This is interesting, as lefties like me were pretty pissed off that an immunity bill was floated in Congress prior to the science being in (that is, immunity for anyone using the preservative...facts be preemptively damned).

It appears there McCain is late to the discussion. But for any self-identifying liberal to pretend this was not a huge issue when it first surfaced is to either not know the history of this issue, or to be repeating the swill of others without knowing what happened.

It is good there is no connection between the preservative and autism. This was less than clear when Bush and the GOP tried to get immunity for vaccine providers (ring a bell?) before the science was in.

And just to be clear, McCain is a dumbass. He doesn't know jack about anything.

Not disqualifying, unfortunately.

Too late to do anything about the inevitability of the McCain Presidency. He may not be Reagan, but he definitely has inherited the teflon coating.

Clinton and Obama have nullified each other. Justifiably or not, only McCain remains untouched by the whiff of any serious attack on his qualifications for the Presidency. I guess that he takes it.

Ever since McCain professed ignorance over economics and received shit for it, my prediction is that he'll be the most knowledgeable person on every subject brought up before him. He won't dare take a chance by admitting, "I don't know," and will instead be pulling some weird stuff out of his butt in coming months.

"Not a great quality for the leader of the free world"

So you recognize that Obama does not stand a chance against McCain?

What is it about Republicans and science? They all seem to be absolutely invincibly ignorant.

Too late to do anything about the inevitability of the McCain Presidency.

This sort of mindless lefty pessimism might piss me off if it weren't so inane. McCain is a weak candidate, disliked by his own party's base, hogtied to an unpopular war and an even more unpopular administration, running on the incumbent party's ticket during a recession. They don't come much more beatable than this.

Also bear in mind that McCain, even as the all-but-official nominee, raises a fraction of the money either of the two Democratic contenders do.

Don't be fooled by the apparent closeness of the D vs. R race in current polling. Polls this far out from the election are mostly noise. (Even closer in they aren't that reliable - Carter led Reagan in polling most of the way to voting day, at which time he lost in an electoral landslide.) Pay attention to the fundamentals. And the fundamentals say this is a big Dem year.

gregor,

What are you smoking this evening?

He should have moved to the center weeks ago, but insists on pandering to his base. He knows something people are not willing to admit. It is hard as hell for any Republican this cycle.

Obama will smoke McCain out of hand. Hillary will beat him. It will be a lot harder, but she will win.

ron byers nailed it. only thing that bothers me more than republicans is defeatist dems and liberals.

Why did McCain perpetuate this rubbish without even a smidgen of doubt in his voice? Was he pandering to some constituency or other?

That would be Don Imus, who has been riding this hobby horse from the beginning.

Oh, and those "free world" remarks are getting out of date, given the fall of the wall, and the US incarceration rate. Oh, and the domestic spying policy. And the Alabama governor in jail, while Jim Tobin walks around outside.

Oh, and also, I don't know that the rest of the OECD really thinks of the US as "leader" any more. More like a crazy uncle with too many handguns in his closet.

McCain deserves credit. While there's nothing unusual or noteworthy about a Republican advocating junk science, this is one of those rare instances where the junk science is not being used to harm the planet and everyone on it. I say kudos to McCain.

On a slightly more serious note, at least this will bring a little extra attention to a very important issue... while at the same time undermining McCain's overall credibility. Win win.

Another competing theory is that the apparent rise in the rates of autism could simply be the result of changing diagnostic criteria and the rising profile of the disorder. In other words, doctors are more likely to identify the symptoms (social deficits, anxiety, irrational fears, irritability, aggression, tempter tantrums, language defects, low IQs, self-injurious behavior, etc. ) and correctly diagnose them as autism today. In years past doctors may simply attributed these symptoms to the Republicanism or Christianity.

anonymous: "So you recognize that Obama does not stand a chance against McCain?"

How uplifting.

Obama will do just fine, provided that we stand firmly with him, should he become our party's nominee.

"Another competing theory is that the apparent rise in the rates of autism could simply be the result of changing diagnostic criteria"

Indeed, the standard diagnosis was changed in the early 80s from what we might now call "classic autism" to autism spectrum, things like Asperger's. It really isn't a coincidence that the rise in autism cases being identified started in hte early 80s.

There's also Simon Baron Cohen's point about assortative mating to consider.

But it absolutely ain't mercury in vaccines (nor the scare on my side of the pond, the MMR vaccine).

As several therapist working with my son said, pretty much everyone, at one time or another, falls into the autism spectrum as it's defined now.

Maybe that's the contistuency to which McCain is pandering.

Maybe it's an Islamofascist plot to turn Americans into autistic slaves of the Ayatollahs, and they tested the autism-causing thimerosal vaccines on all those POW/MIAs the Vietnamese are still keeping prisoner in secret jungle prisons.

This could be the biggest evil plot since the global warming hoax.

The only connection I could make was Don Imus' wife is a big proponenet of this crap "research" and has publicly spoken for it on his radio show. McCain is a big fan and benefactor of his endorsement

Today's Repukeliscum Party is the Party of Stupid. Any stupidity that you can come up with is the pet project of some Repukeliscum. They hate school, they hate science, and they hate truth.

I suspect he got it from his close friend Don Imus, who hammers this issue daily, and threatens politicians who don't hew to this issue strongly enough.

Is this disinterest in a variety of complex issues any different than what we see in Bush's approach? Republicans have a pronounced disdain for science and facts. Whether it's global warming, evolution or the enviroment the M.O. is one of denial and massaging if data until the problem or reality of the situation finally suits their needs.

Absolutely Interesting! http://www.spymac.com/details/?2349180

He's probably lobbied by people who think they've discovered they are responsible and are worried about it coming out.

What better pre-emption against legislation, lawsuits, and public ire than having a very prominent person who is constantly the subject of news stories and interviews, a lot of people like, and- to top it all off- may become president, saying on the news that it's not all your fault? This rise in autism is so pervasive, a lot of people are going to be really pissed when it's found out who caused it. And big businesses have had so much experience with big lawsuits, they've probably learned the lesson to try to foresee and forestall this stuff the the extent that they can. I know that's not consistent with some liberals fantasy of how dumb extremely rich, extremely successful conservative people must be, but they spend a lot of money to defend the lawsuits, and they put a lot of effort into anti-lawsuit lobbying and propaganda, so they must really think it's very good for them to end or prevent the lawsuits.

And we know that McCain is very tight with the lobbyists... He's the special interests' candidate.

Actually the over at HuffPost the Government Conceded a Vaccine related autism case in Federal Court. Dave Kirby estimates the type of autism "sypmtoms" covered in the case would cover approx. 10-20% of all autism cases.

Here is the link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/government-concedes-vacci_b_88323.html

He also has a follow-up with the government concession -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/the-vaccineautism-court-_b_88558.html

My son has autism (although he does not have the symptoms/issues as the girl in the case) and I have also discounted the connection - so I was shocked when I read these articles.

Maybe McCain had just been watching Imus before he was kicked off the air.

Somebody ask him about silicone breast implants. He might be more up on this science.

To me this is what is truly scary about McCain. He thinks he knows what he is talking about and he often uses scientific research as an example of "pork barrel politics".

Hillary was going to try to bring back the OTA and double NSF/NIH funding. Hopefully Obama supports this too.

Haven't we had enough of "leaders" who mindlessly repeat whatever their advisers tell them to say?

Wouldn't it be nice to go back to leaders who at least try to find out something about a subject before pronouncing on it?

Thimerosal has been omitted from the vaccines for a period of recent years equal to the age at which toddlers get diagnosed with autism (two or three?). It cannot be blamed for causing autism anymore.

A propensity to "make shit up"? Right there, on the spot? Just pulling it out of his ass?

Sounds like the perfect candidate to follow in dur chimpfuhrer's footsteps - that is, if the chimp decides to vacate his throne?

After all, he has nearly a 20% approval rating now...

And we go back and forth and there's strong evidence that indicates that it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines."

Sounds like he knows there is a debate. FWIW, there are still scientists/medicos who believe that the evidence is strong, as there are citizen activists.

This is not the issue on which to decide whom to elect president. It won't take long to find scientific issues on which Obama or Clinton will be only partially informed.

Damn - so McCain gets his news from RENSE.COM

Unbelievable - after all, they are big on ron paul there...

McCain has been busy pandering to the rabidly evangelical, internationally bellicose, socially neolithic & racist, anti immigrant strands of the Republican party. Now he's just trying to gather the remaining junk science loonies that support Huckabee & Ron Paul, to complete his Repug confederacy of dunces. As a party, they're a putrescent rogue's gallery, but as the only strategy possible for a GOP candidate, it's absolutely sound.

Giving Imus a reach-around is also perfectly consistent with his deft servicing of his ever-receptive base, the media.

As little as I like him, James Carville suggested a deadly, anti-McCain slogan yesterday on MTP. It went something like:

"If you loved 8 years of Bush, vote McCain for more of the same!"

It'd be great to watch the GOP try to counter that without implicitly denigrating either McCain or Bush.

Physics Today summarizes McCain's science policy:

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/politics08/mccain.html

Mars (with special attention to keeping the money in Florida). Ethanol (from corn, switchgrass, sugarcane and other crops grown in swing states). Nuclear power. Cap 'n trade. Vouchers.

Just adding my voice to the chorus that's pointing to the most likely culprit: Don Imus. He's been pushing this crap for years, and pushing the "regulars" on his show, including McCain, to get on the bandwagon.

His information is simply a few months old. As much as I think McCain would be another bad republican president, I think this is a 'tempest in a teapot'.

Better find a more significant issue.

Perhaps McCain has a competitor to the preservative under his wing.

Hedley - Actually Thimerosal is still in various vaccines - see from the FDA's own list - Table 3 updated 9/6/2007.

http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

Also older vaccines that did contain thimerosal were not discarded - they were able to be use up existing supplies. So it is not like there was a huge changeover to no more thimerosal and the autism rates still did not go down. Those studies are probably the most flawed.

Sorry - 9:21 was from me, Kelly.

You know what, I bet this autism thing is the biggest thing being whispered about among the anti-trial-lawyer (or, in other words, the corporate legal defense) lobby. There are probably a lot of industries who are worried that the cause of the autism is going to "turn out to be" them, and then they are going to be in the ultimate shitter, business-ruined, like the asbestos companies.

Words to the press from men like McCain are not often idle words.

When I was in law school, I had a professor for a litigation workshop class who was big corporate defense attorney, and taking his class gave me a window into how these people think about these things.

If there's ever a lawsuit, certainly there's going to be an explanation- a defense- and the most common defense in such suits is "it wasn't me." If this preservative is the most obvious alternative answer to the enigma, than it's going to be the defense, and McCain just did a lot of powerful friends a big favor by contaminating the potential jury pools with his remark.

I don’t know but I suspect that Dr. Kevin Drum is as much an authority on the causes of autism as he is on “peak oil� theories.

So who's JUNK SCIENCE are we going to believe?

Do we really know if autism studies are definitive yet, because, really there simply has been enough time to do a definitive study on the causes of autism.

A question: is the President of the United States the "leader of the free world"? If so, why? Who elected him/her that?

I find the line completely arrogant and typically American. So, should the people of England, France, etc stop having elections? After all, one election in the U.S. is all that is needed, right?

Or, are these countries no longer part of the free world because some of them may not always do what "the leader" wants them to do? Is the "free world" now made up of the US, Iraq and Israel?

Again to my Huff Post link

"The vaccinations received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder," the concession says, "which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of ASD."

The government conceding that the vaccine attributed to the onset of ASD "features". That is huge.

Also from the article

"And, there is no evidence to suggest that this girl would have regressed into symptoms consistent with a DSM-IV autism diagnosis without her vaccinations. If there was such evidence, then why on earth would these extremely well-funded government attorneys compensate this alleged injury in Vaccine Court? Why wouldn't they move to dismiss, or at least fight the case at trial?"

and

"Many people look forward to hearing more from HHS officials about why they are settling this claim. But whatever their explanation, they cannot change the fundamental facts of this extraordinary case:

The United State government is compensating at least one child for vaccine injuries that resulted in a diagnosis of autism.

And that is big news, no matter how you want to say it."

This is big news that the government conceded the case. I am not a McCain fan by any means but perhaps he is the more informed one in this particular case at least. The government just compensated a vaccine injury that led to an autism diagnosis - that is huge, HUGE news.

You fail to support your statements with anything other than your own past statements. "[Someone] calls this for the nonsense on stilts that it is. There's never been strong evidence in favor of the thimerosal/autism connection, and what little evidence there was has practically disappeared over the past couple of years as further studies have been done. The odds of thimerosal being responsible for autism are now slim and none, and perpetuating this myth does real damage — both to the cause of autism research and to the millions of parents who hear this and decide to keep their children from receiving the normal complement of childhood vaccines."

Where's the science you say is so clear?

Don't we want these thermisol-autism linkers to avoid the vaccine? Can't we Darwin/naturally select these idiots out of existance?

Kelly,

You are being very misleading about the recent decision to compensate the girl's family. This case had nothing to do with thimerosal and autism. In this particular case, the girl had a very rare genetic disease that predisposed her to infections (for which she had been hospitalized several times as an infant). After she was vaccinated, she had a reaction leading to brain inflammmation, and her cognitive abilities, which were already in decline due to her inherited mitochondrial disorder, were inhibited.

No vaccinologist denies that vaccines can cause real harm in a (very small) subset of recipients. In the case of this girl, it is likely (although the level of proof required for the court in question is much lower than that in a normal scientific study) that one or more of the vaccines she received did exacerbate her pre-existing condition. That is exactly what the compensation board is there for - to compensate patients for whom there is some evidence that vaccination caused an adverse symptom. Once again, thimerosal plays no role in this particular case.

The Mercury Militia never honestly deals with the evidence that has continued to build in the past several years against their favorite hypotheses. They never fail to disingenously preen as in cases such as this. The biochemical and epidemiological evidence is overwhelmingly against a link between thimerosal and autism. On the other side of the coin, measles rates in the UK have continued to increase since the scare began, with almost 1000 cases reported last year. This can be directly attributed to the failure of parents to vaccinate based on the fearmongering that still runs rampant online. Good work, folks.

It may be too late for this, but on the off chance that Kevin Drum has not slipped completely into general election campaign mode I thought I'd ask when being knowledgable about autism has ever been helpful to a President of the United States.

An Assistant Secretary of HHS or perhaps the director of the Centers for Disease Control, I'll give you. You would want people in those positions to focus on issues they can do something about, precisely because they don't need to bother with "a few pet issues" like national defense, immigration, foreign policy, judicial nominations, campaign finance or the federal appropriations process.

Since the US now incarcerates more people than any other country, the leader of the free world expression needs to be dropped for leader of the new gulag.

Zathras: ...I thought I'd ask when being knowledgable about autism has ever been helpful to a President of the United States.

Probably never. However what HAS been helpful to all presidents of the United States has been recognizing the limits of their own knowledge. That's an indispensable ability.

One does better when one recognizes that one doesn't have the knowledge of culture, history and international political science to predict how a Middle Eastern nation would react to invasion by the U.S. That sort of thing.

I beleive the New England Journal of Medicine published a study in the latter part of last confirming there was no link. However, one of the authors objected to the studies. Out don't think the jury is out on this one Kevin. I think you should do a little more homework.

McCain was pandering. If you click back through the links you'll see he was asked a question by a woman who's kid had autism. She wanted to hear that her kid's problem was caused by mercury in vaccines, so that's what McCain said. I think a large part of his popularity stems from the fact that he is willing to say whatever people want to hear.

As a parent of two children in the autism spectrum, I take this issue much more seriously than most here.

The government warns us all about mercury in tuna and sushi; we are told to be very, very careful with the new energy efficient bulbs because they contain mercury-- "because there's really no 'safe' level of mercury".

And yet, scientists thought it would be a great idea to preserve vaccines with a mercury derivative, because it improved the shelf life of those vaccines! This is something that non scientists would automatically question as a possible health hazard; only scientists could delude themselves into thinking it was worth a try.

In fact, thimerisol was included in "over the counter" contact lens solution until recently. I remember once using one that left a trail of red inflammation down my cheek from where it contacted the skin.

Your 6 month old is eating only organic baby foods, and you are going to inject mercury directly into his or her bloodstream?!

Since vaccines can be prepared & given without any mercury, what's the big deal in doing just that? Despite any surveys indicating it's not hazardous. I am old enough to remember surveys indicating maybe cigarettes weren't so bad, either.

Remember when X-Rays were new? Science smiled while free X-Rays with massive doses were given to people in malls and even kids.

The autism world has sepcifically been at the wrong end of much "junk science", specifically the bad psychology of Bruno Bettleheim, which told mothers they were "refrigerator mothers" whose core rejection of their child caused its autism. This, even when a mom had four kids, three of whom had no problem.

Even if at some point, it's proven conclusively that thimerisol does not contribute to autism, I still think it has no business being in vaccines, much less vaccines for infants.

I believe there will be no one "smoking pistol" when we discover what is behind the epidemic of autism in the last 25- 30 years. In fact, there will be many enviromental insults that wear down vulnerable parents and force these neurological changes in their babies.

Everything from pesticides we spray on lawns to create a monoculture of one plant only, to preservatives in food, to spraying for mosquitoes & other pests may well be found to be part of that mosaic of causality.

And those who insist it's just better diagnostics? You should spend more time around children with autism, and ask, how on earth they could "pass" in previous generations.

Think about the town where you grew up: how many autistic kids did you know? Were there any kids with younger brothers & sisters who were packed away to institutions (something I would notice), that perhaps might be now diagnosed as autistic?

Compare those memories with your current city or neighborhood, or the one you grew up in. You will see far more children with this disorder than existed then. The number has risen from one in 10,000 births to as low as one in 150.

Personally, I knew two retarded people in my neighborhood back then- but no one with autism. In my current neighborhood, there are two kids across the street in the autism spectrum!

These children are the "canary in the coal mine" of Our New Age. There is a price for the convenience of modern life, and kids with autism are part of it.

Whatever McCain said, the bottom line is that mercury should not be present in vaccines if there is a safe alternative. No preservative at all works, I understand, but the shelf life drops considerably. So, ship & use as a fresh product.

Don't know if this issue still is but thimerosal/autism used to be the hobby horse of Don Imus's wife Deidre. That's probably where McCain got it, that noted "medical researcher" Deidre Imus.

I was talking to my girlfriend about the candidates and she asked me about McCain. And I said, well, he was a war hero who was tortured but now flip flops on the torture debate (gah why is there even a debate?). The only thing he seems to know definitely about is war, and he is as much of a warmonger as you can get. He doesn't know about economics and he doesn't know about social issues.

Hold on about that govt concession. Here's the ringer in the HP article:

"The vaccinations received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder," the concession says, "which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of ASD."

That this child had an underlying disease automatically eliminates her from the diagnosis of autistic disorder, which by definition is idiopathic. In this case an underlying condition and an adverse vaccine reaction predisposed her to suffer neurologic damage with autistic features being the sequelae. The other tip off that this was not thimersal related was the rapidity of onset of the adverse reaction following vaccination--just days. In the amounts present in the vaccines in the past (there is no mercury now in any of the childhood vaccines) there is no way of there being an acute mercury poisoning. Some other adverse reaction caused this child's problem. Whatever it was, it wasn't mercury, even if the government allegedly conceded. It seems pretty clear this was a vaccine related complication, but it only happened because of the child's underlying disorder. The compensation was probably justified, although it leaves the question unanswered as to whether good judgment was used in vaccinating a child with a mitochondrial disorder so aggressively (obviously she was far behind in her vaccinations to be getting so many at age 18 months). This is reminiscent of the controversy, largely media driven, about the old pertussis vaccine back in the early 80s. The alleged brain damage caused by this vaccine was based on a preliminary study in Britain of 11 cases of brain damage that could not be accounted for other than by the vaccine. Later reports, which went unpublicized in the media, of course, eliminated all but one of those cases by finding another diagnosis for the problem. In other words, as with thimersal and autism, there never was any scientific evidence for pertussis vaccine being the causative factor for brain damage.

Kevin, I think you're caving to authority on this; the CDC studies were clearly backing Big Pharm.

Whatever the actual cause of autism, how can anyone think it's a GOOD idea to be injecting children under the age of two with a NEUROTOXIN?

Oh, and also, I don't know that the rest of the OECD really thinks of the US as "leader" any more. More like a crazy uncle with too many handguns in his closet. Posted by: jayackroyd

You forgot the pornography and drug/drink problem.

Dumb and dumber... McCain is an IDiot as well.

And yet, scientists thought it would be a great idea to preserve vaccines with a mercury derivative, because it improved the shelf life of those vaccines! This is something that non scientists would automatically question as a possible health hazard; only scientists could delude themselves into thinking it was worth a try.

My sister has severe autism, so like you, my opinion counts more than everyone else's. And I say it's not the vaccines at all, since this has been carefully debunked by double-blind studies. Your invocation of some bonehead's psychological theory as a telling example of "bad science" is unpersuasive.

There's far more mercury risk in a small can of tuna than there ever was in the entire lifetime of vaccinations a person would ever get.

I wrote: If there's ever a lawsuit, certainly there's going to be an explanation- a defense- and the most common defense in such suits is "it wasn't me." at 9:24 AM.

I guess I should have wrote "an attempt at an explanation" instead.

"Hey, John, look down there, see that thing we're soaring over right now?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"It's The Shark!"

There are other more serious sources of mercury in the environment. Coal, for one. Seems to me that such industrial sources are more likely to connect with autism and other neurological disorders.

Invective and insults are a waste of time. McCain missed one major point. It is not necessarily the preservative that is the issue, it is the frequency of vaccinations. A newborn does not need a Hep vaccination. When military recruits are shot with a multiple series of vaccinations at one time, demyelanation of the nerves occurs -meaning the nerve linings are damaged or destroyed. This is what appears to be happening with the children who have adverse reactions to vaccinations, who then become a dot on the graph of autism spectrum. We need to look at the increased rate of autism correlated with the increased vaccine load on our children. Get back to giving this stuff over 12 years, and our children may actually have nervous systems that function and develop well. Continue this way, and we will continue to see babies and children with nervous systems that are tortured. Plenty of scientists will argue one way or the other for the preservative or vaccines, who will look out for what is best for our babies? Mothers, fathers, and some good doctors, nurses and pa's. The holier than thou invective one reads on blogs and websites just points to the narcisissm in our society. Step into the shoes of a parent with a child affected by autism for 24 hours, and you will meet someone who, if they are effectively parenting, is exhausted, overwhelmed, fearful for the safety of their child, and desparate to find anything that will help them. Each child is different, each has differing solutions. Each has something going on with the nervous system. Most received insults to their nervous system starting within minutes of birth. Where are the true scientists and investigators on this? This is a problem that needs a solution - and there are some - even though the exact cause is unknown..why are we waiting? It strikes me that it is like polluting our rivers and lakes, we know it is bad for us, we may not know all the causes, do we not do anything until we know all the causes or do we take some action now to prevent the pollution we can and figure the rest out as we get more data? We can't survive without water. Our country can't survive without our children.

Margaret - you might find

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/autism.html

of interest [my lab is part of this consortium]

Step into the shoes of a parent with a child affected by autism for 24 hours, and you will meet someone who, if they are effectively parenting, is exhausted, overwhelmed, fearful for the safety of their child, and desparate to find anything that will help them.

Margaret, as the parent of a child with autism, I find this insulting. My daughter is a joy and I'm glad to have her. I hate this stupid, fear-mongering view of ASD that people who are supposed to be advocates are pushing these days. Sorry that parents didn't get their perfect babies, but they need to grow up and get over it.

Listening to all this posterior olfactory output emanating from somebody that was allegedly elected without procedural “irregularities”, it’s obvious except to maybe that claimed 25% that drug enhanced paranoia is a part of the systematic paradigm. I am always fascinated how isolated we become after our teenage years, and it would appear that this particular individual has been isolated at least that long. What happens is a process of faulty thinking being confirmed because we don't present our ideas to a critical public or a trusted medical professional. Rather we hold these ideas to the little rodent of our psyches, which runs the mobius strip wheel of our egos. You know, one of the most common statements mentioned by neighbors after they pull the bullet riddled body of the sniper from the top of the local water tower, "He was a good neighbor, though I never talked to him, he seemed to keep to himself. He kept his lawn mowed. He put a flag out on 4th of July, and wore a flag button in his lapel."

Don Imus and his wife and his insider posse were constantly on the soap box about thimerosol.
This is McCain territory...look for connection in these here parts, hombre.

Hmmm... Imus for Veep?

Jose Padilla on McCain -"I think a large part of his popularity stems from the fact that he is willing to say whatever people want to hear."

I take it that means you're going to take a Sherman on voting for Obama then?

McCain's staff needs to stop letting him stay at Holiday Inn Express.

Millionth monkey said:

>...medical scientists would be more familiar with the amount of mercury involved and its oxidation state which changes its toxicology.

yada yada yada. Scientists have been repeatedly proven wrong about dangers of everything from smoking to radiation to food additives.

My point is not that we should ignore all science, just take it with a grain of salt when science pooh poohs a concern. Common sense is often underrated.

>My sister has severe autism, so like you, my opinion counts more than everyone else's.

I said I take the subject more seriously than most here, not that my opinion counts more than everyone else’s.

>And I say it's not the vaccines at all, since this has been carefully debunked by double-blind studies. Your invocation of some bonehead's psychological theory as a telling example of "bad science" is unpersuasive.

if you read my message more carefully, you might have noticed that I think it’s a mosaic of insults that is behind the autism epidemic, and not one smoking pistol.

That “bonehead� I cited -- Bruno Bettelheim-- was the dominant guiding light in autism treatment for about 40 years. Is this news to you?

Do you just disregard psychology as a science at all? in any case, the record is clear that for the postwar period, many parents were referred to psychologists who did grave disservice in following Bettelheim’s “refrigerator mother� theory. Your dismissal of Bettelheim does nothing to mitigate the disservice that htis branch of science did to these families for a generation.

Margaret said:

>Step into the shoes of a parent with a child affected by autism for 24 hours, and you will meet someone who, if they are effectively parenting, is exhausted, overwhelmed, fearful for the safety of their child, and desparate to find anything that will help them.

FWIW, I have a son who’s 22 and a daughter 15, both in the spectrum, and I think your quote here is right on the money, and not insulting in any way.

Step into the shoes of a parent with a child affected by autism for 24 hours, and you will meet someone who, if they are effectively parenting, is exhausted, overwhelmed, fearful for the safety of their child, and desparate to find anything that will help them.

With respect to the vaccine-autism link, "desperate" is a pretty accurate summation of the anti-vaccine crowd. Desperation to find something - anything - to explain their child's differences. Unfortunately, their misinformed grandstanding stands in the way of eradication of such fun diseases as measles, pertussis, diphtheria, and polio.

If their resistance to vaccinations weren't so directly adversely affecting the health of other children, I'd probably be more sympathetic ... but it is, so I'm not.

What, no follow up Kevin? You all?

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