15 November 2015

Trace Amounts pt. 1

8:00pm

This post is my personal homage to Jeanne Devon, Phil Plait, PZ Myers, and anyone else who has sucked it up and read a "book" or watched a "documentary" just so that the howling masses wouldn't be able to claim that nobody had engaged with that particular item. In this case, it's the documentary Trace Amounts, released this year by Eric Gladen. For those who don't know, this documentary purports to prove a causal link between the mercury-based preservative thimerosal that was formerly used in many vaccines (and is now only used in multi-use vials, especially of seasonal flu vaccine) and autism.

Before I even watch the movie, I'm a bit disgruntled - I purchased it on Amazon for $14.99 with no rental option. I recently purchased both I Am Sam and The Princess Bride for $9.99 each and the entire current season of Doctor Who for $22.99. Not saying that Trace Amounts won't prove to have the lasting impact of The Princess Bride or the emotional pull of I Am Sam, but it did cost me 50% more.

Before I begin, a few ground rules:

  1. I get to drink as much Scotch as I want.
  2. I get to research all assertions.
  3. Any reference to Dr. Andrew Wakefield will immediately discredit any connected assertion: I acknowledge that this is probably poisoning the well and I just don't care.
  4. Any maligning of the CDC will immediately discredit any connected assertion. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the CDC is like the NASA of healthcare; if you want someone to put something in space, NASA's record may not be perfect, but they do have the best experts, one of the longest histories, and a greater track record of success than any other game in town.
9:05pm

Oh, man. I've been watching a little bit and researching a lot. So far, I'm six minutes into the movie. If this rate persists, this project should be done around 6:45am tomorrow. I may have to skip some bits.

10:05pm

OH SWEET now he's calling Eli Lilly to see if anyone wants to comment on their compound's toxicity! This is tacky and transparent when you're as good as Michael Moore, and buddy, you're no Michael Moore.

midnight

Well, I've made it through thirty minutes of the movie and have read more articles than I care to count. Hopefully the second two thirds of the movie are more factual, because the first third has made 26 claims that I've researched and only one of them was unequivocally true AND had anything to do with whether vaccines/thimerosal cause autism.

I'm calling it quits for tonight. Here's my table of assertions, evidence, and commentary at this point (the score is 1 TRUE, 3 TECHNICALLY TRUE, 9 IRRELEVANT, and 1 Andrew Wakefield out of 26 assertions so far).


ClaimEvidenceRulingAdditional Thoughts
thimerosal plays no role in vaccinespreservative effective at .001-.01% concentration http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228#t1FALSEAt the .01% concentration, 5 micrograms of mercury are entering the bloodstream. Vehicles on US roads emit between .3 and 11.1 nanograms per mile. Assuming the average child drives in a car emitting .5ng/mi and rides an average of 10 miles per day (reasonable in a small place like Sitka, dramatically undershooting for most places), that child will be exposed to 3.5 times the dose of mercury included in a flu vaccine from her own transportation alone, not including any other atmospheric contaminents or other vehicles.
thimerosal in vaccines given to children and pregnant womengiven to children only for seasonal flu http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228#t1 not routinely administered to pregnant women except for seasonal fluTECHNICALLY TRUE
Virginia S. among first eleven children diagnosed with autismVivian Murdock pseudonymously known as Virginia S. http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/04/her-name-was-vivian-clues-from-the-age-of-autisms-first-born-child.htmlTRUE
historical autism rate of 1 in 10,000 with sharp increase beginning in 1990shistorical diagnosis rate of 1 in 10,000, but surveys of adults holding them to same criteria as current studies of children indicate that rates of autism have not changed http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2012/autism-prevalence-more-affected-or-more-detected.shtmlFALSE
mercury content in vaccines causes autisminconclusive data with mixed results http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829208000142, http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=482546, http://www.swinburne.edu.au/lss/sabri/documents/JRS436.pdfUNPROVEN, LIKELY FALSEClaim 1: mercury causes autism (autism rates seem to parallel environmental mercury levels). Claim 2: mercury in vaccines causes autism (no direct evidence). Claim 3: decreases in mercury content in vaccines should result in decreases in autism diagnoses (exact opposite result observed)
Andrew Wakefield as victimnopeBURN IN HELLfalsified data, paper retracted by Lancet, coauthors retracted paper, lost medical license due to unsafe experimental design
scientific consensus lacking on safety of vaccines/causes of autism.0000097% of vaccines administered resulted in "serious adverse effects" http://francais.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5201a1.htm no single known cause of autism http://www.autism-society.org/what-is/causes/MOSTLY FALSE/TRUE
thimerosal (any preservative) used in vaccines because pharma companies are lazy/want to operate in unsterile conditionspreservatives used to protect sterility with multi-use vials between injections http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm#preservativesFALSEUnsterile pharmaceutical operations don't stay in business long.
thimerosal in vaccines above mercury exposure thresholdthreshold at 5ng/mL blood, 20ng/mL urine - significantly lower than quantities in vaccinesTECHNICALLY TRUEBodily absorption rates are not the same as percentages in ingested/injected compounds. 40% alcohol by volume is commonly consumed in 1.5oz quantities.
thimerosal damages paid to plaintiff, records sealed, plaintiff removed from federal caselegal proceedings are not scientificIRRELEVANT
Eric Gladen tetanus shot resulted in illness, woke up as "a different person"no concrete claim made, cannot verify
thimerosal administered to 22 Indianapolis bacterial meningitis patients at 1% dose, all of whom diedthimerosal included in vaccines at .01% or less, Lilly administered doses of up to 50ccs http://arch.neicon.ru/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/1443357/amjepid_amjepid_13_1.13-1-296.pdf?sequence=1IRRELEVANTSeriously? Take anything that is safe at a .01% dose, make it ten times stronger, and then administer it at ten times the quantity. These people were getting 100x the amount of thimerosal that's in a flu vaccine and it was in its unadulterated form. Also still not causing autism.
thimerosal toxic even at ng concentrationsnot even gonna bother looking it upIRRELEVANTToxic does not indicate that it causes autism.
increased vaccination (thimerosal intake) rates in 1980s correlated to increased autism diagnosesIRRELEVANTCorrelation does not imply causation. As previously noted, studies indicate that autism has been historically underdiagnosed
autism does not exist among the Amish, who do not vaccinateautism does exist among the Amish http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929707000110 and seems universal regardless of vaccine exposure https://spectrumnews.org/news/researchers-track-down-autism-rates-across-the-globe/FALSEAutism rates correlate best to the ability of practitioners to diagnose autism.
Mayer Eisenstein (anything the man says)not an expert in any field related to autism, treats autism with drug not approved for such use http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-autism-doctor-eisenstein-may22-story.htmlIRRELEVANT
Bernadine Healy dismayed that medical scientists have not looked into causalitycareer in medical scientific research (cardiologist), valid scientific viewpointIRRELEVANTScientists always love finding a new question to pursue. A good scientist wants to see more research done any time a question arises. Still does not link vaccines to autism.
Eric Gladen hearing and vision anomalies, lack of sleep, psychological disturbancesno concrete claim made, cannot verify
Geiers treat autism with Lupronsame treatment used by Mayer Eisenstein, drug developed for chemical castration of sex offenders and never approved for autism, medical license suspended or removed in many states http://www.casewatch.org/civil/geier.shtmlThese treatments are worse than the condition.
Bill Thompson: CDC is suppressing autism-related resultshttp://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/08/05/the-cdc-whistleblower-william-thompson-appears-to-have-gone-full-antivaccine/FALSEWhy would the CDC choose to do that?
Karima Hirani "show me the 30/40 year old autistics"previously did find those, also not a doctor nor medically-qualified as an expert on autism http://www.drhirani.com/ http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2012/autism-prevalence-more-affected-or-more-detected.shtmlFALSE and IRRELEVANT
Carolyn Hansen, special education teacher, asserts increase in uncontrollable symptoms over long careerdifficult to verify source, but anecdotal observations cannot be confirmed and a Carolyn Hansen with similar service dates was lapsed in Special Education as of 1994, though still employed until 2011 http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/oah/TLDecisions/2011031098.169.pdfIRRELEVANT
mercury causes disintegration of neuronnumerous articles and scholarly papers; mercury has been known as a neurotoxin for decadesIRRELEVANTStill does not link thimerosal to autism.
vaccines administered at birth and in early months contain extremely higher quantities of mercury than would be safeHepatitis B vaccine administered at birth includes no thimerosal, and no other vaccines administered in the first year do either except the flu http://kidshealth.org/parent/pregnancy_newborn/medical_care/immunization_chart.htmlFALSE
Andy Cutler: different mercury exposures result in different absorption ratesabsorption rates do differ based on exposure type and mercury type http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147651303000605TECHNICALLY TRUEAndy Cutler profits off of a non-scientific treatment for mercury exposure: http://www.curezone.org/faq/q.asp?a=3,76&q=102
injected ethyl mercury is more dangerous than oral methyl mercuryThimerosal accumulates less mercury in the brain than MeHg, but generates significantly more inorganic Hg, study encourages further research but falls short of identifying brain damage caused by thimerosal http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1280342/EQUIVOCALstill doesn't connect to autism



13 April 2015

eleven

7:20pm, 44 and clear
2.2 miles, 25 minutes

...with the dog

07 April 2015

ten

9:20, 46/misty/light breeze
20 minutes, 2 miles (hill run)

06 April 2015

nine

6pm, 46 degrees
41 minutes, 4.3 miles

05 April 2015

eight

4:13, 46 and sunny (light breeze)
56 minutes, 6 miles

31 March 2015

seven part 2

8:45pm, damp ground and 44
19 minutes, 1.7 miles

seven part 1

6:02, drizzle and 45
18 minutes, 1.6 miles

27 March 2015

six

7:15pm, wet and 43
3.2 miles, 35 minutes (dragging dog)

24 March 2015

five

7:42pm, partly cloudy and 48
29 minutes, ~3.4 miles

22 March 2015

four

3:01pm, sunny and 45
4 track miles, 35 minutes (last mile barefoot)

20 March 2015

third run post-1/2 marathon registration

6:20pm, light rain and mid-40s
25 minutes, ~2.8 miles

March goal: 1 4-mile run per week
April goal: 1 6-mile run per week
May goal: 1 9-mile run per week
June goal: 1 12-mile run per week
July goal: 1 15-mile run every other week/1 9-mile run in between
August goal: 2:15 or faster 13.1 mile race

19 March 2015

second run post-1/2 marathon registration

6:52pm, sunny and mid-40s
35 minutes, ~3.6 miles

03 February 2015

01 February 2015

Truly the best of fruit.

In case you were wondering: yes, an avocado does make an excellent substitute for a stick of butter in your baking.

26 January 2015

Al

It started out just me and him. Tomorrow night - for a brief bit - it will be just me and him again, one last time.