Page 9 | Can the MMR or other vac ever cause autism?

Beachcomber · 31/08/2014 12:09

No you didn't noblegiraffe. You are making things up and ignoring what both Thompson and DeStefano have said.

Beachcomber · 31/08/2014 12:15

So they look at a subset of data where they not only have information about race, but also about education and other factors (which came from having the full birth certificate). When they look at this data set, the results for race aren't statistically significant any more because they are tied up with other factors that relate to autism such as low birthweight, or to a diagnosis of autism, such as education.

Can you show me your source for this information about birth certificates? Does it come from DeStefano et al? Do they say that the birth certificates were important because they had information about schools on them???

And you still aren't reading Hooker properly.

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.

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 12:18

Yes I did, Beachcomber. In particular this:

, 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

That's bollocks. It's assuming that the smaller sample size decreases the statistical power of their analysis simply because it's a smaller sample. However, if that smaller sample comes with extra information (provided by birth certificate data), then it enables a more fine tuned analysis.

In my ice cream example, it would be criticising looking at the smaller sample where ice cream data and number of people swimming were recorded simply because that's a smaller number of records, despite the power of having that extra info about swimming which explained the ice cream result in the original population without needing to ban ice cream as dangerous.

MrsWhiskersonTheFirst · 31/08/2014 12:21

So you're not actually talking about errors in his statistics - just errors in how he presented his paper?

I'm not actually defending the paper. Could he have written it better? Of course. I said that earlier. What I'm just curious about was why you were so keen to jump to the conclusion that the sample sizes were small because he hadn't explicitly given them.

As I've said, I think the area warrants further investigation. Do you?

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 12:24

Yes, Beachcomber. The original paper states ' rWe matched 355 (56%) case and 1020 (56%) control children to Georgia state birth certificate records, which allowed us to obtain additional information, such as each child’s birth weight and gestational age and the mother’s parity, age, race, and education.'

So are you now so sure that the birth certificate requirement was arbitrary?

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 12:35

Destefano paper here:

www.bowdiges.org/documents/files/Age_of_MMR_exposure_comparison_study.pdf

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 12:36

Ok, "When asked if there could be any scientific basis for excluding children born outside of Georgia, Dr. Hooker responded, “I know of none, and none has been provided by the authors of the DeStefano study.”"

From focusautisminc.org/focus-autism-releases-findings-on-2003-cdc-autism-study-higher-autism-rate-among-african-american-boys-receiving-mmr-shot-earlier-than-36-months/

I'm now tending towards the dishonest conclusion. From the quote I posted above from the Destefano study, Hooker couldn't possibly be that stupid to have missed it, so he must be lying.

MrsWhiskersonTheFirst · 31/08/2014 12:50

'born outside of Georgia'

What about children who were born outside of Georgia but still had a valid birth certificate? Is that the point he was making? Why restrict it to Georgia?

Thanks for the paper.

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 12:58

Given that his whole issue was about excluding kids without full Georgia birth certificates and the extra data that came with this was explained in the original paper, it would be grasping to think that he is now suddenly talking about excluding kids for other reasons.

His paper says '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'

Yes, because those individuals came with useful extra info such as birthweight, mother's age and education.

Hooker is a liar.

MrsWhiskersonTheFirst · 31/08/2014 13:00

noble, you may have missed my point. I'm asking if it is maybe the State of Georgia part that he is talking about rather than the birth cert part.

"When asked if there could be any scientific basis for excluding children born outside of Georgia, Dr. Hooker responded, “I know of none, and none has been provided by the authors of the DeStefano study.”"

I know the authors said why they had a birth cert group but did they say why they had to have a Georgia birth cert?

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 13:06

Because they were in Georgia? That would seem a blindingly obvious solution. Most of the kids in the study would have been born in Georgia and if they got a kid who wasn't born in Georgia they'd have had to apply out of state to get their birth certificate data and then also have to try to match them with three others who were also not born in Georgia but in the same place as the other kid who all now lived in Georgia. Administrative nightmare, no? Is Hooker an idiot?

MrsWhiskersonTheFirst · 31/08/2014 13:10

Is it really that difficult to obtain birth cert data from other states? Do you know? Or are you just assuming it is?

Why do you think it would be important to have controls from the same state? What influence do you think the state someone was born in would have on the data?

Beachcomber · 31/08/2014 13:13

You aren't reading what I am saying properly noblegiraffe. You aren't reading what Hooker is saying properly. You aren't reading what Thompson said properly and you aren't reading what DeStefano said to Sharyl Attkisson properly. Hell, you aren't even reading the conclusion from the original 2004 study properly.

You are too busy trying to paint Hooker as dishonest or incompetent or to have a fatal conflict of interest (BTW, he declares his competing interests in the standard manner in his paper).

I didn't say that birth certificates were arbitrary. I asked you what your source was for saying that DeStefano et al needed them for information about schools.

You have quoted DeStefano and they don't mention the child's school as being anything to do with birth certificates.

Now go back and read the DeStefano et al conclusion again.

MrsWhiskersonTheFirst · 31/08/2014 13:13

Also, just to remind you, the question Hooker was asked was about scientific basis. Do you think 'administrative nightmare' is scientific?

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 13:13

By the way, Hooker's analysis looks worse and worse.

From the original paper "In the total sample, case and control children were matched appropriately on age and gender, with a preponderance of boys in both groups (Table 2). The racial distributions were also fairly similar, although a larger proportion of control (10%) than case (6%) children were classified as “other” race and both groups had an appreciable number for which race information was missing. The similarities in age and gender were also observed in the 355 case and 1020 control children who were matched to the Georgia birth certificate files (Table 2). In this subsample, the racial distributions of case and control children were the same and no children had missing race data. Using data that were available only in the birth certificate files, we did find several differences between case and control chil- dren. Compared with control children, case children were significantly (P ?? .05) more likely to have had a low birth weight and to have been the product of a multiple-birth pregnancy. At the time of delivery, mothers of case children tended to be older and to have had higher levels of education."

So Hooker's analysis, which he claims is better than the one on the birth certificate subset of the data, which concentrates on race as a characteristic, was run on data where an appreciable number of records were missing race data. In contrast, the subgroup that he criticises Destefano for running their race analysis on has complete race information.

I've also bolded the section where it talks about useful info gleaned from the birth certificate.

Still can't see any reason for concentrating on that subset of data? Still think it was an arbitrary cut in order to hide the truth about black boys and the MMR?

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 13:16

I didn't say DeStefano needed birth certificates for information about schools

Lweji · 31/08/2014 13:23

There is a further problem in this whole "race" issue and "Black" boys issue.

To start with "Black" is not a race, never mind a stable group. Even a "race" definition is completely arbitrary.
Such studies based on "races" cannot have any genetic basis. It's doubtful that, if it exists, any genetic basis for susceptibility to autism is linked to skin colour or any other trace that people use to define what is "black".
There's too much admixture in the USA to be able to reliably class a group as "black".

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 13:23

When I said the birth certificate contained info about education, I meant maternal education. Clearly a birth certificate won't contain info about the baby's education.

And maternal education would be important because a poorly educated mother might not be able to access appropriate healthcare to get a kid diagnosed (if it's anything like here I understand the process is arduous), or understand the importance of vaccines or how to access them, or be too poor to afford any fees etc. These things are obviously important when analysing this sort of data.

Beachcomber · 31/08/2014 13:24

No noblegiraffe. You didn't say DeStefano needed birth certificates for information about schools.

I asked you where it was said that they needed them for information about schools.

You quoted DeStefano and as you quite rightly point out here there was no mention of the child's school/education as being a reason for needing a Georgia birth certificate or indeed any birth certificate at all.

No go back and read the DeStefano conclusion again and read Hooker's discussion again whilst bearing in mind what Thompson has said about omitting data and what DeStefano is on record as saying about his cavalier attitude to scientific method because he knows that autism starts in the womb. Read Hooker in particular carefully without the assumption in your head that he is a liar just because his work doesn't fit into what you want to believe about the MMR controversy.

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 13:33

Right, here's the full quote ". However, CDC researchers did not include any children that did not have a valid State of Georgia birth certificate – reducing the study’s sample size by 41% . Dr. Hooker explains that by introducing this discretionary criteria into the analysis, the cohort size was sharply reduced, eliminating what would have been a higher statistical finding. This minimized the strong MMR-autism link in African American boys. When asked if there could be any scientific basis for excluding children born outside of Georgia, Dr. Hooker responded, “I know of none, and none has been provided by the authors of the DeStefano study.”"

An honest response to this would have been 'the scientific reason for looking at a subset of the main population who had a valid State of Georgia birth certificate was because the birth certificate contained lots of extra useful information'. Not 'I've no idea whatsoever, sounds like they tinkered with the data until they eliminated the info about black kids'

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 13:35

Is it really that difficult to obtain birth cert data from other states? Do you know? Or are you just assuming it is?

Are you kidding?? No, I'm sure you're right, they just hand out birth certificate data to anyone from any state who simply asks for it.

Bloody hell you're really grasping here.

noblegiraffe · 31/08/2014 13:39

Eh, Beachcomber, why are you banging on about birth certificates and schools? They wouldn't need the birth certificate data for schools, they would already have the data about schools because it was one of the criteria they matched the case and control kids on.

Beachcomber · 31/08/2014 13:44

Yes, noblegiraffe. As you say. In a nutshell. We have finally got there.

They wouldn't need the birth certificate data for schools, they would already have the data about schools because it was one of the criteria they matched the case and control kids on.

Now read the DeStefano conclusion again.

And read the Hooker discussion quote I have posted again.

Whilst keeping in mind what Dr Thompson has said about burying data.

Beachcomber · 31/08/2014 13:54

I don't mean to be being too cryptic and I'm trying to keep things simple. When I say schools, I should really be saying education/programmes/etc.

What I mean is whatever organisation is involved in the child's developmental care in an educational manner. I used schools as a short hand but I just wanted to clarify that that could mean any sort of special education needs organisation.

MrsWhiskersonTheFirst · 31/08/2014 14:04

On the contrary noble, I think you're the one grasping. This isn't 'anyone from any state' requesting birth cert data. They were scientists requesting it for a study that was being carried out, presumably with the participants knowledge and consent. Do you even know how they obtained the birth cert data or are you just guessing at that as well?

My point was that if the question was - did Hooker know of any scientific basis for excluding children born outside of Georgia his answer may have been based on the 'born outside of Georgia' part and the authors of the original study haven't said why they excluded people born outside of Georgia - have they?