Chickenpox vaccine and autism (smoking, doctor, cancer, symptoms)

[WesternPilgrim]

According to Dr. Theresa Deisher, the correlation of chickenpox vaccine use with autism disorder is too strong to ignore:

"Let’s put these results in perspective by looking at global warming for a minute. I love the environment, and I had been hugging trees for decades before global warming became the topic that it is today. The R2 for carbon dioxide levels compared to the earth’s temperature over the past 150 years is only 0.44. That’s right, an R2 of 0.44 has roused the public to become active and concerned about our environment. Shouldn’t an R2 of 0.9598 raise even more to action? What will you do with this information?"

[AnonChick]

The number of live births has gone up too. So by this, we must surmise that live births correlate to autism. Summary: Don't give birth, and the odds of your offspring of being autistic go down proportionately.

My position is unassailable!

Honestly though - the whole chicken pox/autism thing is like - SO 10 years ago. There isn't even any correlation; it was disproved over and over again. Jenny McCarthy et al were wrong. They wanted something to blame autism on, and thimeresol in vaccines was convenient. What they're forgetting, is that there IS NO MORE thimeresol in the chicken pox vaccine, and therefore, they -cannot- blame it on their kid's autism. The correlation simply doesn't exist. What you're looking at is a coincidence, not a correlation. It's like saying "inhaling correlates with mortality rates." In other words, the more you breath, the closer you are to death. It's true, but one has nothing to do with the other.

[Mattie]

I read your article WP, would you like to read one of mine?

Thermonuclear stupid about vaccines from someone other than Jenny McCarthy – Respectful Insolence

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

After three paragraphs dripping with personal insults and sarcasm, I quit.

But it makes a nice contrast with Dr. Deisher's informative and scholarly tone.

Her tone is not scholarly. Her entire article is not written in a scientific manner at all. No description of method, no p-value, no pearsons, nothing but a graph made in Excel. Seriously, that is the best you have?

[Zimbochick]

Originally Posted by Mattie

I read your article WP, would you like to read one of mine?

Thermonuclear stupid about vaccines from someone other than Jenny McCarthy – Respectful Insolence

Very interesting, thanks for posting!

[AnonChick]

Originally Posted by Zimbochick

Very interesting, thanks for posting!

"Respectful Insolence" is one of my favorite science editorial blogs. Orac brings wit and humor to science and explains it in a way that the layman can understand (assuming the layman is somewhat more intelligent than a jar of moisurizer).

[bluedevilz]

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

Oh, quit your transparent and disingenuous posturing. It isn't even clever.

She doesn't say that her R2 value gives significance to the variables under study, but that assuming the significance of the variables - which she demonstrates in the argument leading up to her analysis - a high R2 is significant. Her preceding argument establishes the necessary "p-value" in the common-sense, everyday language of her readership.

A refusal to make critical distinctions is the mark of an ideologue.

The "argument" leading up to her analysis is fallacious. Failure to recognize this fact is the mark of an uninformed lemming.

[azriverfan.]

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

Let me just head off the "correlation =/= causation" chorus: Statistical evidence of causality.

Evidence alone is not proof, but it's worth paying attention to.

In that source you cite, they discuss what correlation means. What you failed to understand is that some correlation is stronger than others. Indeed, it states "systematic, nonrandom relationship between two variables" to define the correlation between smoking and lung cancer. The vaccine does not possess a systematic and non-random relationship between autism and the vaccine. Autism is a cognitive disorder that is diagnosed clinically not through labs or any objective criteria therefore the incidence of autism was not diagnosed to the same degree in the past due to poor awareness of the condition, and a lack of standardized methodology to idenitify it. For example, it is believed that autism was misdiagnosed in the past as mental retardation or even shyness depending on what autistic spectrum you are referring to. However, in the study you cite, it assumes detection was the same hence the reason it's a confounding factor.

[JustJulia]

My daughter was born different. Vaccines didn't change her, but the chicken pox vaccine did give her a nice, short, easy case of them when her older, unvaccinated sister caught them at preschool.

I don't understand the vaccine-autism connection that people try to make. Are there "born that way" and "made that way" groups, in their reasoning? My daughter was born with autism, but other people's kids were given autism? How would they know the difference? Doesn't compute.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by JustJulia

My daughter was born different. Vaccines didn't change her, but the chicken pox vaccine did give her a nice, short, easy case of them when her older, unvaccinated sister caught them at preschool.

I don't understand the vaccine-autism connection that people try to make. Are there "born that way" and "made that way" groups, in their reasoning? My daughter was born with autism, but other people's kids were given autism? How would they know the difference? Doesn't compute.

Yes, some parents believe there are different kinds of autism and that their children where *made* autistic by some environmental factor. Others believe that children are born with a genetic predisposition, but that an environmental factor makes the symptoms appear or makes them more severe.

One of the reasons that many parents believe this is because they believe that their child was developing typically until something happened that made them regress. There is some dispute about whether classic autism and regressive autism are actually different. Recently, another category has also been talked about where a child develops normally and then plateaus and does not progress.

http://www.healthguideinfo.com/diagn...autism/p90228/

Although the symptoms of regressive autism are similar to those of classic autism, the two disorders are very different. The symptoms of regressive autism usually present themselves much later than those of classic autism, often appearing suddenly after years of typical childhood development. Children with late onset autism usually meet developmental milestones on time within the first three years of life. After certain skills have developed, however, they begin to disappear suddenly. The regression of social, language, and self-help skills can be quite profound, severely impairing once typically developing children. This sudden change in children can cause extreme stress in parents, making this form of autism particularly difficult to understand or accept.

Note that sometimes signs can be very subtle. But, using videos of infants who were diagnosed later, some doctors have seen subtle signs in children as young as 6 months.

Also looking at infants at high risk, doctors can see signs.
Infants May Display Subtle Autism Signs at 6 Months: Study - US News and World Report

In another recent study, researchers at the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities reported seeing other subtle signs of autism in infants.

When they looked at babies who had spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit, they found that those later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder were more likely to have had differences in visual processing and abnormal muscle tone at 1 month of age than the other babies.

One doctor, Phillip Teitelbaum, has done a small study in which he could detect autism very early be movement analysis in videos.