More Love for Amanda Peet

[Guido]

From: http://www.livescience.com/culture/0...nce-sense.html

Obama & Celebs Reprimanded for Bad Science

When during a pre-election debate Barack Obama and John McCain both said that an apparent rise in autism cases might be connected to vaccines, those who knew better squirmed at the lack of scientific knowledge of the two remaining presidential candidates on this topic.

In fact, studies have found no link between autism and vaccines. But televised statements by such high-profile people have a way of perpetuating myths.

In it's third annual report, the UK group Sense about Science calls the two candidates out on the inaccurate statements, along with a long list of celebrities' scientifically inaccurate claims.

"We don't expect people to know everything about science; the problem comes when they don't consider checking it or asking a few questions before they speak out," said Ellen Raphael, UK director of Sense About Science. "With the Internet, and 24-hour news media, celebrities' misleading claims travel widely. They add disproportionately to the stock of misinformation that we all then have to wade through to make sense of a subject. A little checking goes a long way."

Myth: Natural is good

In the past two years, comments about products or food being "chemical free" were the most common misconceptions stated by celebrities and revealed by the group; chemicals are in fact in everything we eat. That fact now seems better understood, the group states.

But a related myth remains popular and frequently espoused by celebs: that "natural chemicals"— popular with the detox diet crowd — are better for us. Oprah Winfrey and Kate Moss are just two of many celebrities that promote the detox diets, "despite a lack of evidence that they work," the new report states.

"'Natural' chemicals aren't automatically safer than man-made ones," chemist John Emsley writes in the Sense about Science report. "In fact, man-made chemicals used in consumer products are often much safer because they have been thoroughly tested."

Blundering candidates

Around the same time Obama and McCain blew it, Sarah Palin tossed out a doozie of her own when she explained how tax dollars "go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good — things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not." The research in question in fact was very much for the public good: The scientists were studying an olive fruit fly that is a costly pest in the olive-growing regions of the Mediterranean and in California. The USDA put about $211,000 into the French study.

Finally, for the record, the presidential candidates misleading statements about autism:

Obama: Some people are suspicious that it's connected to vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it."

McCain: There's strong evidence that indicates it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines."

Interestingly, the actress Amanda Peet made a statement during the year that corrects the autism-vaccine myth put forth by Obama and McCain: "Fourteen studies have been conducted (both here in the U.S. and abroad), and those tests are reproducible; no matter where they are administered, or who is funding them, the conclusion is the same: there is no association between autism and vaccines," Peet said.

Gotta love that. Hot, and informed.

The tobacco industry said for decades that there was no link between lung cancer and smoking and funded several studies that insisted there was no correlation. Follow the money trail. Autism affects 1 in 150 children, yet is the most underfunded disorder when it comes to research and treatment. Why is that?

[name change request]

autism and vaccines?

i must be tired because i'm not understanding this.... are they saying that autistic scientists are coming up with vaccines or what?!

Parents of autistic children have long believed that vaccines play a role in causing autism. The pharmaceutical companies, CDC, etc. claim that there is no evidence linking vaccines with autism, but until the root cause is discovered there will continue to be the problem of hundreds of thousands, if not millions at this point, of parents vs. the government, pharmaceutical companies, etc.

[name change request]

oh okay, that makes more sense

so is it a vaccine (or two, etc) in particular they think cause it or is it just vaccines in general?

and why is the govt trying to push this idea? what does it do for them? you'd think they'd want people to get vaccines, not avoid them which is what they would do if they thought vaccines caused autism.

[PETA]

a preservative in the vaccine timerisol (sic?) is alleged to be the source... mercury too

[Hustle Wimmins]

A friend of the wife is a chemical engineer with Merck and stopped all the vaccines to his children about two weeks after he started working there citing the ingredients used to preserve the vaccine are almost worse than the diseases the vaccine is supposed to protect against. Hmmm.....

[Nyteshade]

Originally Posted by St. Stalin the Apathetic

a preservative in the vaccine timerisol (sic?) is alleged to be the source... mercury too

Thermisol. It's mercury based and is alleged to be the cause. There's only one vaccine in the usual series that children get that uses it anymore.

[SmoothHeavy]

Well if they want to show a correlation between vaccines and autism they need to conduct more research. So far I only know of one study and it's results have yet to be replicated in subsequent studies.

I'll have to go dig up sources but that's going have to wait till later.

[Nyteshade]

Originally Posted by SmoothHeavy

Well if they want to show a correlation between vaccines and autism they need to conduct more research. So far I only know of one study and it's results have yet to be replicated in subsequent studies.

I'll have to go dig up sources but that's going have to wait till later.

You'll find plenty about it here:

http://www.dallasdancemusic.com/foru...-vaccines.html

However, even though there hasn't been anything to directly link Autism and Thermisol, the government settled on a lawsuit over it instead of backing up their own research which makes it more suspect imo.

Plus, I think singling out Thermisol is a bit of a red herring. There are other metal-based additives in vaccines that are also toxins that cause neurological damage in larger doses. In fact, they're in every single one of them. The overriding theory is that autistic children are born with a defective gene that causes them to not be able to excrete toxins (especially metals) the same way normal children do, thus making them highly sensitive to the toxins in all these vaccines.

Makes sense but to answer the question about why the govt/pharmaceutical companies would want to place the blame elsewhere, think of the massive repurcussions if a link is proven. The pharmaceutical companies are liable for putting unsafe additives in the vaccines the govt REQUIRES us to give our children, the same government which has doubled and/or tripled the number of vaccines required for children in the past couple of decades. This would be huge. It would make the lawsuits against the tobacco industry look like pennies in comparison. 1 in 150 kids is a staggering number.

[transplant]

There are a lot of factors involved and there is no way to do one study and have all the answers. If anyone has PubMed, search author/PI Janet Kern and her research on Autism and vaccines. You can google, but you won't find the research and journals like on on PubMed.