It could also have something to do with increasingly accurate diagnosis of "autism" as opposed to 'retardation' 'learning disorder' 'just slow' and 'a fucking dummy'


There is no hard evidence that vaccines are harmful. Assuming, however, that autism is an occasional tragic side-effect, there's still a huge game-theory loss if we don't vaccinate.

I was going to plus rep you for these bits of your post - But I have a crush on you apparently, who knew?


Changelings and stories of children being swapped by fairies in old European folk tales = Autism before diagnosis exists, No vaccines back then.

While I agree with some of what WR says about our school system (although he's looking, like most people, at a pretty one-dimensional snapshot of the "sterotypical american school" ala dangerous minds, it seems), I find at least in my community the common thread with non-vaccinators is wacky cows that feel a need to home-school their spawn despite a total lack of qualifications. In my state, this is dismayingly easy and requires very little training or curriculum on the part of the home-schoolers.



Not to minimize or dismiss what you're saying, which may be correct, but I feel that my impression of the public education system is a little bit more than just a one-dimensional snapshot. This is because one of my parents has been a teacher for years so I feel that I'm slightly closer to the public education system than the average bear.

Modern medicine is not trial and error. Trial and error predates the scientific method. Drugs undergo years of various types of testing.

Anyone take a gander at a graph illustrating where exactly our popular immunizations were first implemented? I'm talking in terms of per capita death from said disease. Think it was closer to the highest point (i.e. it caused a dramatic down swing)? Or towards the lowest point (i.e. the crash already occurred due to other factors pre-dating the vaccine)?

To digress slightly, when my dog got his distemper shot, he got several severe symptoms. Symptoms of, like, distemper, from what I've gathered. So I went back to have those symptoms treated.

And then Rabies. He pulled out all the hair from his back legs right after rabies. It was also about the time he started getting inhalant allergies too.

He's not autistic. However, I wont' be going back for more. :5no:

Be that as it may, I also feel like if someone else got sick due to your not immunizing ...

Regarding training clubs for dogs:

"Is this to protect the other dogs?
"Yes."
"Are the other dogs vaccinated?"
"Of course."
"So, they're immune to parvo?"
"Yes."
"So this is to protect the other dogs?"
"Yes, but your's too."
"But he doesn't have it."
"Not yet."
"You said your dogs are vaccinated already."
"Yes."
"So my dog shouldn't be getting it from your dogs then, right?"
"This is our policy, sir."
"Ok."

Of course, this applies mainly to AKC retards. The European dog sport people generally only marginally give it lip service to keep up appearences. Many breeders who've been doing this a while see much better health and performance from unvaccinated dogs, as they can pretty accurately see trends when you're birthing up to 10 little experiments a couple times per year all from similar genetic stock. Suddenly they don't see "allergies" anymore, and other such chronic crap.

That said, I agree with you, I think the autism "epidemic" is an issue with our broader environment that people would rather deny than the generally miniscule amounts of mercury
in these vaccines.

The Autism 'epidemic' is by and large an issue overinflated beyond all reason by a media which really ought to know better. Oh, and a bunch of parents who take cognitive dissonance to an entirely new level.

Firstly, there was an official acknowledgement of autism as a spectrum disorder in 1994, with the issuing of the DSM-IV and the inclusion of High Functioning Autism (HFA) and Asperger's Syndrome within its' hallowed pages. Since that time, I believe that diagnoses of Mental Retardation, have in fact gone down (at least in the US. I'm not too sure of worldwide figures) whilst the Autism figures tend to be a conflation of all spectrum disorders, two of which weren't even being diagnosed fifteen years ago.

As far as the mercury argument is concerned, medical science has known for a long time what happens when the human body is poisoned by mercury:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning

Note that none of the symptoms given in that article are similar to any Autistic behaviours. The entire argument that 'mercury causes autism' is based on a number of highly dubious studies that range from the moronic to the completely unethical in the case of David and Mark Geier (yes, you too can cure your child by chemically castrating them!) Mady Hornig's "Rain Mice" study (Of course mice exposed to thimerosal will be violent - when they're from a notoriously unstable and violent lab mouse gene line to begin with!).

The media jumping on the bandwagon of organisations supporting such beliefs - all of which are composed of neurotypical individuals without a single autistic in the bunch, are largely responsible for this trend of not vaccinating children, which has thus far led to a measles epidemic in the UK, which in turn led to the deaths of a number of children. The irony of this is that recent epidemiological studies show that there is no difference whatsoever in whether vaccinated or unvaccinated kids become Autistic.

As for my own view, I think it's genetic. I personally have a number of relatives who fit on the Broader Autism Phenotype (some autistic behaviors but not quite autistic enough to qualify for an Aspergers or HFA diagnosis) recorded all the way back to a late 18th century ancestor who also had similar attributes to me (pedantic, near-eidetic memory, narrow range of special interests, etc).

I've also noticed a trend wherein people like to think their autistic. But that's just a casual internet observation.

Autism could possibly be the trendy neurological condition of choice of the last couple of years, as you tend to see a fair few of people that claim 'self-diagnosis' in various Autistic/Neurodiversity web communities. Doesn't really bother me all that much, as:

a) They're internet people - thus not real to me until I meet them
b) If so, the more people on the neurodiversity bandwagon, and actively pushing for better treatments for conditions comorbid with autism and various autistic difficulties (as opposed to cure/eradication) all the better from my viewpoint.

As for me, I was diagnosed by at least two different doctors in 2000. I hadn't even heard of HFA or Asperger's until a psychiatrist brought them up.

Neurodiversity. Christ.

Is this another annual class I'm gonna have to take?

Nope - more a different way of looking at neurological differences as differences rather than diseases. It's generally used in conjunction with the Autistic spectrum as the term was coined by an Autism researcher

Well, yeah. That's not ghey. But it seems like different sides of the same coin to say:

"You may be 'autistic' but, that doesnt mean there's anything 'wrong' with you."

And:

"There's no use in even saying you're autistic, since you're reasonably well functioning, and the only thing the 'diagnosis' would do is create some stigma where there might not otherwise be some."

In other words, if there's nothing really wrong, and it's just a matter of "difference", why even label something to POINT OUT the difference?

I've gotten on with people who seemed...fine. Then they said they had such-and-such 'disorder', and I'm all like: "I wouldn't have known if you didn't tell me."

Internet autistics=special club of eccentricity and creativity. Genetic members only.

Internet autistics=special club of eccentricity and creativity. Genetic members only.

they used to call those people hypochondriacs

My thought is that you have enough of a religious objection to what the state mandates for your childs protection, you better keep him/her at home, because the education they are going to get is going to be just as bad.

Modern medicine is not trial and error. Trial and error predates the scientific method. Drugs undergo years of various types of testing.

<serious voice>Testing which is double blind, and rigorous. It has to prove its worth to the medicine community </serious voice> yadda yadda yadda.

Until we have every piece of knowledge down on paper, it's trial and error. In fact the scientific method is based on trial and error. As far as medicine is concerned, we know how certain things react, thus we try to see if they will, upon reacting a certain way, help the patient.

One little tid-bit of information I'd like to add to the pot is that the number one cause of liver disease (or was it failure....? I should have paid more attention when my doctor was telling me this) is no longer drinking. Tylenol has just recently surpassed it and now is the top dog in that department.

Medicine is good, but it is trial and error. One generation at a time, the pills change so that we get more effective medicine.

LAWLZ! HE'Z UNINFURMD.

Information on LSD being used to relieve depression is pretty open on the internet, and in books. It's not hidden in the katas. Anti-depressents have quite a few studies showing that they're counter productive for a certain period of time, but afterwards show IMMENSE improvement.

I'll cite them some day when I'm not completely drunk, if you want, or you can google it yourself, you lazy slob.

I don’t need to Google this, like I said, I earn my living in the mental health profession. I work with the mentally ill every single day. Hell, I am sitting in my office in a mental health clinic as I type.

Come back after you sober up.
:new_all_c

I just wanted to mention this:

I have had some bad encounters with doctors for the past few years with my neck and back. BUT, the problem isn't really the doctors. We go to doctors with random symptoms that we decribe using our own language and conepts and expect them not only to decipher what is really wrong, but then to diagnose and treat. Add to that the fact that alot of people are not entirely honest with their doctors and you have a recipie for disaster.

I remember this from talking to my brother-in-law who is a mechanic. People come to him and say "may car is making X.Y.Z sound, what's wrong?"