CatherinaJTV, in answer to your question of Sat 30-Aug-14 17:58:41
"Beachcomber - do you accept Hooker's claim about the data then, which essentially says that autism is not associated with MMR in any gender, any colour, any age, except for little black boys who were vaccinated between the ages of 24 and 36 months? Do you think that is the truth now?"
I find this a really strange thing to ask. Are you gathering material for a blog post? Your question is ridiculously unscientific. Hooker does not claim to have shown that there is no association between MMR and anyone - that it what you wish to read into his paper, or try to get people like me, who are skeptical as to MMR's safety, to say, in some sort of 'gotcha'. I've been paying attention to autism science now for 10 years now and I've seen a lot of epidemiological studies come and go. I've had a lot of people try to pull a 'gotcha' on me too.
There is a lot I want to say in answer to you, I'll try to be brief. First of all, Hooker doesn't say anything about having found solid evidence that an autism/MMR association does not exist for any specific population. How could he possibly make such a claim in such a small epidemiological study? And how could he prove a negative? It is a very odd twisting indeed that one would have to make of what he says in order to come up with what you have above CatherinaJTV (which I guess is why you use the loaded and unscientific word 'essentially'). I thought you knew how to read scientific papers 
What Hooker says is this;
The results show a strong relationship between child age at the administration of the first MMR and autism incidence exclusively for African American boys which could indicate a role of the vaccine in the etiology of autism within this population group. This particular analysis was not completed in the original Destefano et al. [14] (CDC) study. Although the previous study considered MMR timing and African Americans in general, no statistically significant effect was observed. This is in contrast to our result for African Americans in general, because the CDC study limited the total African American cohort to include only those individuals who possessed a valid State of Georgia birth certificate which decreased the statistical power of their analysis. Although a statistically significant relationship between first MMR age and autism incidence was seen in the general (all races) population within the earlier Destefano et al. [14] study, the coauthors interpreted this result as an artifact of “healthcare seeking behavior” citing that autistic children would receive their vaccines earlier in order to enroll in State of Georgia early intervention programs. However, it is highly unlikely that this type of behavior would be seen exclusively in African American males and thus, alternative hypotheses must be explored, including the possibility that the MMR vaccine may be causally linked to autism in African American males.
CatherinaJTV, you appear to have picked up the word 'exclusively' and run with it. Hooker is saying that this particular data set only showed a relationship in African American males. Do you understand? He is doing what scientists are supposed to do and reporting accurately what the data he had available to him showed. The data does not allow him to rule out associations in other subgroups. I would have thought that would be obvious to anyone used to reading scientific papers. I would have thought that it is obvious that this is one, small, epidemiological study with limitations. It is the sort of study that may throw up clues that merit further examination. That's all.
As I have said upthread, people seem to be missing the point of what Hooker has done in this paper. They seem to be (willfully?) failing to understand his motivation.
Hooker did not design a study to examine the timing of MMR/autism in African American children. He did not design a study to examine timing of MMR/autism in Caucasian children, or Hispanic children, or boys or girls or anyone else.
What Hooker did was design a study to investigate if the CDC had buried data and if so to bring that data to light. He explains this very very clearly. He explains that he required the data via a FOIA request. He explains that the original study protocol was not followed and that inclusion criteria was changed after data had been collected and analyzed.
No matter how much you, or Orac or anyone one else would like - what Hooker does not do is rule out the existence of any subgroup which is vulnerable to damage from MMR vaccination. What Hooker does is show that Dr Thompson appears to be telling the truth when he says that the CDC buried data. Data which should have led to further examination and a bigger study. But of course all the MMR defenders don't want to talk about that. They don't want to talk about Thompson's admission or DeStfano's cavalier attitude to scientific method. Nope. They want to talk about Hooker's weak data; which isn't his, it is the CDC's, and which they accepted when it was being used to say what they want to hear (by Thompson and DeStefano, who now say that data was purposefully omitted).
The MMR defenders are always going on about the value of the peer reviewed study and The Science and The Scientists over the testimony and eye witness accounts of parents. Well, I hope they will have some pretty harsh words to say about CDC scientists who admit to manipulating data because it didn't fit in with their personal belief. Who omitted data about a condition that has millions of dollars being spent on it in order to try to understand it and help those who suffer from it. Scientists who buried data because they had decided before they did their study what the results should be.