Shame on Sick Kids Hospital

22 posts / 0 new

Tue, 2009-10-27 11:24

Snuckles

Quote:
A branch of Toronto's renowned Hospital for Sick Children is being criticized for funding an autism conference whose organizers champion the discredited belief that childhood immunization causes the neurological disorder.

The event - to start on Saturday at the University of Toronto medical sciences building - also includes presentations that some experts are calling unproven science, promoting such alternative treatments for autism as homeopathy and hyperbaric oxygen chambers.

Organized by the American group AutismOne and Austism Canada, the meeting has received $5,000 in funding from SickKids Foundation, the hospital's fundraising wing.

Read it [url=http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2147919]here[/url].

Tue, 2009-10-27 11:35

Snert

Sounds like a good reason to continue avoiding those "Sick Kids" panhandlers who hunt in pairs downtown.

Tue, 2009-10-27 11:36

ennir

I disagree, I commend them for doing this.

This "discredited belief" statement ignores the many, many cases of parents identifying problems immediately after their children have been vaccinated. I listen to them and not to pharmaceutical companies that profit from discrediting their reality.

Tue, 2009-10-27 12:13

Michelle

Snert wrote:

Sounds like a good reason to continue avoiding those "Sick Kids" panhandlers who hunt in pairs downtown.

I do anyhow. They should be lobbying the government to fund health care, not focus their efforts on charity drives.

Tue, 2009-10-27 13:14

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

ennir, correlation and causation are not the same thing. The vaccine connection was started by a lie and then debunked. Please consult some reality-based sources.

I'm pretty surprised at Sick Kids Hospital. It's a worthy institution. Although I do agree with Michelle that the funding should be federal, not at the whim of charitable givers.

Tue, 2009-10-27 13:21

Snert

Quote:
I do anyhow.

Me too, and for the same reason. But now my boycott is even more principled! :)

Tue, 2009-10-27 15:02

Snert

Quote:
These kooky nutjobs. Dr's and researchers and neurology professors - what do they know?

I can tell you what they don't know. They don't know that vaccinations cause autism.

But don't let me be a downer on anyone's Real Truth.

I just hope the ROM doesn't use its charitable donations for a symposium called "Flat Earth: Look Outside, It's Flat, Right?"

Anyway, off to collect my fat paycheque from Big Pharma now. Thought I'd just save anyone the trouble of outing me.

Tue, 2009-10-27 15:05

Polly B

Never mind. Edited because this is going to turn into one of those shitty threads and I don't feel like going there.

Have fun.

Tue, 2009-10-27 15:12

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

[url=http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1723]Everything you need to know about this kooky nutjob conference[/url] (including the brochure).

Tue, 2009-10-27 15:15

#10

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Here's some information on why this is not a *Good Thing* for Sick Kids Hospital to be involved in:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/08/autism_quackery_at_the_univers...

There's a pretty sketchy organization known for spreading misinformation and propaganda about autism (and some pretty horrific "treatments" for autism that they advocate) involved in the conference.

Tue, 2009-10-27 15:37

#11

ennir

Timebandit wrote:

ennir, correlation and causation are not the same thing. The vaccine connection was started by a lie and then debunked. Please consult some reality-based sources.

I'm pretty surprised at Sick Kids Hospital. It's a worthy institution. Although I do agree with Michelle that the funding should be federal, not at the whim of charitable givers.

I've sat across from some reality based parents with children damaged by vaccines. I am not particularly stuck on the idea that vaccines cause autism, what I have said is that they do damage to some and for that reason should be questioned.

Once again, I commend them for stepping out of the pharmacological box.

I am out of this thread, I see little point in even attempting to discuss what might be done to investigate it when it is obvious this thread will just degenerate as others have.

Tue, 2009-10-27 15:50

#12

Snert

By "degenerate", do you mean "degenerate into rationality"? The kind of rationality where science trumps third-hand anecdotes and layperson's "diagnosis"? Because that actually sounds good to me right now.

Tue, 2009-10-27 16:27

#13

Michelle

Thanks for that post, RosaL. Makes so much sense to me.

Tue, 2009-10-27 16:30

#14

RosaL

Meanwhile, it's autistic kids who really suffer from this. Instead of helping them learn to grow and develop as autistic people, their parents and these "experts" put all their time and energy into trying to find out "what caused it" and making them normal, i.e., people who enjoy team sports, can't tolerate being alone, experience intense anxiety if they aren't like everyone else, have extreme difficulty with independent thought, value romantic/sexual love over almost everything else, have difficulties with logical thought, etc.

[edit: Maybe I shouldn't have taken those pot-shots at the normal people. But part of what I was trying to say is that there are good things about being autistic (and bad things about not being so).]

Seriously, I saw a documentary on tv that featured a couple who were making their autistic kid - among other things - play soccer. (He 'played soccer' exactly the way I did when I was a kid, except in my case no one was telling the other kids, "be nice to her; she's autistic".) Why?? Because it's normal. They can't imagine a good life without this kind of thing. So instead of helping him find what he's good at and enjoys, they torture him with things he will never be good at and never enjoy. They'd rather he was a pathetic, miserable failure at "normal" than flourish as an autistic human being.

Tue, 2009-10-27 16:31

#15

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Ditto. I haven't seen enough of that perspective, RosaL.

Tue, 2009-10-27 16:31

#16

Doug

ennir wrote:
This "discredited belief" statement ignores the many, many cases of parents identifying problems immediately after their children have been vaccinated. I listen to them and not to pharmaceutical companies that profit from discrediting their reality.

It happens to be the case that when the vaccine concerned is given is the same time children can be expected to first show symptoms of autism if they have it. The standard for demonstrating a connection is higher and it really hasn't been met so far by the research.

Tue, 2009-10-27 16:48

#17

Polly B

RosaL wrote:

Meanwhile, it's autistic kids who really suffer from this. Instead of helping them learn to grow and develop as autistic people, their parents and these "experts" put all their time and energy into trying to find out "what caused it" and making them normal, i.e., people who enjoy team sports, can't tolerate being alone, experience intense anxiety if they aren't like everyone else, have extreme difficulty with independent thought, value romantic/sexual love over almost everything else, have difficulties with logical thought, etc.

Okay I know I said I would stay out but there is another side to this. I know a family with an autistic child - one of those sets of parents who DO spend a huge amount of time and energy trying to find out "what caused it". The hope, of course, is if they find a cause they might be able to cure him. Not because they want him to be normal or play soccer or be just like everyone else, but because he bites himself till he bleeds every night and they have to restrain him so that he can't. They don't know if he will ever grow out of that.

Tue, 2009-10-27 16:56

#18

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

The problem with so many of these so-called advocacy organizations, like Generation Rescue, Age of Autism, etc. is that they don't serve to find out what the causes actually are. Instead of moving to the best-supported hypotheses, they cling to debunked and disproven theories, to discredited research and advocate ineffective and sometimes downright cruel "cures" and treatments. These organizations do more harm than good.

I can understand that a parent of an autistic child would be desperate for something, anything that could help. But chelation therapy that kids have died from and still gets vaunted as a cure? Chemical castration with Lupron? Come on. These kids deserve better than that.

Tue, 2009-10-27 19:37

#19

Sineed

McCormick M, Bayer R, Berg A, et al. Report of the Institute of Medicine. Immunization safety review: vaccines and autism. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine; 2004.
Pichichero ME, Cernichiari E, Lopreiato J, et al. Mercury concentrations and metabolism in infants receiving vaccines containing thiomersal: a descriptive study. Lancet 2002;360:1737--41.
Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, et al. Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases. Pediatrics 2003;112:1039--48.
Tozzi AE, Bisiacchi P, Tarantino V, et al. Neuropsychological performance 10 years after immunization in infancy with thimerosal-containing vaccines. Pediatrics 2009;123:475--82.
Schechter R, Grether JK. Continuing increases in autism reported to California's developmental services system: mercury in retrograde. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2008;65:19--24.
Pichichero ME, Gentile A, Giglio N, et al. Mercury levels in newborns and infants after receipt of thimerosal-containing vaccines. Pediatrics 2008;121:e208--14.
Thompson WW, Price C, Goodson B, et al. Early thimerosal exposure and neuropsychological outcomes at 7 to 10 years. N Engl J Med 2007;357:1281--92.
Parker SK, Schwartz B, Todd J, Pickering LK. Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autistic spectrum disorder: a critical review of published original data. Pediatrics 2004;114:793--804.
Croen LA, Matevia M, Yoshida CK, et al. Maternal Rh D status, anti-D immune globulin exposure during pregnancy, and risk of autism spectrum disorders. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2008;199:234 e1--6.
Stratton K, Gable A, McCormick M., eds. Report of the Institute of Medicine. Immunization safety review: thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine; 2001.

In studying today, I came across this list of scientific papers that form part of the body of evidence that refutes the connection between vaccines and autism. FYI

Tue, 2009-10-27 21:02

#20

G. Muffin

Doug wrote:
It happens to be the case that when the vaccine concerned is given is the same time children can be expected to first show symptoms of autism if they have it. The standard for demonstrating a connection is higher and it really hasn't been met so far by the research.

Do vaccine schedules ever get changed? If they change and the age of onset of autism didn't change, I would hope that would put this theory to bed once and for all.

Tue, 2009-10-27 22:08

#21

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

The theory is already put to bed and snoring away nicely.

Thu, 2009-11-19 19:30

#22

Aristotleded24

RosaL wrote:

Meanwhile, it's autistic kids who really suffer from this. Instead of helping them learn to grow and develop as autistic people, their parents and these "experts" put all their time and energy into trying to find out "what caused it" and making them normal, i.e., people who enjoy team sports, can't tolerate being alone, experience intense anxiety if they aren't like everyone else, have extreme difficulty with independent thought, value romantic/sexual love over almost everything else, have difficulties with logical thought, etc.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken those pot-shots at the normal people.

Normal people need sympathy. [url=http://isnt.autistics.org/]Most suffer from Neurologically Typical Disorder:[/url]

Quote:

Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.

Neurotypical individuals often assume that their experience of the world is either the only one, or the only correct one. NTs find it difficult to be alone. NTs are often intolerant of seemingly minor differences in others. When in groups NTs are socially and behaviorally rigid, and frequently insist upon the performance of dysfunctional, destructive, and even impossible rituals as a way of maintaining group identity. NTs find it difficult to communicate directly, and have a much higher incidence of lying as compared to persons on the autistic spectrum.

NT is believed to be genetic in origin. Autopsies have shown the brain of the neurotypical is typically smaller than that of an autistic individual and may have overdeveloped areas related to social behavior.