The Future is Now?
August 26th, 2005
As I mentioned in my previous posting, I ran across an amazing exchange on Kevin Leitch’s Left Brain/Right Brain blog. Asked to say what would change his mind, a member of the autism-mercury movement answered with the following [typos in the orginal]:
“I could easily change my mind If:Our US government health agencies were not so evasiveabout answering direct questions. If they mandated the parents of ASD kids be given the details on the vaccines and what exactly was injected into them. The CDC, FDA, IOM and AAP admitted “We Screwed Up Big Time” We gave these kids vaccines/neurotoxins at levels far above our own thresholds.”
This is a quote from just one person, but it echoes sentiments I have seen written and posted by several people who are avid supporters of the mercury-causes-autism-hypothesis. While howling that those of us who simply want to see some data that supports their hypothesis are either closed minded or “pharma shills”, they maintain the most impenetrable barrier to new information that I can imagine.
This does not come as a surprise to me - it shouldn’t surprise any of you, either. My experience has been that people who plead for “open-mindedness” are usually so fixated on their beliefs that they are incapable of even imagining that they might be wrong. What they actually want is for us all to permanently suspend reason and disbelief.
Usually, when I run across this sort of rabid dogmatism, it is in the context of a religion. Occasionally, though, this sort of dogmatic inflexibility is seen in what appears on the surface to be a scientific concept. On closer examination, however, these always turn out to be religion masquerading as science.
For example - Pons and Fleischmann were so convinced that they had discovered cold fusion that they elevated it to a religious dogma. And as often happens when scientists start to worship their hypotheses, they ended up humiliating themselves.
Yet, that dogma has continued, with a group of devoted souls who still - at some level - believe that they are doing science. What they are doing is religion - a fixed belief in concepts that are not or cannot be supported by data.
Like Pons and Fleischmann (and their deluded followers), the autism-mercury movement is clinging to the shreds of “early results” - the most dangerous type of data there is. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I (and my colleagues) have been fooled by “early results”. The pilot study shows a promising or interesting result that the larger study doesn’t bear out.
Sort of like the “early results” in the VSD study that didn’t pan out when the study was completed.
But the dogma is so compelling that the autism-mercury movement can’t see what is happening to them. They are veering farther and farther off the “beam” of the data, chasing ephemera and ghost data. They are putting more and more distance between themselves and reality.
Eventually, they will be reduced to publishing their own pitiful journal and writing angry letters to “the government” insisting that “someone” investigate ther claims one more time - because all the other studies didn’t do it right.
They’ll get someone to write a book about the “vast conspiracy” that is covering up the “real data” and some journalist will try to breathe some life back into the “controversy” because they’re out of ideas for a story. Finally, they’ll set up a bunch of websites to try to keep their “truth” in public view.
Wait - it looks like that future is already here for the autism-mercury movement!
I won’t try to “convert” the “true believers”, because that is precisely what it would be - conversion. The “true believers” will continue on their path, blinded to any new information by their conviction that they cannot be wrong. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will go on about its merry way, leaving the “true believers” to become ever more angry and resentful at the world’s indifference to their “truth”.
What I am trying to do is reach those people who have not yet become indoctrinated into the “true faith” - whether that is the mercury-causes-autism-faith or the I-didn’t-evolve-from-no-monkey faith or the nature-has-cures-for-all-human-diseases faith.
Oh, and just for the record - to convince me of the validity of the mercury-causes-autism-hypothesis would take:
[1] Discovery of a mechanism by which mercury can cause autism without causing the other neurological sequelae known to occur with mercury poisoning
- or -
[2] A significant epidemiological study that shows a dose-dependent increase in autism prevalence with increasing mercury exposure.
- or -
[3] The discovery of the metabolic/anatomic/developmental cause of autism and clear-cut data showing that mercury can cause it.
So, it’s not impossible to convince me. It may be impossible to provide the necessary data, but that would indicate that the hypothesis is not valid, not that I am impossible to convince.
You’ll notice that none of my three options included public confession of guilt or malfeasance by any party. That’s because I don’t see that conspiracy theories have any place in science unless you have solid data of a conspiracy (more than just quotes taken out of context from a 286-page transcript). I also don’t see that placing blame is necessary to support (or refute) this hypothesis.
Blame, guilt, confession and retribution are appropriate in religion - not science.
So, I hope that the autism-mercury movement will understand (I know they won’t forgive) if I don’t want to join their religion. If they come up with some real data, I would be happy to participate in their science.
Prometheus.
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Please note…
August 26th, 2005
Due to the ever-increasing use of “comment spam”, I have enabled the “word verification” feature of this blog. This means that people wishing to post comments will have to type the word shown in the verification window prior to posting their comment.
As an aside, comment spammers (and spammers in general) should be tied up and force-fed an entire case of Spam (the “processed meat” product) for each offense. Just my opinion.
Prometheus.
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"We have met the enemy…and he is us!"
August 25th, 2005
(With apologies to Pogo)
After returning from our family’s summer backpacking trip - far from the Internet, cell-phones and voice-mail - I am greeted with the doleful news that a 5-year-old autistic child has died as the result of being “chelated” for mercury (see here).
The death of a child is always a tragedy. What makes this death even worse is the senseless way in which it occurred. I want to say up front that I do not blame the child’s parents for his death - they were misled by a doctor who should have known better. Here are just a few of the things that their son’s doctor, Dr. Roy Kerry, should have known:
[1] EDTA is not effective for chelating mercury. EDTA has little affinity for mercury - the drug of choice for mercury chelation for nearly thirty years has been DMSA.
[2] Intravenous EDTA is much more dangerous than oral DMSA, even though oral DMSA is hundreds of times more effective at removing mercury.
This doesn’t even touch on the question of whether mercury causes autism or if removing mercury cures (or improves) autism.
So, even if you “buy in” to the notion that mercury causes autism (I don’t), the use of EDTA is senseless. It is probably medical malpractice.
Why is it that people are willing to put children at such risk? The parents, it appears, are willing to do anything to save their children from the ravages of autism. This much I can understand - as a parent, I am willing to sacrifice anything to protect “my babies”. However, the fever pitch of the parents’ desperation is not entirely of their own making.
For several years now, groups like DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!), SafeMinds and Generation Rescue have maintained a drumbeat of fear and suspicion, telling parents of autistic children that their children are poisoned by mercury and that they must immediately take steps to remove that mercury or their children will be “condemned to a living hell”. Parents, not surprisingly, are alarmed and - faced with this “ginned up” time pressure - rush to judgement.
Faced with the apparent certainty of the autism-mercury movement - with its testimonials from parents and pseudoscientists - the cautious advice of their “mainstream” doctors seems timid and half-hearted. Warned, “Don’t miss the window of opportunity!”, parents leap from the frying pan into the fire.
Now, I’m sure that most - if not all - of the people advising parents to put their children in harm’s way are doing so out of a sincere conviction that they are right. They have the best of intentions. They are Crusaders for the health of autistic children.
I think that the name “Crusader” is particularly apt for this group of people. Like the Crusaders of the eleventh century, they are absolutely convinced that they are right and that their cause is just. And, like the Crusaders of the eleventh century, they feel that whatever they do is justified by the righteousness of their cause - even if innocent people get hurt.
The absoluteness of these twenty-first century Crusaders was brought home to me by a post I found on Kevin Leitch’s excellent LeftBrain/Right Brain blog. When asked what it would take to convince him that he was wrong, an autism-mercury supporter replied [typos in original]:
“I could easily change my mind If:Our US government health agencies were not so evasive about answering direct questions. If they mandated the parents of ASD kids be given the details on the vaccines and what exactly was injected into them. The CDC, FDA, IOM and AAP admitted “We Screwed Up Big Time” We gave these kids vaccines/neurotoxins at levels far above our own thresholds.”
It appears that he will change his mind only if “the government” admits that he was right in the first place. Since this seems paradoxical, I can only assume that what he means is that nothing will change his mind. He is so convinced that he is right that no amount of data could convince him otherwise - he would just assumed that it was faked, “ginned up” or otherwise fraudulent.
Faced with this sort of absolutist, dogmatic mindset in the autism-mercury movement, is it any wonder that real science can make no headway with them? Anything that threatens their belief that mercury causes autism is dismissed as fraud and anything that reinforces their beliefs is held as Gospel, no matter how ridiculous.
And what about the parents who - searching for information about autism - stumble onto this group? Faced with the absolute certainty of the autism-mercury movement on one hand and the mumbled probabilities and “The data suggests…” from real medicine and science on the other, which way will most confused, frightened and desperate parents jump?
Now the autism-mercry movement has blood on its hands. Like the Crusaders sacking towns and killing innocents, they will probably justify it. They may even find a way to blame it on “mainstream” medicine. No matter how they “spin” it, though, they are at least indirectly responsible for this poor boy’s death.
Crusaders. Yeah…it fits.
Prometheus.
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There oughta be a study!
August 18th, 2005
Just a quick post today, to keep the ‘ol blog from getting stale and musty - then back to the final draft of my annual grant proposals. Which brings us nicely to the topic of today’s lesson.
Over the past few weeks, while blogging away against ignorance, injustice and general fuzzy-headed thinking, I noticed quite a few members of the autism-mercury movement (and not a few others, as well) complain that “the government” wasn’t heeding their calls to research this treatment or that (hypothetical) cause. That got me thinking - perhaps these people don’t understand how science works (”Duh!” as my eldest offspring would say); perhaps they don’t know how studies get started.
First off, I think that the complaints about “the government” not doing the “proper” studies are just a bunch of verbal dust bunnies. These are the same people who are still howling about the last bunch of “government sponsored” studies that didn’t show a connection between autism and mercury. Given the response from the autism-mercury cabal, I can’t imagine that the folks in Washington or Atlanta are in a big hurry to sponsor a bunch of new studies that these people will end demonizing when they don’t like the results.
What the folks in the autism-mercury movement mean is that they want “the government” to do some studies that will produce results that they like. Maybe the NIMH could sponsor a study by Rashid Buttar or Jeff Bradstreet. Those guys know how to do a study - they’ll get the results everyone in the autism-mercury movement is looking for!
Some of you may have noticed that I keep putting the words “the government” in quotation marks (inverted commas, to my friends across the pond). This is because the government is not a monolithic organization. From the scientist-looking-for-a-grant (like me, currently), “the government” is a maze of different agencies with confusing acronyms, all with different (but often overlapping) responsibilities, agendas, priorities and funding rules.
“The government” also does not have brigades of scientists waiting in laboratories for the “GO!” signal from headquarters - the scientists employed by “the government” already have full-time jobs. In order to get new studies done, “the government” has to either hire new scientists and build them new laboratories or give money to deserving, skilled and hard-working scientists (like me!) in universities, institutions and private research laboratories.
In almost all cases, this sort of “out-sourcing” is done through the grant process. Grants can be very specific - “We want someone to develop an AIDS vaccine.” - they can be more general - “Grants are available for research on the treatment of AIDS” - or they can be rather vague - “Grants are available for research on infectious diseases.”
People like me look through booklets or websites of available grants and try to find grants for things that we’re interested in working on. “The government” does not often come to a researcher and ask them to work on a specific project and they never tell someone “You will work on this project - or else!” (at least, they haven’t since the Manhatten Project).
This brings up another problem with the “There oughta be a study!” approach to research. Scientists, despite ample evidence to the contrary, are people. And like other people, not many of them will consciously and willingly do something that will hurt them or their career. I know of researchers in the field of neurodevelopment and neurophysiology who have said flat out that they wouldn’t touch autism research with a ten-meter pole. They have seen what happens to the folks who stepped in the middle of this catfight and they don’t want any part of it.
And really, why should they? They get plenty of grants to do the things that interest them without having to put up with slander and hate mail. As a result, most of the people - on both “sides” - doing autism research are related to an autistic person. Some are autistic themselves - a possibility rejected by Lenny Schafer and his ilk, who think that autistic people should either be unable to talk or else remain silent out of sheer gratitude.
The funny thing - and it really is almost hysterically funny - is that the people who are screaming about “the government” not doing more studies should be screaming at the doctors and scientists on “their” side. Buttar, Bradstreet, Haley, Geier & Geier - any of them - could apply for and receive a grant. Heck, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has grants available! That should be right up their alley! Yet they don’t apply and they protest that “the government” isn’t doing all it can to research autism. Hypocrites!
So, here’s a challenge to all the “There oughta be a study!” complainers - either submit a grant proposal or get one of the “leading lights” of the autism-mercury movement to submit one (or several). Unless you’re willing to do that, you have no grounds to complain that “the government” isn’t doing your bidding.
Oh, and here’s a little secret. “The government” is you - those clowns in Washington (or London or Toronto or …) are just the people you chose to represent you. If you don’t like what “the government” is doing, then you are the only person with the power to change it.
Class dismissed - enjoy the sunshine while I go back to my office and polish my proposals.
Prometheus.
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Why Don’t Botanists use Herbal "Medicines"?
August 13th, 2005
After the weekly Department meeting on Friday afternoon, I corralled the Botanists in the group for a brief informal survey. The question I posed to them was this:
“Do you take herbal ‘medicines’? Why or why not?”
The responses I got were interesting, if not surprising. The Chief of the Botany Division was a non-user, which might not come as a surprise to many herbal “medicine” enthusiasts, since he is of a generation that has not been enthusiastic consumers of alternative” medicine. However, the responses of some of the younger members of the division were illuminating.
“No way! Do you know the kind of things plants make? Even the plants we work with all the time make compounds that we don’t fully understand.”
“Even if I wasn’t worried about the safety and efficacy of phytochemicals - most of which have never been adequately tested - there’s no way to tell how much of the active ingredient I would be getting. The production varies with climate, season, growing conditions, insect damage…just too many things to control for.”
“Yeah, ‘natural’ medicines - like hemlock, aconite and foxglove. No, I prefer to know what I’m getting when I take medicine.”
I’m not sure how the “nature makes everything we need for perfect health” lobby would “spin” these comments, but I know how I interpret them.
One botanist who is from a country whose ancient (and not-so-ancient) vitalistic medical practices are currently much in vogue had this to say:
Where I grew up, people used roots and herbs for medicine because they didn’t have access to real medicine - Western medicine. The people who had money or influence could go to the big city and see a doctor trained in real medicine, the rest of the people had to get by with “traditional” medical therapies.
They did that not because the traditional remedies worked, but because they had to do something. They couldn’t just stand by and watch their loved ones suffer.”
Yet, in the Western world, where advanced medical care is freely available (even if it isn’t free), a large number of people are ignorant of something people in the “Third World” are acutely aware of - herbal “medicine” is something you use when you don’t have access to real medicine.
Prometheus.
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