the comments like fleas. There was relatively little actual commentary on the article itself, the intersting points it raised, or the subject of the article - Boyd Haley’s new “dietary ingredient“ - OSR, that’s apparently being given to autistic children by parents who believe their childrens’ autism diagnoses are the result of some condition that is mecury-induced. Instead, anti-vaccine commenters turn the dialogue to vaccines, pharmaceutical industry conspiracy, and seem to spend more time attempting to appeal to fear than anything else.
One of the pervasive appeals to fear from vaccine rejectors is of course mercury in flu shots. They have to bring up flu shots most of the time, because they know (or should know) that mercury (ethylmercury specifically, present in the preservative Thimerosal, in multi-dose vials of injectable flu vaccines) has essentially been removed from the routine childhood vaccines that used to contain it. It’s been greatly reduced, or has been pretty much gone for seven or eight years now. The “Flu shots” is pretty much all they’ve got.
David Kirby - Still A Douchebag
October 10, 2009 by Do'C Printer-Friendly Version
In a recent article at his Huffington Post blog, David Kirby comments on recent word that the HHS would revise it’s estimates of prevalence for autism spectrum disorders, based on new data for the 1996 birth year cohort. Not surprisingly, Kirby had questions. Also not surprisingly, even though he essentially discards Thimerosal and MMR, his question boils down to vaccines. From his post (a question he apparently attempted to ask on a conference call with the NIMH director, Dr. Thomas Insel).
Note: there are now two very different versions - David Kirby apparently revised his post after I’d read it, and cut and pasted the relevant part of the first version a little over a week ago.
Here are both versions. I don’t know when the post was actually changed.
No “Sympathy” For Jenny McCarthy
July 17, 2009 by Do'C Printer-Friendly Version
The James Randi Educational Foundation’s TAM7 meeting took place in Las Vegas last week. This year’s meeting included a panel discussion entitled, “Anti Anti-Vaccination”. As scienceblogger, and panelist Orac notes in a recent post about “Enablers of the vaccine-autism manufactroversy“:
One of the issues that came up over which there was somewhat of a disagreement is exactly how to deal with prominent antivaccine activists, people such as Jenny McCarthy. The majority opinion seemed to be that being too blunt or hurling insults is ineffectual if we want to change their minds.
Another point to consider
While hurling insults probably is ineffectual, there is an important point underlying something that was brought up.
“Clear” Or “Unclear”?
April 7, 2009 by Do'C Printer-Friendly Version
Yeah, the Whoopee Cushion effect was added. I added the canned laughter too, because the notion that the mentioned study from UC Davis in California, in any way said, “unequivocally there’s been a clear rise, it’s not due to diagnostic substitution,” is laughable in my opinion.
But don’t take my word for it. Read the study for yourself.
Mild hyperbaric therapy for autism - ssh…don’t say it’s expensive
April 2, 2009 by Do'C Printer-Friendly Version
Originally published at LeftBrain/RightBrain.
When I recently wrote about the new HBOT-for-autism study (Rossignol et al. 2009)1, I took issue with unlikely claimed treatment pressures for at least one of the study locations. While a potential methodological weakness, this is probably a fairly small problem in light of potential issues with blinding and interpretation of the results as quantitatively and objectively meaningful with respect to autism. But let’s set those potential issues aside for a moment.
Let’s assume that treatment with slightly enriched air (24% vs. 21% oxygen) in an inflatable hyperbaric chamber pressurized to 4 PSI2,3 above ambient atmospheric pressure, could confer some sort of benefit to an autistic child.
I’m not suggesting assumption that it does confer benefit. I’m asking readers to set aside any knowledge of hemoglobin’s role in oxygen transport, as well as any knowledge of real hyperbaric oxygen therapy (breathing 100% oxygen at greater than 1 ATA)4, and evaluate a simpler proposition. Accept the proposal that some sort of benefit is scientifically possible, but then ask yourself a fairly simple question:
Compared to 24% O2 at 4PSI above ambient atmospheric pressure in an inflatable hyperbaric chamber, equivalent oxygen delivery can be achieved with simple oxygen therapy (an oxygen mask) at a fraction of the cost5 - why is a study of the hyperbaric version of this increased oxygen important?
Mild HBOT For Autism - A Brief Skeptical Guide
March 29, 2009 by Do'C Printer-Friendly Version
For readers who may be interested in a skeptical perspective with regards to “mild” hyperbaric oxygen therapy for autism, I’ve assembled a short list of links. These are articles that I’ve enjoyed reading, found interesting, or written myself.
In no particular order:
HBOT: Under Pressure
http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=131
HBOT: Is it just a bunch of hot air?
http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=127
Hyperbaric Oxygen for Autism
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=496
Is there no end to unscientific treatments for autism?
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=249
More Hot Air about HBOT
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=2055
Mild hyperbaric therapy for autism - Shh!…don’t say it’s expensive
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=2041
Autism, HBOT, and the new study by Rossignol et al.
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=1987
When High Does Mean Low: Autism, mHBOT, and Dan Rossignol
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=686
Does Rossignol et al. show HBOT’s effective?
http://ebdblog.com/2009/03/21/does-rossignol-et-al-show-hbots-effective
Ridiculous Autism Treatment Statements - Part One - ICDRC Website on HBOT
http://www.autismstreet.org/weblog/?p=130
Hyperbarics and Hypotheses
http://www.autismstreet.org/weblog/?p=60
Nitpicking Sloppy Science
http://www.autismstreet.org/weblog/?p=40
Autism HBOT: First Look
http://www.autismstreet.org/weblog/?p=36
Hyperbaric Oxygen as a Treatment for Autism: Let the Buyer Beware
http://autism.about.com/b/2009/03/14/hyperbaric-oxygen-as-a-treatment-for-autism-let-the-buyer-beware.htm
Hyperbaric Oxygen for Autism? Not so fast
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/492-hyperbaric-oxygen-for-autism-not-so-fast.html
Comments On Rossignol et al., 2009
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2431/9/21/comments
They’re all pretty good reading in my biased opinion. I’ll also take the opportunity to point out that “Mild hyperbaric therapy for autism - Shh!…don’t say it’s expensive” is just up at LeftBrain/RightBrain.
To read it, hop across the pond with a click, to:
Mild hyperbaric therapy for autism - Shh!…don’t say it’s expensive
Addendum (4/6/2009): Prometheus has a guest blog up at LeftBrain/RightBrain on Rossignol et al. (2009).
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