Irony at Work: Andrew Wakefield and Academic Integrity

A friend pointed me to a link showing the schedule of events for the AutismOne conference, and aside from the normal players like Jenny McCarthy, Dr. Eisenstein, and the father-son Geier duo, I couldn't help but notice that they have actually asked Andrew Wakefield to speak.

The best part?  The topic of his speech is "Defending Academic Integrity and Research".

Here is a summary of his little chat:

"Doctors and scientists working in the public interest and specifically for the wellbeing of their patients – particularly those involved in researching vaccine safety – are coming under attack as never before. This talk emphasizes the reasons why we should value the individual over the concept of a "herd," the importance of maintaining academic integrity, and the progress that has been made despite systematic oppression of scientific and medical enquiry."

That's rich.  A guy who was stripped of his medical license due to fraud, a man who failed to disclose financial conflicts of interest, and a man who was found to have manipulated and falsified data within a published study (which was subsequently retracted) is speaking about academic integrity.  

Let's keep in mind Wakefield is the same person who (among many other things) was found guilty of four counts of dishonesty and 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children.  The sheer number of proven charges would boggle the mind... yet this is the type of person AutismOne invites to speak about academic integrity?

Sort of makes you wonder if they have Bernie Madoff scheduled to speak about Economic Ethics.

Is Obesity During Pregnancy a Risk Factor for Autism?

It is important to preface this information by stating that although this study is very interesting, this in no way proves autism is caused by obesity, or more specifically obesity during pregnancy.  There are a number of factors that most likely contribute to autism, and this is merely one such factor.

What this study did find was that women who were obese during pregnancy were about 67 percent more likely to have autistic children than women who were considered normal-weight during pregnancy.  That is a significant development, but one which needs confirmation via additional research.  If this holds true, then this is yet another piece of the puzzle which coupled with other research can lead us towards finding the true root cause(s) of autism and hopefully (eventually) to treatment programs and even a cure.

USA Today (AP): Autism may be linked to obesity during pregnancy

Full study can be found in the Journal Pediatrics:  Maternal Metabolic Conditions and Risk for Autism and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders

The question remains - how can antivaxxers like Lowell Hubbs spin all of this new research to shift the blame back onto the vaccines they claim cause autism?  Can they just conveniently ignore these studies?  Can they claim obesity is caused by vaccines themselves?  Will they try to pretend the increased risk from obesity is merely a trigger and that the root cause is still vaccines?

It is anyones guess, but considering how often antivaxxers confuse correlation and causation, you might think they would be quick to recognize that as the obesity epidemic in our nation has ballooned (pardon the pun) so has the autism epidemic.  Of course I am not one to draw conclusions based upon random coincidences... but then again I'm not an antivaxxer.

Perhaps this is a good time to mention that Jenny McCarthy weighed in at 211lbs during her pregnancy with her son Evan (who she claims was autistic until she magically 'cured' him).  Considering McCarthy is 5'7" and around 125lbs, a health weight range during pregnancy would have resulted in her gaining between 28 and 40lbs.  Thus, in no uncertain terms, McCarthy was clinically obese during her pregnancy as she was carrying at least 46 extra pounds on her frame.

For the record I'm not suggesting that McCarthy's weight resulted in her son being autistic, primarily because I can't be certain her son actually is (or was) autistic in the first place.  However if her son is autistic, it seems her massive weight gain during her pregnancy was likely a significant risk factor, and as such will most likely go unmentioned by McCarthy or anyone else in the anti-vaccination camp.  Why you ask?  Because antivaxxers would never be willing to accept that their actions might contribute to their children being diagnosed with autism, and instead it is much easier to just blame vaccines or drug companies or pediatricians or hospitals.  It seems it isn't really about finding a root cause... it is about finding someone else to blame. 

Sadly, this seems to be the American way as everyone claims to be a victim and they are never to blame for something that might go wrong.  If something happens to a child, the parents look around for someone to blame.  If someone gets caught driving drunk, they blame the police or the judge.  If they are arrested for theft, they blame a substance abuse issue.  If they suffer from a medical condition or have issues controlling their rage, they look to a doctor or drug company to blame, but rarely do people actually look in a mirror and accept responsibility for their own lives.

Any way you spin it, this is not a good time to be an anti-vaccinationist, and 2012 is shaping up to be one of the worst years on record for Lowell Hubbs, Jenny McCarthy, and their antivaxxer brethren.

Quack of the Day: Jenny McCarthy

Just remember... she wants to be known for her brain.

If anyone has spent more than ten minutes researching autism, they are bound to come across Jenny McCarthy during their searches.  It isn't because McCarthy is influential or educated.  It isn't because she has done research on the subject nor is it because she has contributed to the field of knowledge that surrounds autism.  Rather the reason McCarthy's name seems to go hand in hand with autism is because she is a celebrity... and as such that gives her access to people like Oprah Winfrey or Larry King, and it also allows her to get her "story" published in People magazine or various supermarket tabloids.

The reality is if McCarthy wasn't a famous Playboy Playmate or B-list actress, nobody would bother to listen, but because she is rather well known, that (for whatever reason) has convinced certain media figures that her story is worth repeating.

So what is the story she is so willing to tell?  Well essentially McCarthy claims vaccines cause autism and these same vaccines in turn harmed her son Evan.  She also claims she was able to reverse Evan's condition and "cure" his autism via a mixture of good old fashioned hard work, truckloads of love, and some miracle biomedical treatments.  Of course McCarthy has zero scientific evidence to support her theory that vaccines cause autism, and in fact when she originally published her book and started going around the country trying to convince others that she was more knowledgeable on the subject than any of the thousands of doctors and scientists who work in the field every day.... there were no less than ten different published studies that had tried to examine the supposed link between vaccines and autism and not a single one of them had ever found even so much as a casual link.

Oh well... science really isn't that important right?  Surely a former Playmate knows more about complex scientific subjects like vaccines than those who spend their entire careers studying them.  We should just accept the fact that McCarthy is right and that all of the experts are simply out of touch.

The irony in this entire situation is that Jenny McCarthy is very much anti-science, yet science is responsible for her most famous assets (her silicone enhanced chesticles).  So apparently she trusts science when it comes to such important matters as enlarging her breasts, but science goes out the door when it comes to her son.  Check.

It is probably worth noting that many experts believe that Evan was actually misdiagnosed in the first place and that he never actually had autism.  As it turns out, some of Evan's initial symptoms were tied to seizures he experienced, and after those seizures were treated his condition improved.  It has been stated that Evan's symptoms were actually more reflective of Landau-Kleffner Syndrome rather than autism and therefore any "cure" that Jenny McCarthy claims to have used has nothing to do with autism.  Other doctors have even suggested Evan had no medical condition at all and was merely developmentally delayed in comparison to his peers.

No matter what McCarthy seems to believe, it seems rather odd that her miracle cure hasn't translated so well.  We don't hear of hundreds or even thousands of autistic kids being cured, so it would seem slightly odd that her magic only happened to apply to her son and nobody else.  So aside from scaring parents away from vaccines, what else has Jenny McCarthy done with all of her anti-vaccination crusading? Go to this website to find out and read the sources...it is very interesting.

Jenny McCarthy Body Count

The basic premise is that as of the time this post was written, McCarthy has indirectly led to the deaths of 738 children which could have been prevented with proper vaccinations, and she has indirectly led to over 85,000 children contracting preventable diseases.  And in all that time what is the number of autism diagnoses scientifically linked to vaccinations???

ZERO.

Yes.... ZERO.

These are the ramifications when people ignore science, and while Jenny McCarthy could have chose to use her celebrity status to educate people about vaccinations and/or to help parents of autistic children come to grips with the diagnoses, she instead decided it was better to scare parents based upon personal opinion which has no scientific backing whatsoever.  Amazing.