MedWorm.com provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest items from the 'Natural Variation - Autism Blog' source. Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:51:26 +0100 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/11/error-in-scientist-moms-vaccine-autism.html Back in September there was some noise about a post by someone I'll call "Scientist Mom" (apparently she doesn't use a pseudonym at all) titled The Correlation that Does Indicate Causation. I didn't want to even read the post back then because I had a feeling I would become involved in analyzing the data and spend way too much time that I was supposed to spend doing something else. The obvious critique of such an analysis, without knowing much about it, is that it was a pirates vs. global-warming type of correlation. Orac slammed Scientist Mom for it, and rightly so. In my last post on the (lack of) association between rainfall and autism I had used birth-year data from California. I thought a natural extension of that work was to apply a detrended cross-correlation analysis to the caseloa... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1951991 Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:39:00 +0100 1951991 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/11/is-precipitation-associated-with-autism_06.html In the last post I attempted to confirm if there was a naive ecological state-level association between precipitation and IDEA autism prevalence. To my surprise, there wasn't, and there was no need to control for urbanicity. Technically what the result means is that, just considering this one analysis, we can't reject the null hypothesis. Of course, one could argue that state-level data is poor. The confidence interval is too big, and a real effect could easily hide in it. (In part this is what "not being able to prove a negative" means).So I couldn't leave it at that. I wanted to confirm it in some other way. I remembered I had birth-year caseload data from California DDS dating back to 1920 (contiguous since 1930) that David Kirby had originally requested, and a copy of which I had obtai... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1939216 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:58:00 +0100 1939216 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/11/is-precipitation-associated-with-autism.html A while back I wrote a critique of the TV hypothesis by Waldman et al. I noted the likely confound is population density, which should not be considered a "fixed effect" in Waldman's methodology (an interesting statistical methodology that is apparently used in Economics frequently). When we talk about population density as a confound, we're really using it as a proxy of other confounds that are clearly not fixed in time. These more specific confounds could be things like awareness, availability of autism specialists, etc. In general, studies like Waldman's and Palmer's likely suffer from the fundamentally incorrect assumption that regional differences in the administrative prevalence of autism reflect a real difference in actual prevalence. But I do believe it is possible to use administr... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1939217 Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:53:00 +0100 1939217 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/07/are-children-of-first-generation.html Discussion focuses on possible risk factors and psychosocial adversities for autism such as a high frequency of caregivers who are foreign maids, the use of multiple languages and the high level of punitive educational practices."Lauritsen et al. (2005): "An increased relative risk of 1.4 was found if the mother was born outside Europe, and in children of parents who were born in different countries."Maimburg and Vaeth (2006): "The risk of infantile autism was increased for mothers aged >35 years, with foreign citizenship, and mothers who used medicine during pregnancy."Kolevzon et al. (2007): "The parental characteristics associated with an increased risk of autism and autism spectrum disorders included advanced maternal age, advanced paternal age, and maternal place of birth outside Euro... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1652394 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:33:00 +0100 1652394 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/06/anthropogenic-global-warming-is.html I need to ask for the reader's indulgence, as this post is not about autism, except insofar as determining the merit of correlations has become a perseveration of mine. You see, it is trivial to come up with naive correlations of autism trends vs. practically anything about the modern world. The administrative prevalence of autism has been increasing almost always since records have been kept. Concurrent upward trends of nearly anything, from vaccines to environmental pollution, from trans fats to electromagnetic radiation, and so on, are easy to come by.In my latest post at LB/RB I suggested that instead of correlating trends in a naive manner, we could attempt to correlate the residuals of time regression models of each trend. A residual is a delta or difference between an observed value... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1535820 Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:10:00 +0100 1535820 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/05/critique-of-palmer-et-al-2008.html I have posted a critique of Palmer et al. (2008) over at LB/RB. The paper claims to associate autism with coal-fired power-plan emissions, particularly mercury. I argue that the control for urbanicity in the paper is limited. Then I illustrate how it is that population density mediates the correlation in California.I prefer that comments be made over at the LB/RB post. (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1416288 Fri, 02 May 2008 19:46:00 +0100 1416288 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/04/change-in-comment-policy.html This doesn't mean that this blog is necessarily becoming active again, but I've decided I need to change my comment policy, as you can see in the blog's description above. The new policy is basically the same lenient policy I've had before specifically designed to encourage critical comments and rebuttals. In general, comments are not deleted unless they clearly violate Blogger's content policy. Messages that violate the policy include things like spam, threats of violence or death, pornography and so forth. In addition to this, from now on I will delete any comments from the following persons:John Best Jr. (AKA Fore Sam)As everyone knows, John does not contribute to any discussion in any productive way, and simply disrupts comment threads. Furthermore, recently he has made unacceptable pe... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1364955 Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100 1364955 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/04/pleasantly-surprised-by-david-kirby-and.html Orac over at Respectful Insolence has received a response to his open letter to David Kirby and Dan Olmsted regarding the Seidel Subpoena. Their response reads as follows.We both take this matter very seriously, and strongly oppose any effort to subpoena the records of Ms. Kathleen Seidel. We have also clearly expressed our feelings to Mr. Shoemaker. While we may not agree with her opinions, we consider Ms. Seidel to be a colleague. Rights to privacy, and to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment, must be upheld for all. We urge Mr. Shoemaker to reconsider, and drop this action against Ms. Seidel. David KirbyDan OlmstedI have to admit that was very big of both of them. They did not try to be apologetic. No "yes - but" or anything like that. For this I applaud them.I had previousl... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1360664 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:00:00 +0100 1360664 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/04/conficts-of-interest-disclosure.html As everyone knows, a couple of worthless pieces of shit from the mercury militia have gone after Kathleen and another blogger by means of legal bullying, with the presumed intention to not only silence two important voices of dissent but also to chill much of the neurodiversity and skeptical blogsphere.After Kathleen was subpoenaed, she filed a top-notch motion to quash, where she happened to disclose the sort of revenue that is generated by running the site neurodiversity.com (incidentally, apparently less than its maintenance costs). I see that at least D'oC, Kassiane and Liz Ditz have also disclosed their conflicts of interest.Earlier today Orac over at Respectful Insolence posted An open letter to David Kirby and Dan Olmsted about the Kathleen Seidel subpoena essentially asking Kirby a... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1354077 Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:42:00 +0100 1354077 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2008/04/clifford-shoemaker-what-dick-plus-other.html I've decided to interrupt this blog's hiatus to bring you an important message; one that is actually uncharacteristic for this blog. And that is this: Clifford Shoemaker is a dick-face. In my opinion, that is.Now let's go over select opinions on the matter around the blogsphere.Pooflingers Anonymous in Another Day, Another Gasket...For shitbag lawyer Clifford Shoemaker: grow the fuck up and stop being a fucking thug... or eat a big, steaming pile of my favorite dish. I prefer "grow up", but it's your damned choice.Letting Off Steam in We Are All Kathleen SeidelObviously the American anti-vaccination brigade cannot abide the fact that their arguments are being countered anywhere at all and are seeking to tie Ms Siedel up in legal knots.Rev. BigDumbChimp in Anti-Vaccination Parents stoop to ... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1940040 Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:03:00 +0100 1940040 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/11/impact-of-treatment-on-self-concept.html CONCLUSION: These unexpected results suggest that participation in a relatively short home-based strength-training program may have an inhibitory effect on the self-concept of children with cerebral palsy. Despite the inhibitory effect, self-concept in the experimental group remained positive after strength training, suggesting that clinicians should not be overly concerned about the psychological effects of the intervention.I believe this study has implications of note on the kinds of outcome measures that should be considered in disability treatment trials. Effectiveness is obviously not the only consideration that matters. (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1036954 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:44:00 +0100 1036954 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/11/quick-note-about-low-vs-high.html The other day Harold Doherty wrote a post where he proclaimed that science had demonstrated that what are called high functioning and low functioning autism are different entities.I believe this highlights a basic misunderstanding of the criticism of the validity of the low vs. high functioning labels. No one has ever claimed that those classifed as low functioning are biologically exactly the same as those classified as high functioning. In fact, I'm not surprised at all that neurological differences would be found when you make group comparisons of this nature. I would expect the same to be true when you compare almost any two behavioral phenotypes. (I also questioned Harold's view that Jenny McCarthy could yet be proven correct, in light of the neurological findings whose significance h... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1002303 Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:51:00 +0100 1002303 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/rebuttal-of-israels-response-to-school.html Matthew Israel of the Judge Rotenberg Center has been posting a link to his response to Jennifer Gonnerman's article titled "School of Shock." This is a rebuttal of said response.Every surgical, dental or medical treatment involves discomfort, risks or costs on the one hand, and expected benefits on the other. For most persons a reasonable approach is to weigh the discomfort/risks/costs against the potential benefits in deciding whether to undergo or approve the treatment.There's a clear difference between the JRC's "treatment" and surgical, dental or medical treatment. First of all, infliction of pain is not a means to an end in any of the analogies mentioned. Pain is simply a side-effect of the treatment. Furthermore, in each of these cases, measures are taken to reduce discomfort. That'... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=995017 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:07:00 +0100 995017 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/dr-adams-is-there-paper-in-horizon.html Back in June, 2006, Dateline NBC did a story titled The unorthodox practice of chelation which was primarily about a small double-blind trial on chelation therapy that Jim Adams and colleagues had designed. The following is an excerpt of the interview where Dr. Adams is asked about publishing potential negative results of the trial.John Larson: What happens in the end, after all this hard work? If you find that there really is no relation between mercury and autistic behavior. Will you be disappointed?Jim Adams: Disappointed, yes. But whatever way it turns out, we’ll report it. If it doesn’t help, we’ll report it. And if it does, we’re gonna report that, too.When were the results expected? End of 2006.Jim Adams predicts he'll have the final results of his study by the end of the ye... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=983937 Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:31:00 +0100 983937 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/reptilian-shape-shifting-alien-takes.html There's an interesting discussion over at EOHarm. It started when Lenny Schafer posted the following.Hello,I have inquiries along the lines of this letter from a Schafer Autism Report reader. Most of the explanations I can come up with sound a little weak.Have any EOHarm list participants seen anything new from our side to help explain the question. I am looking for a response to put in the SAR. I am sure many of my 20,000 readers would like to some sort of explanation.LennyDear Mr Schafer,Shouldn't we be seeing a downturn by now in the rate of diagnosed autism now that thimerasol has been removed from all childhood vaccines in California for a few years now? Do you know what the proponents of the theory have to say on the matter? I was dismayed to see the news item in today's report about... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=974977 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:03:00 +0100 974977 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/when-mainstream-is-mistaken-case-of-aba.html As regular readers might have noticed, Natural Variation is, for the most part, what one might call a "skeptic blog." This, however, doesn't mean that I generally bow to scientific authority, and on occasion you will see me question mainstream views, if I feel there are rational arguments that can be advanced to question such views. This time I will question the view that ABA/EIBI is an evidence-based autism treatment. Let me start by quoting what major mainstream authorities think of it.Behavioral training, including communication development, has been shown to be effective in reducing problem behaviors and improving adaptation.There is a growing body of evidence that intensive early intervention services for children in whom autism is diagnosed before 5 years of age may lead to better ov... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=970119 Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:06:00 +0100 970119 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/importance-of-acceptance.html I believe that accepting autistic people is simply the right thing to do. It's not something you should consider doing just to make a child "get better" or any medicalized thing of that nature. That said, in a prior discussion the question came up as to whether acceptance might be beneficial to autistic children, so I decided to research it. There is not a lot of autism-specific research on the issue, but I did find there is a large body of research on acceptance and its effects on general population children as well as disabled children.In the general population it has been found that parental acceptance correlates with better academic performance (Hahn, 1980), optimal self-concept development (Litovsky & Dusek, 1985), self-worth and self-competence (Ohannessian et al., 1998), etc. Self-w... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=965908 Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:38:00 +0100 965908 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/open-thread.html Discuss anything that's on your mind, or post information of interest. (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=961705 Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:30:00 +0100 961705 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/raun-kaufman-completely-recovered-or.html I've come across some information which leads me to put Raun Kaufman on the spot. Apparently he was diagnosed at the age of 18 months. That was over 30 years ago. Isn't that rather early a diagnosis for the time? By the age of 5 he's said to have "emerged" from autism. We're in 2007 now; early diagnoses are quite common and have been studied. It turns out that it's not that unusual for children to lose age 2 diagnoses, and there's little data regarding what predicts this. Anywhere from 12% to 19% of children diagnosed at age 2 will be found to not meet ASD criteria some years later (Turner et al., 2006; Kleinman et al., 2007). Sorry Raun, but those are the facts.But maybe he didn't lose his label at 5. He simply "emerged." Still, Raun Kaufman is unusual and generates interest because he's ... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=956145 Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:56:00 +0100 956145 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/gallup-yazbak-prevalence-is-1-in-67.html Raymond W. Gallup & F. Edward Yazbak have posted an analysis titled "When 1 in 150 is really 1 in 67." As you can imagine, they did not survey children in order to arrive at a new prevalence number of 1 in 67. They estimated it as follows.The CDC has reported that the prevalence of autism among children born in 1994 is 1 in 150.The administrative prevalence of autism among 6 year olds, as reported in IDEA, has increased 124% (factor of 2.24) from 2000 to 2006.Therefore, they argue, the prevalence reported by the CDC must actually be 1 in 67 for children born in 2000, if adjusted accordingly.Anyone see why this methodology does not hold?For this analysis to hold, IDEA ascertainment would have to be at least roughly equivalent to CDC ascertainment. It's not a matter of "not believing the sta... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=952164 Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:02:00 +0100 952164 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/kev-any-way-you-may-reconsider.html Briefly, John Best Jr. has once again made an appalling impersonation of Kev's daughter (won't link to it) and of course, this has made Kev very upset. I know I would be. Kev says he's decided to stop blogging about autism in order to prevent his family from being the victims of John's immature and reprehensible behavior.John makes Jerry Kartzinel look like a tolerant angel from heaven.This is one of the reasons many of us blog anonymously or pseudonymously. (I'd link to other examples, but they would be in Kev's blog.) We have to be careful to even use our kids' real names in this sort of environment.Making comparisons is probably not nice, but has this sort of thing ever been done to anyone in the EOHarm mailing list, for example? Would they happen to care at all about the behavior of on... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=949933 Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:19:00 +0100 949933 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-did-neurodiversity-win-you-over.html Quick informal survey: How did neurodiversity/acceptance win you over? This question goes for parents, those on the spectrum and anyone else who sympathizes with the philosophy.Clearly, we didn't all start out embracing the concept or even being aware of it. I think this is true of almost all parents, even those parents like me who are themselves on the spectrum.For me, at first, I think it was interacting with others on the spectrum and reading what they had to say, and even arguing with them. Much has happened since then, and my views have continued to evolve, but in the very beginning, I think that was key.In my view, those in the neurodiversity movement tend to be flexible and critical thinkers, who are ready to revise their views in light of new indisputable information. This is a gen... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=948597 Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:07:00 +0100 948597 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/dose-of-real-autism-reality.html It seems to me that many parents (and even some professionals) in the autism community are unaware of fundamental facts about autism. I cannot help but arrive at this conclusion when I witness factual statements such as "there is no cure for autism" twisted into mistaken or unsubstantiated statements like the following.The bastards are telling us that our kids will never get better!Loss of label in autism is so miraculous that some innovative cure must have made little Timmi recover.My child would not have skills X, Y, and Z if it weren't for [insert woo].My 2 year-old child will never be able to do X.My child will necessarily end up in an institution.When we deal with flawed premises of this nature, rational discussion obviously becomes very difficult. That's why I want to make this post ... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=941875 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:52:00 +0100 941875 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-evidence-of-general.html [ERRATA 10/13/2007: Based on commenter feedback, I have changed the title from the strongly worded "More Evidence Of The General Ineffectiveness of Biomed". A few words have been inserted in the post in relation to this clarification. The term "high functioning" is sometimes used to indicate that a child would no longer be eligible for developmental disability services.]What I want to do in this post is verify, using actual data, whether claims to the effect that biomed is producing broad results hold water. I think administrative data is adequate to test this belief, as I will explain.So what is it that biomed peddlers are generally claiming? First, they are telling us that biomed is recovering autistic children by the "thousands." They also tell us that those of us who do not experiment ... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=948749 Sun, 07 Oct 2007 22:03:00 +0100 948749 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-evidence-of-general.html What I want to do in this post is verify, using actual data, whether claims to the effect that biomed is producing results hold water. I think administrative data is adequate to test this belief, as I will explain.So what is it that biomed peddlers are generally claiming? First, they are telling us that biomed is recovering autistic children by the "thousands." They also tell us that those of us who do not experiment with our children using biomed will soon repent, that we're guilty of child abuse, and so forth. They've been saying that for years actually.Regular troll to the LB/RB blog, 666sigma, tells us that most of the autistic children where he lives have pretty much recovered, and the ones who are now mainstreamed without autistic traits are precisely the ones who are doing biomed (s... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=934032 Sun, 07 Oct 2007 22:03:00 +0100 934032 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/threelac-or-how-biomed-is-getting-out.html ThreeLac is an alternative treatment for candida/yeast/fungal infections which seems to be receiving considerable attention as a biomed autism treatment thanks to Jenny McCarthy. I wouldn't be surprised if it soon overshadows other treatments currently in vogue, such as Chelation Therapy or Me-B12 injections.ThreeLac is unproven, of course. There are no published studies on its effectiveness as it relates to any condition, never mind autism.However, there is one "study" underway which purports to demonstrate its effectiveness as an autism treatment. I'm not going to link to its web page but it's easy to find if you're interested. It is not a controlled study, as you can imagine. It's reminiscent of the uncontrolled work Amy Holmes did in the early days of Chelation Therapy for autism. In a... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=925350 Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:21:00 +0100 925350 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/lets-help-out-dan.html It appears that Defeat Autism Now! can no longer use the DAN! acronym after a cease and desist claim issued by the Divers Alert Network (EOHarm message #65738.) Over at EOHarm they are saying that it's because of DAN!'s "success" (sure) but it's really because both organizations have a connection to HBOT.That's too bad, isn't it? I thought it would be nice if we could help out DAN! get a new acronym for their organization. You know, something that is not too disimilar to the old DAN! acronym. Here are my suggestions.DAMN!Defeating Autism, Maybe, Not sure!DKAM!David Kirby, Arithmetic Master!NAD!Now Against Diversity!Any other ideas? (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=921777 Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:12:00 +0100 921777 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/10/does-data-support-claim-that.html ConclusionCalifornia data does not support unsubstantiated claims by Evelyn Pringle, Mark Geier and others to the effect that "epidemics" of developmental disabilities will result in either an unmanageable fiscal burden or the destruction of the United States. (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=918031 Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:36:00 +0100 918031 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/epidemic-of-autism-among-18-21-year.html I thought it would be interesting to see what has been happening to the California DDS 18-21 cohort since 1995. So I put it into a graph.Over the last 12 years this caseload has increased by a factor of 4.4 (or 440%). Some people might call this an epidemic. It's also interesting that in the last few years, annual caseload growth in the 18-21 cohort is roughly 20% (or about 20 times what population growth is in the state.) Contrast with the 3-5 cohort which lately has had an annual caseload growth of about 10%.Really late onset autism anyone? (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=914136 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:41:00 +0100 914136 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/sallie-bernard-and-novel-form-of-sour.html Orac and Isles have already commented on the new thimerosal study from the CDC. I just wanted to add a few things.The study, first of all, is methodologically impressive in my view. For example, they didn't look at existing diagnoses, but they actually went and evaluated the children. This in itself takes care of some confounds Verstraeten et al. likely suffered from. The new study is not perfect by any means, but anyone would be hard pressed to do any better. The confounds that remain are non-obvious and their significance unclear. This is not at all like Generation Rescue's survey, for example, where it's trivial to identify some major and obvious confounds.It would seem that the conclusions of the CDC study are counter-intuitive to some people. After all, the study did find some statist... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=908634 Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:11:00 +0100 908634 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/ahmadinejad-no-homosexuals-in-iran.html As widely reported, the president of Iran, Ahmadinejad, has stated that homosexuals do not exist in his country. This doesn't really have to do with autism, but I happen to have researched the history of homosexuality, which went from being criminalized to being a disease and finally depathologized in 1973 when it was removed from the DSM-II. There's something I once read on the topic which probably explains Ahmadinejad's remark.Evidently, homosexuals exist in Iran, probably at about the same rate as they are found to exist in the West (which BTW is not the 10% usually cited.) However, I do not doubt that homosexuals are a "hidden horde" in Iran, largely unseen, if you will. They have to hide, and the vast majority of Iranians could easily be unaware of their existence, except when they ar... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=903415 Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:03:00 +0100 903415 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/thank-you-jenny-mccarthy-for-extra.html Ever since the McCarthy circus came into town I have seen a tremendous surge of traffic to this blog, primarily through my Jenny McCarthy post. After the initial spike, traffic is stable at about twice the usual number of unique visitors. The following are some of the search phrases that are sending people here.indigomoms.comjenny mccarthy indigojenny mccarthy ex husbandjenny mccarthy divorce reasonscrystal children and autism linkjenny mccarthy archangel michaelevan is a 'crystal child,' and she herself is an 'adult indigo.'were any indigo children born in 1969jenny mccarthy, what medication her child was onindigo or crystal autismexelant model girlesThere are also searches for something called Threelack. It's apparently "alternative medicine" for colon cleansing, no doubt unproven. three... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=896087 Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:39:00 +0100 896087 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/take-guess.html Check out these descriptions of several individuals. Who would you guess they are? Are they well adjusted neurotypicals? Are they perhaps some quirky persons pretending to be "Aspies" for some nefarious reason? (The bastards!) Are they autistics who emerged thanks to early and intensive behavioral intervention?The answer will be posted later in the comments section. At 12 years of age, he was at the top of his class in the sixth grade... Thomas' marks were excellent. He spent one term each in the school's athletic association, art club, and newspaper, and helped the librarian after school. He also took on a central part in a demonstration during a folk dance. Teachers liked him because of his good academic performance... Thomas owns a house which he bought several years ago, drives his own... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=894233 Sun, 23 Sep 2007 22:54:00 +0100 894233 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-on-what-institutionalization-does.html This is not a pleasant subject to write about, but I think someone needs to do it. If I try to search for formal data about it on Google, I find my own prior post on it where I quote Kanner as he notes a very consistent lack of institutionalization in autistic adults who were doing particularly well in their 20s and 30s. I also find a comment by Michelle Dawson (she has obviously already studied what institutionalization can do to autistics), plus a comment on Autism Diva's blog about Alfred N's fate. That's about it. The more recent outcome studies, for whatever reason, also do not seem to explore the effects of institutionalization on outcome, as far as I'm aware.The following is from Kanner (1971), a follow-up study on 11 autistic children originally reported by Leo Kanner in 1943.Richa... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=893269 Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:29:00 +0100 893269 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/thought-screen-helmet-creator-michael.html Readers might recall I recently wrote about Michael Menkin's Thought Screen Helmet, which is generally used by some people to try to prevent alien telepathic mind control. Well, some people have been using it on autistic children and they have observed, as you might expect, amazing results!Now, Michael Menkin, the man himself, has honored us with his presence right here on the Natural Variation blog. Isn't that cool? He posted the following message.As of September 2007 several autistic children have improved by wearing hats with velostat. One girl is now in a normal school and doing well. Here brother has improved markedly and now excels in math. His mother wants me to put the children's records on a website. Another girl who could not speak began speaking after wearing the hat for three m... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=888625 Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:36:00 +0100 888625 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/amazing-results-with-anything.html For us parents who've been part of the autism community for years, new nonsensical "cures" don't really come as a surprise anymore. It would seem that everything in the world can cure autism, and you'll always find at least one parent who swears by it.Here's the latest one: MonaVie(TM) [trytheberries.com]. Feel it. Drink it. Share it. MonaVie™ is a delicious and energizing blend of the Brazilian açai berry - one of nature's top super-foods - and other nutrient dense fruits. Developed with the philosophy Balance-Variety-Moderation, MonaVie™ delivers the phytonutrients and antioxidants you need to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle.Wow, that even sounds like science. And who wouldn't want a super-food?But hold on. MonaVie apparently not only cures autism and a number of other malad... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=885409 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:04:00 +0100 885409 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/avoiding-institutionalization-is-key-to.html I'll make this short, as it should be self-evident, even though you'll seldom if ever find this assertion in the modern autism literature. The following was said by Kanner about 11 of 96 (11%) autistic individuals who, upon follow-up in their 20s and 30s, he described as managing to "function as self-dependent individuals, mostly well educated and all gainfully employed."Not one of them had at any time been subjected to sojourn in a state hospital or institution for the feebleminded. This seems to be significant in view of our experience that such an eventuality has invariably cut short any prospect for improvement (Kanner, 1965).(source)If you read the histories of the autistic individuals seen by Kanner, it is clear that this consistent lack of intitutionalization in the good-outcome gro... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=876078 Mon, 17 Sep 2007 01:05:00 +0100 876078 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/severe-aspergers-quick-note-about-humor.html ConclusionWhile there is not a lot of research on the matter, the claim that humor is not seen in people with "Severe Asperger's" is clearly unsubstantiated. (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=874638 Sat, 15 Sep 2007 15:31:00 +0100 874638 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/has-chelation-or-biomed-done-anything.html ConclusionFrom this admittedly not very scientific review, I conclude there are no compelling indications that extensive biomed and/or chelation therapy have proven helpful to the major proponents of the same. (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=872184 Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:57:00 +0100 872184 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/absurd-autism-treatment-4-exorcism.html Chelation therapy is not the only "alternative" treatment to have killed an autistic child. Back in 2003, an 8-year-old autistic boy, Terrance Cottrell, was killed during an exorcism intended to cure him.“We were asking God to take this spirit that was tormenting this little boy to death,” Hemphill said. “We were praying that hard, but not to kill.”(source)The pastor involved was later convicted to, get this, 2.5 years behind bars, plus 7.5 years under supervision.He told police on the night of August 22, 2003 that he had been holding a series of special prayer services, described by some as "exorcisms", during the previous three weeks to remove "evil spirits" of autism from the boy. Hemphill described how he would sit or lay on "Junior's" chest for up to two hours at a time, whisp... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=869563 Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:01:00 +0100 869563 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/emperors-new-pathology.html What distinguishes pathology from non-pathology?Note that I'm not asking what distinguishes disability from non-disability, or normalcy from lack of normalcy. These are entirely different questions.Many readers probably assume I am asking a scientific question. But I do not believe it is. I think it's a question of convention, a philosophical question, and ultimately a matter that belongs in the realm of Ethics. Let me elaborate.There are conditions that no one would dispute are pathologies, e.g. various forms of cancer. When cancer is detected in someone, a considerably lowered life expectancy is practically assured. Additionally, treatment of the condition can be demonstrated to improve the survival rate. Continued medical research will no doubt improve the survival rate even further. Th... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=867334 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:05:00 +0100 867334 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/absurd-autism-treatment-3-thought.html Ever heard of the term "tinfoil hat"? I'm pretty sure this is where it comes from. The thought screen helmet stops aliens from abducting humans. It's a tested device that works.(source) So how does it work?The thought screen helmet blocks telepathic communication between aliens and humans. An abductee who took voltage readings from a second helmet while wearing another one demonstrates that this communication is a form of electromagnetic energy. Aliens cannot immobilize people wearing thought screens nor can they control their minds or communicate with them using their telepathy. When aliens can't communicate or control humans, they do not take them.An how do they know it works? Testimonials, what else.The thought screen helmet has effectively stopped several types of aliens from abducting... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=863792 Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:33:00 +0100 863792 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/jenny-mccarthy-indigo-children-and.html Over at the Rescue Post, that bastion of critical thinking and deep understanding of everything autism, they are falling over themselves because Jenny McCarthy (1994 Playboy Playmate of the Year) will be appearing in the Oprah Show. You see, McCarthy is TACA's spokeperson, an autism mom, and has written a book titled Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism.This was known as early as May, when Kev wrote a post about it.Here's someone who could use her celebrity power to really help the autistic community, but instead will apparently use it to peddle various sorts of unproven biomed quackery and, perhaps worse, ridiculous notions of what autistics are. I have no illusion that Oprah will prevent her from peddling even something as irresponsible as anti-vaccination junk.Reviews... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=853573 Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:05:00 +0100 853573 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/absurd-autism-treatment-2-foot-detox.html This is probably (physically) harmless, but it has to be one of the most blatant forms of quackery in existence. It's very easy to show it's quackery. See Orac's overview for the details. A commenter there posted a link to a James Randi message which in turn contained a link to a news story that reported on the treatment. Here are some excerpts of interst from the news report."I think autistic children should really do this."OK, that one is a must-have in any story about pseudo-medical nonsense. The interesting part follows.So we asked the IonCleanse advocates to run the machine without any feet in the water. The water changed color. The women blamed it on bad distilled water which they'd purchased from a local grocer. "You have to understand we were working with some really sick people," ... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=852561 Sat, 08 Sep 2007 23:21:00 +0100 852561 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/absurd-autism-treatment-1-neuro.html The video speaks for itself. (Source: Natural Variation - Autism Blog) Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=852562 Sat, 08 Sep 2007 14:47:00 +0100 852562 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-siblings-who-hate-autism.html Kristina wrote a post titled Hating Autism, Hating Hate back in July, a post which I had missed then. The post is about John Best Jr., evidently, but what caught my attention was something a reader named BRoBBcins wrote in the comments section.I for one do hate autism, It controls my entire family. I have a little brother with autism and everything is based on wat he can handle, i cant take it anymore. My mom litterally tells me she loves him more than me. If thats not a reason to HATE the diesese idk wat is. I cannot communicate with my little brother, i cannot touch him, he doesnt even know i exist, yet my entire world is based around him. I dont think he even has feelings, hes just kind of there. Go ahead and send me and email telling me wat an evil person i am, or mabye try and help me... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=850135 Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:43:00 +0100 850135 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/high-prevalence-of-autism-in-adults.html The following is a bullet-point list of pieces of evidence that strongly suggest the prevalence of ASD in adults is high, at least as high as that found in children. [This evidence was first brought together in Autism "Missed" Often, Even Today.]Nylander & Gillberg (2001) screened adult outpatients of a psychiatric hospital and found that 89.5% (17/19) of "definite autistics" did not have a prior autism diagnosis. The most common existing diagnosis in these adult autistics was found to be schizophrenia, which was considerably more common than the diagnosis of autism itself.Stahlberg et al. (2004) found that 30% of referred adult patients with ADHD had co-occurring ASD. The prevalence of ADHD in adults is estimated at 4.2% [source].Over 25 years ago, Shah et al. (1982) found that 38% of the... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=847338 Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:31:00 +0100 847338 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/invisible-good-outcomes.html Longitudinal outcome studies of autism vary in their results. Roughly speaking they will report that 10% of autistic individuals have "very good outcome" and another 10% "good outcome", with the remaining 80% having "fair or poor outcome." (There are no indications these proportions have changed significantly after the introduction of early intensive behavioral interventions or any other interventions).The concept of "good outcome" is, of course, based on neurotypical values, such as having no difficulties in social interaction, living independently without supports, and so on. There are various standardized tests they use to determine if a person has good or bad outcome.EnterAn alternative view of outcome in autism.Ruble & Dalrymple (1996)This is an old paper, although very innovative in ... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=843787 Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:24:00 +0100 843787 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/09/simple-selection-bias-model-explains.html A while back Kev, Prometheus and Orac discussed how underwhelming Generation Rescue's survey results were and some peculiarities of the data that seem to invalidate the survey. What I want to do in this post is go over a model that explains the survey results, including discrepancies between its findings and those of prior phone surveys. Data of this nature can sometimes result in knowledge that wasn't expected, as I will hopefully demonstrate. (I am using data Kev helpfully put into an XLS file here).ASD - Both SexesStrikingly, the survey found that while 3.01% of all vaccinated children had an ASD diagnosis, about 3.73% of all unvaccinated children did. That's right. The survey found autism to be more common among the unvaccinated. While this difference is not statistically significant, ... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=838107 Mon, 03 Sep 2007 23:48:00 +0100 838107 http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2007/08/regressive-autism-was-childhood.html The following is from Leo Kanner's 1943 paper.The outstanding, “pathognomonic,” fundamental disorder is the children’s inability to relate themselves in the ordinary way to people and situations from the begining of life. Their parents referred to them as having always been “sel-sufficient”; “like in a shell”; “happiest when left alone”; “acting as if people weren’t there”; “perfectly oblivious to everything about him”; “giving the impression of silent wisdom”; “failing to develop the usual amount of social awareness”;“acting almost as hypnotized.” This is not, as in schizophrenic children or adults, a departure from an initially present relationship; it is not a “withdrawal” from formerly existing participation.(Emphasis mine)There you have it, ... Natural Variation - Autism Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=835496 Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:22:00 +0100 835496