scientists identify genetic causes of autism

[elportodelgato]

story here from the Guardian

lots of people on here already know my views so just opening this up for comment. Does this research change anyone's opinion re: MMR?

I had tried to get my sons bowel problems investigated with no real success.
Fortunately the gluten free diet ( as suggested by Wakefield) has helped him significantly.
Butthe fact that the gfcf diet helped means that he displays fewer serious symptoms now and it won't get looked at unless he has gluten or something which triggers his symptoms. Which I won't do because of the whole not speaking and biting his hands bloddy symptom.
But then children with autism just get bowel probelms apparently
Well children like mine who regress often do. Apparently.
But that is co-incidence. Apparently.

I am not a Wakefield supporter It is a term which seems designed to sound a bit like a fan club for reasons I can't quite fathom.

I am happy to listen to anyone who has some sensible suggestion for what happened to my son and who has something constructive about how to help him.

It is just the current situtaion thatthe only person who has offered anything that makes sense and helps is what Wakefield said.

But please anyone who has any notion as to why DS2 lost skills post MMR, developed gut problems alongside severe ASD symtoms which are only relieved by removing gluten and casein - and which also seems to make him less autistic , just shout.
Anyone?

I am not expert but the medical records of the original 12 ( they are now teenagers) show very different outcomes which in itself does not seem to suggest (to me) that they were in a 'sub group' So apart from all the other difficulties in finding ways to identify a theoretical 'sub group' it seems that one of the factors would have be lack of similarity. This does seem quite challenging. It has been recorded many times that vast sums of public money were paid to the lawyers in the attempted MMR litigation. No one , even the lawyers themselves would deny this. It all seemed to start by looking at new angles after the 1987 CPA Act which weakened the law of negligence in some respects but then that's part of a law firm's job (as they see it) to look for new angles to maximise the firm's profits. They are not required to consider any other factors such as utility to society - and as for ethics.. well I think Shakespeare had a line of one his plays saying that the first thing we have to do is to 'kill all the lawyers'

Pag Even the GFCF diet is denied isn't it? yet if I had casein I woudln't be on ehre typing, i'd be sat glazed off. Nobody beleives that (although schoolr mecords are clear) but i'm not haviung casein with the stomach pains and diarrhoea to prove anyone wronG! What's the bloody point?

In my family 4 / 6 of us are casein intolerant, admitted by specialists- ds1, ds4 and ds3 ftt until casein removed.

DS1 cannot be on a GF diet atm as he hs more severe, potentially life threatening eating disorder but it has s ignioficant effect on him when he is. not so much ds3. ds3 dfoes have diarrhoea issues etc though but can't really communicate them- he's verbal but some thing don't occur to him.

Now the legal aid/legal case issue is quite interesting.
The fact that public money had been spent on the case is undeniable. But equally undeniable is that those costs would have been much restricted had the pharmaceutical companies not used hundreds of laywers and delayed the case with tactics which won them several stern reproaches from the judge.

But, given that money had been spent, perhaps it would have been more useful if the final £10,000,000 had been agreed to finish the case.It is odd that having granted legal aid for several years the Legal aid committee pulled the funding as the case was finally well underway and moving towards examination of the children .

The litigants who wanted to continue were desperately trying to get the money to finish this case but were then threatened by the pharamaceuticals that if they did not withdraw then they would be persued by their lawyers for the humungus millions that they had run up with their banks of firms.And then tried to getthem to saign a staement undertaking not to persue them even if more developments occured.... Another tactic criticised by the Judge whose criticism of these firms was unusually forceful and strongly worded.

In the face of these threats the individual parents had no choice but to withdraw.

So if we are intending to kill all the laywers can we start with those who threaten the meagre livilihoods of the families of severely disabled children? Please?

cyber, I'm not really sure what your point is, actually.
yes, there was a legal aid case, with public money spent.

BUT (and it is a big, important but)

the LAncet 12 were NOT part of that case at the time of their referral to Wakefield. So please stop trying to conflate the two.

As for the medical records being different - well that is taken straight form Deer again.

I am also not sure why you would expect them to be exactly the same - plenty of illnesses where you get different presentations. the fact is, that all 12 showed signs of a previously unseen, undescribed bowel disease, as outlined in the 1998 paper. that was the point of the paper. the paper that then pointed out there was no causal link that culd be made with mmr, but which also reported (as was its duty) that a significant number of the children had regressed, with symptoms onset after mmr.

Again, that paper has been described as good science, which still stands, which means that no fault can be found with what it describes.

Still wantot deny that these children exist? still want to downplay their gut issues (bowel sections, and stomas are hardly minor issues)? still want to say that they were introduced to wakefield via lawyers? or that wakefield was out to destroy mmr at all costs (his own paper said there was no causal link, fgs)

I am a Wakefield supporter and a big fan.

Can't believe how undeniable truths are being ignored here, seems very very odd for people to profess to be so interested in the facts and only the facts.

I'm more ashamed of the way he's been smeared, maligned, almost ruined and had his family divided. It's an embarrassment to the UK.

I'm beginning to wonder if there ever was Lancet article or if Wakefield even exists. I'll check the next time I step out of the shower! The doctor with such a way with 'facts' was all a dream. ?

see I keep trying to do that but when I wake up DS2 is there and his difficulties and his gut problems and his special diet and his varying symptoms are still there too....

cyber did you read this thread with your eyes closed what an odd comment

yes, glad it's so easy ofr you to joke about, cyber.

still, I suppose it moves it away form you answering my post ot you.

yet another example of the facts being ignored as they don't fit in with the "wakefield is a monster who experimented on chidren" line.

Agree with BTTAT - it's pathetic, and embarrassing

Is there an app for that? Sounds like it could be useful. It seems I am too stupid to follow every convulsion of debate so decided to give in and invent some stuff if my own I demand proof that the Lancet and Wskefield exist.

Good luck with that cyber, I've spent the last 16 pages asking someone to post me a link to some credible (published, peer reviewed) research that shows a link between autism and the mmr but I'm still waiting.

If we can move away from the finer details for a moment and back to the absolute central premise - there is no link.

That's interesting pagwatch - the story of the litigation really is a disgrace.

The comments made about the money hungry law firms representing the families are also a disgrace actually.

It's just awful how low this thing has sunk (I don't particularly mean this thread - I mean the wider issue).

err, earthworm - wakefield (and of course his co-authors, who are often not mentioned) said in the 1998 paper that no causal link established with mmr.

HOwever, the paper duly noted that symptom onset was post mmr.

and from that , it was suggested that more research was needed to investigate whether a subset of ASD children were being affected by mmr.

has anyone read the paper, and understood what it said?

anyway, to cut a long story short, following htis reasonable suggestion (resonable, because remembr the singles were available at the time), wakefield has been hounded evere since. ridiculed for suggesting things which are now being mentioned a sacceptable, because they have been suggested by other people. smeared by journalists for daring to say he didn't think that any collatoral damage in a vaccination programme is ok.

we are not talking about a temperature and a swollen injection site here. we are talking about previously healthy children, who, following mmr, regressed, lost skills, lost continence, and ende dup with a ver painful and distressign bowel condition.

one of the lancet 12 was seen by a paed the month before her mmr, and pronounced within the normal range for development (and signed off) seen again a couple of months post mmr, and was assessed at being way behind developmentally, yet this is apparently a coincidence, along with the bowel issues that started after mmr as well.

hell of a lot of coincidnece

It's so strange that it is denied so much but a respected consultant neurologist asked me several times pointedly if DD had loose bowels when she regressed clearly believing the link.

Am now worried as she is due for MMR booster. She didn't have any bowel problems though and regressed long after MMR.

oh, and just in case anyone starts trumpeting about wakefielf himself not finding a link, etc - that's the point.

there was, in his (and a lot of other people's too - he didn't write the paper alone) mind a suggestion that mmr might be the cause, or the vaccine schedule as a whole.

tha tis why he called ofr more research.

research that has been backed away form, denied that iti sneeded, ignored, etc.

WHY can this not be carried out? what are they so scared about?

easier to smear the man for suggesting it, though. much better to do that than give information to people who won't understand it anyway

when I took dd1 for her mmr, the nurse wouldn't let me see the patient information leaflet until I had signed the consent form. apparently I wouldn't understand what was on it, and would only worry about the side effects listed

the general acceptance of patronising health care professionals - the dismissive attitude if you dare question anyhting, makes me sick, tbh.

dd2's paed wouldn't tell me what he wasthinking might be wrong with her, as it "would only worry me". I would, of course, have gone straight home, googled, read the worst case scenario, and panicked. I would not be able to read and digest info that wa simportant, oh no.

It was only when I told him what I thought was wrong thathe confessed he thought it too, but had dismissed it as it wasn't likely

repeat tests showed that to actually be the case (well, at least a good chance - still not confirmed).

he had dismissed it, onhis own admission, because of ASD dd1, and the fact that I was obviously a paranoid parent (not a diligentone, you note, who had noticed details of her daughter's development)

He didnt want to mentoin it becasue he thought it would stop me getting dd2 vaccinated. too right it bloody did. dd2 has suspected mitochondrial dysfunction. hannah poling, anyone?

Earthworm I think people might be more inclined to post links if they felt you were going to read them with an open mind.

I posted a link earlier to Dr Krigsman's latest study and you (or at least I think it was you - apologies if I've got you mixed up with someone else) went 'yah boo sucks Krigsman is a pal of Wakefield and therefore not credible and no pharma advertising funded journal will publish his work, so well yah boo sucks.

You didn't comment once on the actual paper posted - did you even read it?

I linked to Singh's work and your answer was to link to a report from the BBC saying Dr Liz Miller didn't like it (no surprise there, Dr Miller was involved in the safety reporting on MMR and the JCVI introduction of the (known to be unsafe) Urabe strain MMR to the UK.

Earthworm I think people might be more inclined to post links if they felt you were going to read them with an open mind.

I posted a link earlier to Dr Krigsman's latest study and you (or at least I think it was you - apologies if I've got you mixed up with someone else) went 'yah boo sucks Krigsman is a pal of Wakefield and therefore not credible and no pharma advertising funded journal will publish his work, so well yah boo sucks.

You didn't comment once on the actual paper posted - did you even read it?

I linked to Singh's work and your answer was to link to a report from the BBC saying Dr Liz Miller didn't like it (no surprise there, Dr Miller was involved in the safety reporting on MMR and the JCVI introduction of the (known to be unsafe) Urabe strain MMR to the UK.

Yes, but is there published research that actually disproves the theory that Andrew Wakefield does not exist? Can anyone link to an article ? There may be a link between him and existence, there may not. All I am asking for is further research to clarify this point. No one has read or understood or even commented on my article about it in the latest 'Peppa Pig' comic (formerly known as the Lancet or was is it Piglet ?). So that in itself seems to suggest something is going on.

Stomach-turning, as I said.

There are damaged children and you are posting this pathetic nonsense. You ignore facts, refutations of your claims and you joke about devastated children and families.

I really don't care what anyone on this thread thinks about me, so I'm going to be the one to say, fuck off and when you get there, fuck off a little bit more.

I'm sure I'll get a big grin back and a supercilious comment so I'll just say fuck off again for when that appears.

I just want to pop back and say apologies to pag, Beach, silver, leonie, swc, for possibly bringing your side of the argument into disrepute. I know you wouldn't lower yourselves, probably.

So, um,, er, no link to that article then. Oh well. On a serious note, it's very easy to say 'oh but you see I am just thinking of the children.' It's a very easy card. I could say 'oh well isn't Bill Gates great to give millions to vaccination programs in the developing world' but that would just sound a but pious.