How to make money by selling to your victims while someone else pays for it

Here we go round the mulberry bush:

1) Pharmaceutical companies push for a new vaccine
2) The government mandates its use and subsidises it for low income families
3) Said company makes billions selling the vaccine to people who don't want it and can't afford it (what better marketing plan could anyone dream up?)
4) The vaccine causes autism in a given percentage of cases (even with a very low percentage, with universal inoculation we're talking many thousands of cases)
5) The Pharmaceutical company donates millions to foundations that push autism awareness
6) Said foundations get the government to underwrite treatment for autism
7) Pharmaceutical companies market autism-treatment drugs to gullible familes

and on and on it goes.

The wolf-child phenomenon: a modern view

Anyone familiar with Mowgli of Kipling's Jungle Book has heard of such a thing as a wolf-child. The idea of a child being raised by wolves runs deep in human experience, dating back to the founding of Rome. But on more of an historical note, I recently came across this tidbit in a 1930 book by E. Stanley Jones, an incarnational missionary to British India:

A wolf-child, captured near where I live in India, had lived with wolves from the age of two to the age of eleven. It ran on all fours. Its knee joints were stiff and enlarged from running in this fashion. It would eat only raw meat, and when it was put on a more civilized diet, it took dysentery and died.

Now, Jones never said that he himself witnessed any of this, so we are forced to first examine this story for apparent veracity. Let's begin by listing the alleged facts:

1) Nine years previous to a given date, a two-year-old child had disappeared from society.
2) Shortly before the given date, a being was captured in the wild who met the description of a wolf-child.
3) This creature was identified as being the lost child, now age eleven.
4) The child was then brought back into society, whereupon it died of dysentery.

Now, notice the inferences made from these facts:
1) The child had lived among wolves for nine years.
2) The child had eaten nothing but raw meat for nine years.
3) The child could only walk on all fours, due to its being raised by wolves.
4) The child could only tolerate a diet of raw meat, due to being raised by wolves.

Well, these may or may not be true. All humans start out without the ability to walk upright, and some never attain it; others lose it quite early. Without studying a wolf-child in its natural habitat--something that has never been done by a scientist--it's impossible to say for sure which of these were true. In researching the subject of wolf-children, I found that one universal characteristic is that they lack human language--so Mowgli heads back to the fairy tales where he belongs. It's also rather common in a wolf-child narrative that the child spends somewhere between eight and fifteen years in the wild before making contact with society.

One glaring problem with the veracity of the wolf-child phenomenon is that it has never been studied scientifically. The closest anyone has come is in the case of a Los Angeles girl known as "Genie," who was kept locked in a bedroom by her father until she was 13 years of age. Although she learned some speech after being brought out into society, she has never progressed beyond a most rudimentary level of communication. And she was so traumatized by scientists squabbling over the exclusive rights to study her that she regressed as an adult to the autistic state in which they had found her.

Many 'wolf child' stories can be attributed to an autistic child who is abandoned in the wild but manages to survive until later discovery. His autism makes any transition back to civilised life all but impossible, and he often dies from the sudden change in diet. One should therefore not approach a 'wolf-child' account as showing what happens to someone who is raised in the wild; rather, it shows how animalistic autistic children are by nature, making it all the easier for them to live among animals than among humans.

The idea of a child being raised by wolves runs deep in the human psyche. But when examined in the light of science, it turns out to mostly just be a good story.

Peer Review fails again

I have written earlier on the connexion between vaccines and autism, expressing my desire to see more research before reaching a conclusion. Just seeing research, however, is not sufficient; it must be evaluated. This is supposedly the task of Peer Review, which is thought to ensure that no pseudoscience makes it into print in the scholarly journals. Note that Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, wrote this about the peer review process (but not in his own magazine!):

We know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.

Perhaps nowhere has this process been demonstrated to have utterly failed more than in the case of Andrew Wakefield, who has been ostracized from the medical community over the publication (in The Lancet) of his study of the link between autism and the MMR vaccine. The first set of allegations against him (half of which were dismissed as unfounded), and his response, can be seen at this link. The 143-page fact sheet from the preliminary license revocation hearing of 3 of the article's authors (released this past January after 2½ years of investigation) can be found here.

As nearly as I can figure out, the only piece of evidence collected by Dr. Wakefield's team that is actually disputed is the condition of the children's intestines, and--what do you know--the original records have disappeared. This is how the Lancet article reads:

Findings

Onset of behavioural symptoms was associated, by the parents, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children, with measles infection in one child, and otitis media in another. All 12 children had intestinal abnormalities, ranging from lymphoid nodular hyperplasia to aphthoid ulceration. Histology showed patchy chronic inflammation in the colon in 11 children and reactive ileal lymphoid hyperplasia in seven, but no granulomas. Behavioural disorders included autism (nine), disintegrative psychosis (one), and possible postviral or vaccinal encephalitis (two). There were nofocal neurological abnormalities and MRI and EEG tests were normal. Abnormal laboratory results were significantly raised urinary methylmalonic acid compared with age-matched controls (p=0.003), low haemoglobin in four children, and a low serum IgA in four children.

The article concludes:

We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue. If there is a causal link between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and this syndrome, a rising incidence might be anticipated after the introduction of this vaccine in the UK in 1988. Published evidence is inadequate to show whether there is a change in incidence or a link with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. A genetic predisposition to autistic-spectrum disorders is suggested by over-representation in boys and a greater concordance rate in monozygotic than in dizygotic twins. In the context of susceptibility to infection, a genetic association with autism, linked to a null allele of the complement (C)4B gene located in the class III region of the major-histocompatibility complex, has been recorded by Warren and colleagues. C4B-gene products are crucial for the activation of the complement pathway and protection against infection: individuals inheriting one or two C4B null alleles may not handle certain viruses appropriately, possibly including attenuated strains. Urinary methylmalonic-acid concentrations were raised in most of the children, a finding indicative of a functional vitamin B12 deficiency. Although vitamin B12concentrations were normal, serum B12 is not a good measure of functional B12 status. Urinary methylmalonic-acid excretion is increased in disorders such as Crohn’s disease, in which cobalamin excreted in bile is not reabsorbed. A similar problem may have occurred in the children in our study. Vitamin B12 is essential for myelinogenesis in the developing central nervous system, a process that is not complete until around the age of 10 years. B12 deficiency may, therefore, be a contributory factor in the developmental regression. We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. Inmost cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.

One thing that greatly complicates the discussion is the latitude with which a diagnosis of Autism is dispensed. I read a billboard just the other day, that every 20 minutes another child is diagnosed with autism (where--in the hospital emergency room?). Yet the same child, with the same symptoms, can be diagnosed either with autism or pervasive development disorder, just on the basis of either not wanting to hurt the parents' feelings on the one hand, or qualifying for taxpayer-funded intervention on the other. It has become a political diagnosis as much as a medical one.

The research I have seen definitely points in the direction of a 3-fold link between:

1) Reaction to the MMR shots
2) Verbal and social regression around age 18 months
3) Casein and gluten allergy with cerebral symptoms

But millions of children being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder don't necessarily show this triad of symptoms. If meaningful research is to be done, children that show this triad must first be segregated from the great mass of those labeled with ASD.

In the mean time, informed parents will continue to do their own research and work out their own treatment regimens. Classic autism is clearly both preventable and treatable. If existing treatments don't work in any given case, it only shows that more study needs to be done.

'Lost girl' still in custody

This being Autism Awareness month and all, I've been following the story of Nadia Bloom, an adventuresome 11-year old who wandered into a Florida swamp last week and got lost. When she didn't turn up, her mom called the police.

Now, time there was when one of the jobs of a policeman was finding stray children. It kind of went along with firemen getting kittens out of trees. As recently as a couple of years ago, a boy I know got lost and his mom successfully got him back after involving a couple of small-town policemen in the search. OK, so he didn't think he was lost, but his mom sure did. I remember another case, in which this boy's father, as a child of about that age, was not lost but rather in hiding--which made it a bit harder to find him. That town being too small to have a police department, however, most of the searchers were ordinary citizens, although the local boy scout troop was called out for the search. He finally turned up, as his son did several decades later, in the most logical place to look--but in the panic of dealing with a missing person, it had been overlooked until last.

So I'm rather familiar with the concept of a missing child. But what doesn't mesh with my own experience is the heavy-handed manhunt that ensued after Tanya Bloom called 911. Troops in battle dress uniform, helicopters, armed officers on the lookout--it was as if a murderer had escaped from prison. Yet when she was found, it wasn't by the government agents, but by someone who knew and cared for Nadia: a man who says "The Lord led me to her."

The Lord's and Jim King's help may have been appreciated locating her, but at that point both of them became redundant, as Big Brother asserted his jurisdiction. Although Nadia was fully ambulatory, lucid, and in the process of rehydrating after four days without drinking water, she was ordered to stay put until a helicopter could arrive to spirit her away to a hospital, where a needle was shoved up her vein and drugs sent coursing through her blood.

Really, I'm sure an outpatient visit to her family doctor would have sufficed, but as of this writing she's yet to have been released to her family.

So far, everyone has been playing by the rules. Jim King, lest he become a suspect himself in her alleged abduction, dutifully handed his cell phone to her after calling in to report that he'd found her. The police investigators grudgingly admitted that she said nothing that would implicate him. Nadia, on her part, made no attempt to decline transport. Of course, she won't be paying the bill for her rescue, which I'm sure ran to several times more than her dad makes in a year. Her parents, on their part, are dutifully waiting to get their daughter back from Big Brother.

But what it they hadn't all been so cooperative? One need look no further than the sad case of Brad Horton to find out the danger of not playing along when the guys with the guns are out to get their man.

Vaccine link to autism

Well, it has happened.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have settled a lawsuit, agreeing that vaccines administered to a 9-year old girl from Georgia “ultimately led to symptoms of autism spectrum disorder.”

Not caused--contributed. As in, consumption of five bottles of whisky "ultimately led to symptoms of alcoholism." The guy was already an alcoholic, but boy did that whiskey ever bring out the symptoms.

The poor child got five vaccines in a single day as a 19-month old--to "catch her up" to the prescribed regimen of vaccination.

Do vaccines cause autism? Apparently not directly--and especially not in single doses. But they are frequently given in massive doses to children who are not yet old enough to manifest autism symptoms. Thus damaging autism-prone children is not avoidable under the present regime.

Routine vaccination of infants simply isn't solving any more problems than it creates.

Thank God for a country that lets me opt out of this nonsense!

Vaccines

Having recently had to face prosecution on a matter related to vaccination, the White Man is going over the literature again to look for the latest research on the efficacy and safety of vaccines. Or perhaps I should say, the relative efficacy and safety of vaccines, as no one claims they are completely safe or completely effective. Anyway, I turned up some investigation into claims made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. which appeared in this 2005 article. Suffice it to say that, having examined the evidence myself, I have come to two preliminary conclusions (and given that these claims were answered two years ago, I doubt my opinions will find reason to be changed in the near future):

1) Thimerosol in vaccines is not a statistically identifiable threat to children;
2) Removing mercury compounds from vaccines does not make them identifiably safer.

It's actually a relief that Thimerosol has finally been ruled out as a primary cause for autism in immunized children. This means that the vaccine itself, not any additive, remains suspect. But notice, it took 10 years after beginning to pull Thimerosol off the market before this causative link could be ruled out in children being vaccinated. At this rate it could take many more decades to rule out other ingredients, like the aluminum salts or even the attenuated virus itself.

For years we have avoided infant vaccinations because of the highly controversial evidence linking them to brain and skin damage leading to lifelong disability. We had the confidence to do this because of the admitted inefficacy of the vaccines and the suspicion that our children were so healthy as to be a low risk of death or disability from childhood diseases anyway (just to recap: In 2000 half of our family members had been vaccinated for pertussis; half had not. A pertussis epidemic swept through, and half of us got it: half of the ones that had been vaccinated, and half of the ones who hadn't--none required medical aid).

Of course those who stand to profit from compulsive vaccination, along with those who believe it to be protective of their own health, will try to convince us that we are wrong, but we are not so gullible as to take their word for it. We now concede what we never specifically refuted: that the Thimerosol component in vaccines is not the culprit. But we have not begun to see the evidence that an initially healthy child kept from city water, processed foods, polluted air, and vaccines is anywhere near as susceptible to death or disability as an initially healthy child exposed to all of the above. In fact we are unaware of any studies whatsoever that have even attempted to prove it.

Spending time in jail is not fun, but it pales in comparison to the agony of having to raise a child whose deformity is the result of you trusting the experts contrary to the evidence.

UPDATE OCTOBER 2011: The situation is turning out to be much more complicated than it appeared nearly four years ago. Much research has been since carried out to show that the additives in vaccine do in fact play a major role in vaccination injuries. Search on the label "which doctors" to find further posts on this topic.