jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

Ben Goldacre filling up my twitter feed with this but it is really fucking shameful: The Independent have run a piece *written by* Wakefield today. Front page of website: "Struck off MMR scare doctor: Welsh measles outbreak proves I was right"
Disgustingly irresponsible.

That piece is classic daily mail style headline click fodder but it's not by him or pro him (unless you mean another piece in the paper).

Still don't understand how being dangerously wrong makes you right? I won't waste my breath expressing disappointment in the Indie because the standards are long time broken.

Bleah, that shit will be clogging up American FB feeds within a day

took me a while to realize that "jabs" is british for "shots"

they took our jabs

irl lols

hahaha m bise

http://www.ageofautism.com

cool site

This is really painful to read.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/04/what-doesnt-kill-you.html

This is the kind of frustration that mentally ill people experience when everyone refuses to acknowledge what is so obvious to them.

I reeled in shock when I realized, there it was on little Timmy's school cafeteria menu: spaghetti. Do these people not realize that, for parents of children with autism, what this means? It was sickening, the grocery store had a food aisle packed with it. The weekly circular, stacked near the front door, proudly touted their sale on red sauce and spaghetti. How can they not know? This is a large, new grocery store that even has a dietitian. Shameful.

treats lyme disease AND autism!

http://www.heavenlyheatsaunas.com/far-infrared-and-traditional-saunas-home

http://www.heavenlyheatsaunas.com/sites/default/files/bob-jenny.jpg

ugh AP, I got halfway through that before I had to stop

I am kind of glad I have not encountered these anti-vac autism parents in real life, because I have a great deal of sympathy for their situation yet I don't think I could be very patient or kind in dealing with their irrationality wrt medicine.

From Andrew Goldman’s interview with Temple Grandin in the Sunday Times:

In your new book, “The Autistic Brain,” you seriously entertain possible links between vaccines and autism in children, links that scientists have vehemently dismissed.

Well, there’s only one vaccine that could possibly be a problem, and that’s the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Now that they’ve changed the vaccine, it has fewer antigens, and that would make it a lot safer. But with the old version of the vaccine, I have not yet come across a study that looked at regressives — when a child had some speech but lost it.

There has been a highly emotional battle between mothers of autistic children and the scientists who dispute their theories.

I have talked to maybe five or six of those mothers, and that’s the reason I don’t pooh-pooh it. Those mothers have all described the same things. They all have the vaccine, and then they talk about fevers and the weird wailing that started in just a few days. When I brought this up to an expert and asked, “Have you ever studied the regressive group separately?” I got silence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/magazine/temple-grandin-on-autism-death-celibacy-and-cows.html?_r=0

bracing self for when I run across one of these people IRL, only a matter of time probably

according to wiki, the regressive group has indeed been studies separately, in relation to MMR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_autism#Causation_controversy

if you have a really high IQ you don't have to do your research

I was concerned about the MMR Vaccine back then and paid for single vaccinations at a private clinic and it wasn't cheap. My son had classic autism/onset tourette's syndrome anyways so fuck it. When it came to time for his booster i told my doc to give him the MMR already!
I think that Times journalist is trying to feed his own lazy agenda to Temple but also maybe she is being political with her readership. I would be happier if she didn't mind alienating a massively wrong type of mindset like this. I still love her, she is a marvel.

tbf, I think it is really, really hard for parents to face this situation, considering that we're so far from any explanation and still semi in the dark about treatment, and that's why you see even highly intelligent people grasping for an explanation such as this one.

In my opinion it is detrimental to your children if you are not focused on the goal of them achieving independence rather than what caused them to be on the autism spectrum. Often the answer lies closer to home. This is just my opinion, but I do believe it very strongly.

"Vaccine injury? Did the needle break off in his arm?"

I hate to admit this made me laugh. I have to remember thatone.

I have conversations like that with my patients at least a few times a week. It's often easier to play dumb and not argue with them ("oh OK, wow, that's too bad" etc). "Did the needle break off" is straight up trolling, and well done, but I wouldn't recommend being so condescending (tempting though it can be).

Hurting, I think you're right about the psychology of "there must be an answer". I had some similar thoughts at great length way upthread.

DSP, I think you're exactly right about the value of approaching a chronic condition with the goal of by working toward improving it (I'd add a caveat of having reasonable expectations) instead of spending time and energy on the unanswerable questions of "what happened" or "why me (why him)". The patients I've seen with that habit of mind are the ones who've done best at coping with chronic illness or other challenges over the long haul, not in the sense that their attitude has made the problem disappear but that they're able to do more despite it, and feel better about the situation. I would guess your mentality will go a long way to help your son grow into independence no matter what his diagnosis.

Like you, I'm no fan of Grandin's answers about the MMR but I'm a fan of hers just the same.

http://www.boriswatch.co.uk/2013/04/28/the-likelihood-of-a-measles-epidemic-in-london-spot-the-difference/

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKsv1HYCQAAH-Vo.jpg

RAGE

OH FFS

not but what a class action lawsuit against wakefield (not the nhs, just wakefield) would be sort of satisfying to watch

I just wanted to big up The Lighthouse School and this thread is the closest thing to an ASC thread on here. After 6 years of wrangling with my local authority and soul crushing tribunals I have finally got my son into an appropriate school for his condition.

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/top-stories/leeds-free-school-set-to-grow-after-first-year-success-1-5783416

congratulations dude. i must admit i've been unsure about Free Schools - it seems like they can be started by people with all sorts of odd axes to grind - but something like this seems like a really good idea given the general paucity of specialist services across the country

sorry, not that i'm saying existing services are poor, just that there are nowhere near enough of them

Four of the teachers at The Lighthouse have ASC children who are also pupils so they have witnessed this paucity of 'whole autism' schools in the region and done something about it. They are the best teachers I have ever met for children on the autism spectrum. They have a link with the university and are targeting independence and further education for the pupils. The school that the LA originally put on my sons statement was a glorified prison, with a high staff turnover, regular police call outs, a headmaster who spend 15 minutes talking my wife's breasts and 0% of pupils going into further education. These people believe in their methods and believe in the potential of the pupils. Sorry I am rambling, but it is exciting.

no i can imagine it is exciting, and yes i'm aware that those other kinds of school exist. hope your boy loves it and blossoms into whoever he wants to be.

Awesome piece by Chris Mooney:

The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science
-
How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link.

https://medium.com/editors-picks/adfa0d026a7e

'We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.'

Thanks for that. I know from your posts that you work with young ASC people. Respect man!

xp

Has anyone seen this ths book yet? Came out a coupla years ago:

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781439158647-0

The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear

By Seth Mnookin

yeah i read it when it came out, it's v good

I liked it. The idea of a medical scare being spread like a virus is mildly annoying, a la "memes", but the history and analysis of the science are good.

is that where i found out about morgellons? i think so.

The View replaces one dipshit blonde with another.

Tho the exact words will change, it will be interesting to how much the song remains the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkrkaH_V7fE

i remember watching that ep live like...uhhhhhhhh

Meaning that McCarthy is not even the bottom rung on this show. God knows, Oprah has put her weight (no pun intended!) behind some dubious Dr. Oz shit. And "The Secret" and scams like that.

God gives us markers

hahaha
one cant exist without the other

Thank you, god.

Some friends of mine - all of whom are presumably very pro-vax - had a bit of a stoush on FB over this, one posted how angry she was McCarthy was set to host/be on the show, and how we should all write to ABC or NBC or whoever and stop it, and another friend bizarrely played devils advocate and was like "but why? Are you censoring her? Who cares what people on the View say, its not like anyone takes irt seriously" which I thought was being wilfully obtuse.

well shes going to be on tv anyway. i feel kind of good that it will be with a flat earther. seems apt.

I would watch the show if each of the hosts had a really specific crazy specialty, like a reverse superhero team. Flat earther, anti-vaxer, holocaust denier, survivalist bunker enthusiast and raw foodie evangelist, say.