'Bringing science back into America's sphere' hits a nerve

In Saturday's Los Angeles Times, my article appeared, 'Bringing science back into America's sphere.' The piece is a Q&A with author Chris Mooney about his book "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future," on how science has become less important to many Americans and the threats he and coauthor Sheril Kirshenbaum feel this poses to society.

We've received many letters and phone calls in response to this article and the issues he discussed: religion, Pluto no longer being considered a planet, vaccines, the Internet and how we go forward.

The health aspect of all this is the vaccines-cause-autism issue: Mooney discusses this at some length. He says there are many well-educated people who believe that vaccines caused autism in their children, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

We've created this post as an open forum for your comments.

What is your opinion on the vaccines-cause-autism issue? Do you think America is less scientific-minded than it once was? 

We welcome your feedback in the comments below.

-- Lori Kozlowski

Photo credit: Tim Sloan / Getty Images

Comments

[Schwartz]

White&Nerdy,

"Contrary to your assertion otherwise, Cochrane found many quality studies that conclude that vaccines don't cause autim."

Are you trying to tell us that we shouldn't be discussing science with you because you seem to be unable to get your basic facts straight?

Not a single quality study in the Cochrane report concluded that Vaccines don't cause Autism because they were only looking at the MMR vaccine to start with (i.e. not vaccines). Additionally, if you have any basic understanding of epidemiology, you would know that none of the studies can make a definitive statement on a negative assocation. Just look at the Cochrane review, because they certainly didn't even come close to making a statement remotely similar. To quote Sullivan who so proudly opened the file:
"No credible evidence of an involvement of MMR with either autism or Crohn’s disease was found."

It's sad that I need to point out again that not finding evidence of an association is different than finding conclusive definitive evidence that there is no association as you incorrectly assert.

[Schwartz]

White&Nerdy,

"I think my point was very clear: it is pointless to discuss science with folks that can't get the basic facts correct."

Your point is not clear, because you have the same problem as I pointed out from your previous post, unless your point is that we shouldn't be discussing any science with you?

"A very simple example has been given: many posters here assert that there is no data on 100% unvaccinated kids."

An example -- as I pointed out any simplton can figure out -- that should be taken in context of the debate. Data is easy to come by and most of the time is useless to answer the question being asked. Incomprehensively, you believe that your own assertion "Cochrane found many quality studies that conclude that vaccines don't cause autim." in their MMR review is more scientifically acurate? You're not making your point very conclusively.

"Schwartz this data is from June 2000 and it clearly in simple English language explains that in this sample of 110,000 kids unvaccinated kids had the same risk for autism as partially vaccinated and as fully vaccinated. Vaccination did not increase the risk for autism."

I pointed out in my last post exactly why that data (high exclusion rates, invalid method of detecting Autism diagnosis) -- collected and compiled for a different purpose -- doesn't support the conclusion you're drawing.

"I think the situation speaks for itself.
(1) The claim that there is no data on unvaccinated kids is not true.
(2) The data from 100% unvaccinated kids is completely contrary to the idea that vaccines cause autism.
(3) None of the posters that made this error have acknowledged that they were wrong."

1) Data on unvaccinated kids was offered up by many pro-safe vaccine advocates a long time ago. Clearly they are not literally asserting there is no physical data available. The point here as I described in detail earlier is that there is not reliable data that allows us to compare vaccinated vs unvaccinated children and a correlation with Autism.
2) As I pointed out earlier you are jumping to a conclusion that has several flaws:
a) You're quoting a transcript using preliminary data and anlaysis that was not reviewed
b) You're re-interpreting an analysis that was designed to look at Thimerosal dosage vs neurological outcomes from a transcript
c) you don't have enough data from the transcript to determine the assumptions that went into the analysis, data extraction, so any conclusive statements are not substantiated by the evidence. Anyone who has any familiarity knows that details about assumptions are critical for determining the outcome.
3) I look forward to you correcting your unsubstantiated definitive statements on vaccines and autism.

"So of course the vaccine skeptics come to false conclusions."

Apparently you do as well, according to your own logic.

"Fortunately any person with even the most basic literacy skills can read where the link says, here is the result for autism and figure out that contrary to your assertions otherwise there is exactly data that compares autism diagnosis in vaccinated vs unvaccinated."

Again, you dismiss the fact that high quality studies design their data collection to meet the objective of the study. The objective of the study was to look for correlations between Thimerosal dosage and neurological outcomes. You continue to gloss over the glaring deficiencies I already pointed out limiting the peer-reviewed study's ability to make any conclusive conclusions about vaccination status, let alone any association with autism.

I suggest you take a scientific approach rather than a literary one. I'm not sure how many scientists would insist on quoting discussion from a transcript -- about data from a study designed for a different purpose to boot -- when the edited, completed, and peer-reviewed version was available.

"Then if you have some basic math skills, you can follow some of the data from the link I already provided--here it is again: http://www.putchildrenfirst.org/media/2.16.pdf

See the categories labeled autism? Those are the statistics on autism."

More data without assumptions, without context, without even any note as to it's source. No discussion of the quality, it's method of collection. Again, you are obsessed with data points (much like the reductionist view you support) yet you ignore the most basic context of the data and it's value -- very similar to what you're doing with your literal interpretations.

You're completely ignoring the simple statistical and scientific reality that in order to draw strong logical conclusions, you need to design the data collection with your objectives in mind. Analysis of data collected for other purposes, and analyzed for other purposes can be useful (not usually for negative correlations), but does not support conclusive or definitive findings. Drawing definitive conclusions using data that already is acknowledged to be limited in it's quality and value is incomprehensible. Your assertions and logic are failing at the basic methodology step.

"Since we all know that you are a literate person I conclude that you attacked me out of shame for the unbelievable incompetency of the vaccines skeptics."

Although your choice in music appears decent, your martyr act could use a bit of work. I accused you of arguing in bad faith, because you are engaging in a dishonest argument, and I clearly stated the reasons why. Your response has not addressed any of the specific issues I raised. Instead, you continue to insist on your fixation for making definitive statements based on your own side analysis and literal interpretations of preliminary study that was never peer reviewed. All the while insisting that you are following scientific methodology while others are not. My accusation stands as you are repeating the same thing without addressing the logical problems.

"I still maintain that this nonsense is mostly harmless. All you have to do is to read the words....but then you choose not to read my links before responding didn't you???"

By this point, the fact that your assumptions (not just scientific ones) lack rigour is already quite evident. Lack of adequate safety studies is nonesense and harmless? Misrepresentation by the "scientific community" is certainly nonesense, but not harmless. Your casual dimissal of safety issues supports my assertion that you are debating in bad faith.

[John Stone]

White&Nerdy

"Contrary to your assertion otherwise, Cochrane found many quality studies that conclude that vaccines don't cause autism."

Just to point out that I have posted above the Cochrane review of MMR's comments on all six autism studies it reviewed, and all were serioulsly flawed. Poor design, inadequate controls, biased samples, misinterpretation of data - and Cochrane didn't even consider conflicts of interest, some of which were not disclosed, and others so blatant as to render the results valueless. What is the point - as Dave Weldon asked after tyhe IoM review - of getting health officials to investigate their own policies?

I am incline to agree with Schwartz that you are quite out of your depth. You can get a certain distance with over-confidence but you are flailing and sinking.

[White&Nerdy]

Hi Schwartz,

You seem to be having a great deal of difficulty following the argument.

" NO HEALTH AGENCY HAS EVER CONDUCTED A STUDY OF VACCINATED AND UNVACCINATED CHILDREN"
Posted by: Kent Heckenlively | August 24, 2009 at 03:36 PM

This is a really simple and clear statement. There is no room for misunderstanding what Mr. Heckenlively is claiming. There are a number of similar statements on this site and countless other ones made by the vaccine skeptics.

Yes Schwartz they are literally asserting that there is no physical data available on unvaccinated vs. vaccinated kids.

I gave a link with data from a CDC study with data on unvaccinated kids compared to vaccinated.

This is really, really simple. Mr. Henckenlively et al statement is simply untrue.

Moving right along, you make a number of assertions.

You claimed:
" What you don't seem to realize is that When people are talking about data between vaccinated and unvaccinated children and Autism, there has been no study designed or undertaken to study vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations and it's correlation with outcome of Autism diagnosis."

I have already given the data and the conclusions in simple English. Unvaccinated kids had the same risk as vaccinated. Pretty darn simple.

You made a number of statements about the design of the study:
E.g. " If you read carefully, the study was designed to determine if infant Thimersol dosage exposure from vaccines was correlated with neurological outcomes."

" Since you seem knowledgeable enough about some of the details, you should realize that you are trying to interpret a different outcome from a study that wasn't designed to test vaccination status and Autism. Not only was the data not collected to test for such an outcome, but the analysis was not designed to test for such a correlation,..."

Yada, yada, yada....

Here is a link to the publication:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/112/5/1039?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=vsd+autism&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT

Please read the study before commenting on it.

" No significant associations were found with cumulative exposure at any age and risk for autism in either the continuous (Table 4) or the categorical analyses (Table 5)."

Please pay attention to the discussion section so you understand the math.

You offer criticisms like:
" You might have also noted the extensive exclusionary criteria which in one cohort was a significant 20%. I hardly consider a study that excludes 20% of the children due to various criteria including hypertension of the mother during pregnancy! Sorry that does not qualify as studying any representative population."

You are basically arguing that they should do the study incorrectly.

Please learn some statistics and how to get a representative sample before offering criticisms of methods you don't understand.

We have six years now of these errors being corrected.

You have completely ignored the reality.

On one side we have statisticians etc who understand the data and on your side we don't.

Again, pretty darn simple.

[Jack Humphries]

White&Nerdy | September 02, 2009 at 06:11 PM

“”””””Hi Jack Humphries….I have already posted links that: (1) Explain in simple English (for those that aren't scientists) the methods of the study (2) Some of the statistical analysis of the data (for those that are more quantitative)..Here they are again: http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/HG%20IN%20VACCINES%20-%20Simpsonwood%20-%20Internet%20File.pdf…….Please see pages 35 and 44 of the PDF for the English version…..And: http://www.putchildrenfirst.org/media/2.16.pdf….For the statistical analysis.So far none of the vaccine skeptics seeming willing to actually read the links. Will you be the first?””””

I thought you were supposed to provide a reference for a study that compared vaccinated with unvaccinated children?

The Verstraeten study does not appear to have either been designed to that end, or to have a validated unvaccinated cohort – in fact a main criteria was the exclusion of all children who had not received two polio vaccines by one year of age.

Although Verstraeten makes the statement you brought, how could he possibly guarantee any unvaccinated cohort as the data states that both HMOs may have had some children who had unrecorded Hep B vaccines after birth – one HMO up to 4% of its cohort, and the other HMO up to 18%, of its cohort; that's a heck of a lot of potentially vaccinated kids hidden in the study cohort, especially after over 50% of the original number were excluded for various reasons.

Had the study been designed to compare vaccinated with unvaccinated, rather than to test for effects of cumulative levels of ethylmercury, there would have had to be a validated unvaccinated group, ie one guaranteed to have no vaccinated subjects - with no possibility of having had any unrecorded Hep B vaccines.

Furthermore, the data states that the two HMOs also provided non-Thimerosal vaccines such as measles, mumps rubella, varicella, and pneumococcal vaccines to its children – I could find to dialogue in the data which sought to ensure exclusion of kids vaccinated with any of those non-Thimerosal vaccines.

If I’m missing something please explain.

Where in the data is the validated unvaccinated cohort, and where in the data are the comparisons between that unvaccinated cohort/group with a vaccinated cohort/group?

[John Stone]

Irrespective of whether the Verstraeten study is a vaccinated vs unvaccinated study (strictly speaking I rather think not) Verstraeten was unkeen to pronounce it definitive (as he said it was neutral not negative) perhaps unwilling to be seen by history as part of the IoM stitch-up. I guess a great many studies could be designated vaccinated vs unvaccinated studies given your rather loose criteria. For instance, the Madsen MMR study of 2002 where there was a underestimate of autism in the MMR group which incuded subjects not yet diagnosed - as stated by Cochrane but more here:

http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/goldman.pdf
http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/stott.pdf

Or Taylor 1999 where the autim trend between the birth cohorts of 1979 and 1992 cold not be explained on its own by the introduction of MMR in the UK in 1988 but could possibly by the cumulative weight of the vaccination programme during that period - increase uptake of measles and pertussis vaccines pre-88, retrospective MMR programme for those born before 1987, accelerated DPT schedule in 1990 and introduction of HiB in 1992 (none of which the vaccine official authors thought to mention).

Or there is the Japanese data which shows a powerful correspondence between the shifts in the programme, vaccine uptake and autism:

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/japvaxautism/

Anyhow, I do note that if this science has been done, Thomas Insel does not seem to keen to replicate it.

[Schwartz]

White&Nerdy,

"This is really, really simple. Mr. Henckenlively et al statement is simply untrue."

Yes, standing alone out of context, Mr. Henckenlively's headline is inaccurate. Of course when you read the preceeding sentences we find quite clearly he is refering "refusal of the pro-vaccine side to conduct a study on the neurological health of vaccinated children vs. unvaccinated children". Maybe you missed it.

I suppose you can legitimately complain about his literary accuracy in an internet comment. But then that would be pretty hypocritical because while you're busy pontificating about scientific accuracy, you turn around and make blatently inaccurate and misleading statements about scientific conclusions surrounding vaccines and Autism.

"Yada, yada, yada...."

"I gave a link with data from a CDC study with data on unvaccinated kids compared to vaccinated."

Yes, and I read a study earlier this year that compared vaccinated and unvaccinated children, but it wasn't about Autism. I'll be sure to let Ken know that he should be more careful to make sure he fully qualifies each sentence in case it confuses people and gets quoted out of context.

"I have already given the data and the conclusions in simple English. Unvaccinated kids had the same risk as vaccinated. Pretty darn simple."

How nice of you to present your own personal conclusions as definitive evidence. I know that isn't what people were asking for. You did not provide any published conclusions by a scientist, nor any peer-reviewed conclusions. The actual peer-reviewed study you're referencing (why you insisted on referencing a transcript reviewing preliminary results is truely baffling) was about Thimersoal exposure and neurological outcomes not a study of vaccination status compared to Autism diagnosis -- read the title. Unless I missed it twice, I see no discussion, or conclusion on vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations in the peer-reviewed study. Please provide a quote from the study if I'm wrong.

Moving on:
" No significant associations were found with cumulative exposure at any age and risk for autism in either the continuous (Table 4) or the categorical analyses (Table 5)."

Note the term "exposure" which again directly refers to Thimerosal exposure, not vaccination status. You need a quote that actually supports your argument.

"You are basically arguing that they should do the study incorrectly."

How did you go from: "Sorry that does not qualify as studying any representative population." to "they should do the study incorrectly". What I stated is that a study design that uses data requiring 20-50% exclusions is not going to be representative of the population. You'll also note that your assertion "Vaccines don't cause autism" applies across the population.

The NIEHS expert panel in 2006 even discussed methods of expanding the 2003 study in order to determine the impact of the large numbers of excluded cases, so my concerns are supported by your scientists. One other key weakness of the data -- the weaknesses which I seem to have to repeat and spell out for you -- is that adminstrative data is subject to false positives and missed cases. I suggest you read it thoroughly.
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/conditions/autism/docs/thimerosalexposureinpediatricvaccines102606.pdf

My comments still apply and you need to re-read them for comprehension since you chose to misrepresent them in your paraphrase.

I'll go back to the point that the pro-safe vaccine group is asking for a representative study of vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations. Additionally, this is not a rhetorical request. This type of study has been done (HRT is a good example of a large independent study). I'll borrow the words from the Cochrane group when they commented on influenza vaccine usage: "It was surprising to find only one study of inactivated vaccine in children under two years, given current recommendations to vaccinate healthy children from six months old in the USA and Canada. If immunisation in children is to be recommended as a public health policy, large-scale studies assessing important outcomes and directly comparing vaccine types are urgently required." http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004879/frame.html

So I'll repeat my actual point AGAIN -- ignoring your incorrect interpretation -- we need to design the "proper" studies so we credibly test the vaccination and it's association with Autism (and other health outcomes).

"Please learn some statistics and how to get a representative sample before offering criticisms of methods you don't understand.
We have six years now of these errors being corrected.
You have completely ignored the reality.
On one side we have statisticians etc who understand the data and on your side we don't."

OK, so without actually pointing out any problems with my criticisms, you are stating that we should honour the Authority that published the study? Are those the same scientists that stated quite clearly that the outcome of the study was NEUTRAL -- i.e. no conclusions can be drawn? Not only are you invoking a flawed argument from authority, but the authority doesn't even agree with your assertion!

[Schwartz]

Let's Summarize what we've gone through:

- You are whining that Mr. Henckenlively made a incorrect claim that data comparing vaccinated vs unvaccinated children didn't exist
+ I pointed out that taken in context he is referring to a study on comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children and its relationship with neurological outcomes

Conclusion: You're complaining about hair splitting language

- You claim that vaccinated and unvaccinated children have been studied and that the results showed that Vaccines don't cause Autism
+ an examination of the peer-reviewed evidence you presented reveals that the study was about thimerosal exposure (not vaccination vs unvaccinated status) and the outcome of the study was neutral meaning no conclusions could be made

Conclusion: You can't support your assertion with relevant studies, or you have a comprehension problem because the evidence you did provide had a neutral outcome and therefore no conclusions could be drawn from it and certainly not definitive ones.

- You complain that my concerns about the quality of the data in the 2003 study are not merited by invoking the flawed argument of authority
+ I have provided plenty of referenced concerns with that study and the limitations of the data

Conclusion: You continue to misunderstand how important the data collection and analysis is

- You are complaining that you can't hold a scientific debate with people who get their facts wrong (quoted out of context)
+ You support this by making a completely unscientific and unsubstantiated statement that "Vaccines don't cause Autism"

Conclusion: You are arguing in bad faith, or you lack the ability to determine scientific fact

Like I said to Sullivan, science has left the room.

[Sullivan]

"As an aside, in case you missed it, Wakefield has stated quite clearly that he doesn't know if MMR causes Autism and suggests more study on the topic. That makes your Wakefield Strawman argument look even more silly."

Dr. Wakefield says a lot of things. Quite often he changes his story, and quite often he is demonstrably wrong.

As to the idea that measles doesn't cause autism, nice of him to change his mind, don't you think? How was he so sure in the past?

And, yes, he clearly stated it in the past. In his vaccine patent he states clearly that "it has been shown that the use of the MMR vaccine" results in autism.

Do you even understand the phrase 'straw man'? If so, could you use it appropriately?

[Schwartz]

Sullivan,

"Dr. Wakefield says a lot of things. Quite often he changes his story, and quite often he is demonstrably wrong."

Unsubstantiated opinion. Please stick to logical points.

"As to the idea that measles doesn't cause autism, nice of him to change his mind, don't you think? How was he so sure in the past?"

His research papers don't state that measles cause Autism, his press releases don't state that measles cause Autism. More unsubstantiated rhetoric. Please stick to logical points.

"And, yes, he clearly stated it in the past. In his vaccine patent he states clearly that "it has been shown that the use of the MMR vaccine" results in autism."

Again, you have trouble parsing logic. MMR application has been shown to result in Autism (Hannah Poling). That doesn't equate to MMR causes Autism. That's why he corrected stated he doesn't know if MMR causes Autism, but he knows there are indicators that demand further investigation.

This is all quite consistent.

"Do you even understand the phrase 'straw man'? If so, could you use it appropriately?"

Yeah, you incomprehensively based your argument against the Cochrane Review (and the basic logic mistake you made in the interpretation) by attacking Wakefield in a feeble attempt to reposition my argument as one of relying on Wakefield's research conclusions -- that you misrepresented to boot.

I suppose that qualifies as Red Herring too. This latest post is ad hominem. Congrats, you made a triple play!

Oh, and BTW, in case you missed it again, Wakefields research wasn't about MMR. That's why it didn't meet the criteria for the Cochrane Report. Since you had the report open, I'm surprised you missed it.