David Kirby on Vaccines, Not Autism
December 12, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
According to David Kirby, “better diagnosis” of autism is so insubstantial an argument for why the prevalence of autism has increased that he allots a mere sentence to it in his analysis of the “serious problems” in the CDC data on vaccines and autism (reported in Dan Olmsted’s ‘Problems’ in CDC data). As Kirby writes in today’s Bad News for Mercury Defenders after he has offered his refutation of not only the CDC’s study but also four other international studies on vaccines and autism:
With so many holes shot through their “five large studies” defense, the government lawyers will be left to argue that autism is purely genetic, that there is no environmental component, and that the rates of illness have not “really” gone up. We are simply better at recognizing and diagnosing the disorder, that’s all.
Well, if that is the case, the mercury-defense lawyers should have no problem proving it. All they need do is produce irrefutable evidence that 1-in-166 American adults of ALL ages (and 1-in-104 men) fall somewhere within the autism spectrum disorder, at the same rate as kids. But they can’t, and they won’t.
Kirby does not explain why he thinks these lawyers “can’t” and “won’t” find these autistic adults. (On this, see also What’s in a name: The “Hidden Horde,” TV, and a Diagnosis Called Autism.)
Like Olmsted’s ‘Problems’ in CDC data, Kirby summons a thorough array of data, statistics and studies in defending a mercury-autism link, but does not provide a solid sense of what autism is, aside from referring to it at the end of his article as a “neuro-developmental disorder, one that has become epidemic, (and expensive) in America.” Kirby’s book Evidence of Harm makes similarly little reference to what autism actually presents as in children (as I wrote over a year ago in Autism is Treatable and Charlie is Teachable: OnEvidence of Harm by David Kirby).
While Kirby has plenty to say about vaccines and the CDC, I am much less certain about what he has to say about autism, about diagnosing it, and about what it is.
I think that it is certainly possible that a heavy metal such as mercury could have the potential to cause brain damage that would result in autism; it would be sort of naive to believe otherwise. I think that a better question would have regards to the speculation of the frequency of mercury-induced autism (i.e. is it a common causation, or relatively rare).
You don’t have to answer this and pardon me for prying if I am…….. do you think that might be how your autism (now residual, if I recall?) was caused?
It’s possible. I don’t have any other people in the family with my condition and I supposedly ate paint chips when I was a few months old. I also was seemly normal when I was born, aside from a mild bone deformity. You weren’t prying at all; don’t worry about it.
Thanks very much—
I don’t want to comment on mercury or it’s reputed relationship to autism. However, I feel Mr. Kirby may be unclear regarding the judicial process, defense attorneys are not expected to produce any “irrefutable evidence”, or any evidence at all for that matter. The plaintiff is responsible to produce evidence in support of his cause. The defense then has the opportunity to challenge that evidence.