What to call this thread?

[sear]

"If you are testing to see if thimerosal causes autism in those with an allergy to mercury," R5 #1,140

Yes. BUT !
It's neither illegal nor unscientific to study risk to an entire population.

You are correct that this is determined by study design, the test population selection criteria.

" you don't allow 98% of the test patients to be without this allergy." R5 #1,140

Serendipitous test results are not unknown to science.
I know of nothing intrinsically wrong with your study design.
But it's not the only possible study design, and may not be the optimal study design for an autism link.

 

[Rigby5]

Yes. BUT !
It's neither illegal nor unscientific to study risk to an entire population.

You are correct that this is determined by study design, the test population selection criteria.


Serendipitous test results are not unknown to science.
I know of nothing intrinsically wrong with your study design.
But it's not the only possible study design, and may not be the optimal study design for an autism link.

The point is that autism went from 0.01% of the population, to 3.2% of the population.
So since 3.2% is still below the margin of error, you can't use the whole general population then.
What you want to do is find out what changed in the 3.19% in those who went from normal to autistic.
And in general we know that some people have an allergy to mercury.
And that is what we then should have focused the study on.
It does absolutely no good at all to study the 97.8% who have absolutely no reaction or change.
That is the whole point of any study attempting to discover a cause for a change.
You keep trying different small specific test groups until you find one with a correlation.
An increase by a factor of 320 has to have a cause.
Some claim it is due to increase diagnosis, but it seems more than that to me?

 

[sear]

"The point is that autism went from 0.01% of the population, to 3.2% of the population." R5 #1,142

Perhaps. BUT !

"Some claim it is due to increase diagnosis, but it seems more than that to me?" R5

Even if it's both, how can we determine the ratio?

As you suggest:
do those stats indicate a change in the population? Or instead,
does it merely reflect refined detection criteria / methodology that has enabled us to detect it today
when years ago it would have gone undiagnosed?

This is part of the complication R5, of living in an era not merely of change, but in an era of exponential change.

 

[Rigby5]

Perhaps. BUT !


Even if it's both, how can we determine the ratio?

As you suggest:
do those stats indicate a change in the population? Or instead,
does it merely reflect refined detection criteria / methodology that has enabled us to detect it today
when years ago it would have gone undiagnosed?

This is part of the complication R5, of living in an era not merely of change, but in an era of exponential change.

My take is just to not do risky things.
Since mercury was used to allow the same hypodermic to be reused for all those being immunized, we know mercury had to be extremely toxic.
So then why inject something so extremely toxic at all?
If it can sterilize a hypodermic, I would not want it in my body.
Seems much safer to me to sterilize just the hypo separately instead of adding sterilizing agents into the vaccine?
So regardless of how sure we are of the autism connection, there is no need for mercury in any injection, ever.
And yet we still do put some mercury in adult vaccinations.
{...
While most vaccines in the U.S. no longer contain thimerosal, some products may still contain it, including:

• Multidose flu vaccines
• Immune globulin, a drug made from human blood that boosts your immune system to treat infection or disease
• Drugs used to offset the effects of venom from animal bites or stings
• Substances used in allergy testing called skin test antigens
• Some medications in the form of nasal sprays, eye solutions, and ear drops
• Antiseptic sprays

...}

 

[sear]

"My take is just to not do risky things. ..." R5 #1,144

I'm nearly the same. When I do risky things, I try to do them safely.
That applies to:
- power-boating
- sail / row boating
- bicycling on or off road
- motorcycling on or off road
- rappelling
- hang gliding

While I've tried to reduce risk to insignificance, I've failed enough to have learned: bad decisions make good stories.

 

[Rigby5]

Perhaps. BUT !


Even if it's both, how can we determine the ratio?

As you suggest:
do those stats indicate a change in the population? Or instead,
does it merely reflect refined detection criteria / methodology that has enabled us to detect it today
when years ago it would have gone undiagnosed?

This is part of the complication R5, of living in an era not merely of change, but in an era of exponential change.

The scary thing is our past evolution used to select for the most curious, experimental, intelligent, etc., but now has switched to select for those who are the most subservient, able to tolerate repetitive tasks, ignore risks like elevators and airplanes, follow orders, etc.

 

[Shiftless2]

As you suggest:
do those stats indicate a change in the population? Or instead,
does it merely reflect refined detection criteria / methodology that has enabled us to detect it today
when years ago it would have gone undiagnosed?

Most likely the majority of that change would be the result of improved diagnostics and, to some extent, changing the definition.

 

[Rigby5]

With all the herbicides/pesticides, plastics, preservatives, heavy metals, etc. increasing in the food chain, we need to become aware of which of these is the most dangerous and to be worked on removing.

 

[Shiftless2]

The first thing that should be removed is RFK Jr.

 

[sear]

"With all the herbicides/pesticides, plastics, preservatives, heavy metals, etc. increasing in the food chain, we need to become aware of which of these is the most dangerous and to be worked on removing." R5 #1,148

Easier said than done.
It's like pulling hen's teeth trying to ween America off petroleum.

I suspect we'll be bearing children with 3 eyes before U.S. consumers abandon plastic.

The first thing that should be removed is RFK Jr.

A secretary-ectomy?
Let us hope the operation is completed without anesthesia.