The Age of Autism: The Amish Elephant

wrote:
Mark Probert wrote:

Ilena Rose wrote:

I have no doubt that the Barrett/Quack/Rag-tag Posse of failures like
Probert will attack this respected journalist ...

No one from the newsgroup has to. It was done here, by a professional
journalist who was commenting on Olmsted's faulty methodology.

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/6/schulman.asp:

"Privately, two reporters told me that, while intriguing, Olmsted's
reporting on the Amish is misguided, since it may simply reflect genetic
differences among an isolated gene pool (Hornig, however, said that a


The "two reporters" probably realized that they were not very
good in the thinking-straight department, perhaps no
better than "Schulman", hence the "privately."

They say it "may" reflect genetic differences. But we are not
talking of a steady-state situation here. We are talking about
something that developed suddenly in the late 80's and 90's.

Who is this 'we' kemo sabe?

In the 1980's and 1990's the world finally awakened to the I.D.E.A. that
children were not learning for a reason. Then, they began looking for
this reason.

Supposing the cause is "increased" detection, then clearly there
is material for further investigation he did the Amish
physicians miss out on the circular for increased detection?

Why assume that the increase was physician driven? Clearly, the child
had to have demonstrated some form of problem to be taken to the
physician/clinician for evaluation. Perhaps this occured in the schools.

However, are Amish children schooled in the same manner as the rest of
the population? I'll let you look that up. Hint" That system is unlikely
to find special education students.

Was there a problem with the postal system in Amish areas
at that time?

Why would all the non-Amish genes certainly start to
express themselves differently? And at the same time?
Was this some kind of mass-conspiracy among the non-Amish
genes?

I'll leave that to your fantasizing. They do have a static gene pool.

The Amish study clearly provides additional data, that can
obviously be helpful in verifying/falsifying various
hypothesese wrt Autism. (Unless, of course, one is
biased and/or extremely gullible or has an agenda.)

If one is open minded, and bothers to look at all factors, one sees that
this is an utterly bull**** argument. The proponents of it have their
agenda, which is confabulation driven.

Mark Probert wrote:
They say it "may" reflect genetic differences. But we are not
talking of a steady-state situation here. We are talking about
something that developed suddenly in the late 80's and 90's.

Who is this 'we' kemo sabe?

A reading of the text would indicate the "we" was
I and everybody who was "talking about..." -- I would have
much preferred not to include you in this "we", but
I see you have included yourself.

Supposing the cause is "increased" detection, then clearly there
is material for further investigation he did the Amish
physicians miss out on the circular for increased detection?

Why assume that the increase was physician driven? Clearly, the child
had to have demonstrated some form of problem to be taken to the
physician/clinician for evaluation. Perhaps this occured in the schools.

However, are Amish children schooled in the same manner as the rest of
the population? I'll let you look that up. Hint" That system is unlikely
to find special education students.

Sure, that's possible and therefore a reasonable hypothesis.

Hint" (1) Hypotheses are meant to be further investigated. (2) They
are
not definitely known to be true. (3) They should not be suppressed.

Why would all the non-Amish genes certainly start to
express themselves differently? And at the same time?
Was this some kind of mass-conspiracy among the non-Amish
genes?

I'll leave that to your fantasizing. They do have a static gene pool.

So that should be worse, rather than better.

The Amish study clearly provides additional data, that can
obviously be helpful in verifying/falsifying various
hypothesese wrt Autism. (Unless, of course, one is
biased and/or extremely gullible or has an agenda.)

If one is open minded, and bothers to look at all factors, one sees that
this is an utterly bull**** argument. The proponents of it have their
agenda, which is confabulation driven.

It's utterly bulli**** that the Amish provide "additional data"?

And one arrives at that by being "open minded"? As "open
minded" as yourself, I presume?

wrote:
Mark Probert wrote:
I'll leave that to your fantasizing. They do have a static gene pool.

So that should be worse, rather than better.

What makes you say that? If, as a population, they do not possess
alleles for autisms, then there would be a lower incidence (or none at
all).

Vaccine-man wrote:
wrote:
Mark Probert wrote:
I'll leave that to your fantasizing. They do have a static gene pool.

So that should be worse, rather than better.

What makes you say that? If, as a population, they do not possess
alleles for autisms, then there would be a lower incidence (or none at
all).

That's already assuming it's a phenotype and not environmental.
That's possible, of course -- I am not into political suppression
of hypotheses, unlike the vaccine men. However, the observed
behavior of the disease is that it exploded in late 80's and early
90's.
That argues against your hypothesis.

As to why I said it would be "worse", that's standard
likelihood for static gene pools. Bad genes not getting
weeded out, "loss of vigor" etc. If there were an autism
allele, a static gene pool would be the least defended
against it. Its only hope would be never having
had a single instance in the initial pool to begin with.

wrote:
Vaccine-man wrote:
wrote:
Mark Probert wrote:
I'll leave that to your fantasizing. They do have a static gene pool.

So that should be worse, rather than better.

What makes you say that? If, as a population, they do not possess
alleles for autisms, then there would be a lower incidence (or none at
all).

That's already assuming it's a phenotype and not environmental.

It is a reasonable assumption that environmental factors act on
genotype to influence phenotype. Search OMIM for 'autism':

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=OMIM

It looks like there are a couple dozen candidate genes (and many
alleles) for autisms.

That's possible, of course -- I am not into political suppression
of hypotheses, unlike the vaccine men.

Opinion not founded in fact.

However, the observed
behavior of the disease is that it exploded in late 80's and early
90's.
That argues against your hypothesis.

In what way? Has the incidence of autisms changed in Amish populations
in the last 50 years? Can you provide a mechanistic explanation for the
supposed role of vaccination for the increased incidence of autisms?

As to why I said it would be "worse", that's standard
likelihood for static gene pools.

This is an inaccurate statement. If there are no "autism alleles" in
Amish populations (a closed gene pool) then the only way for an autism
allele to arise is through mutation. This is a central tenet of
Hardy-Weinberg. In this context, the Amish would not be susceptible to
autisms since there is no genetic predisposition in the population.
This does not mean they cannot suffer from other genetic disorders at a
frequency higher than the general population (which they,
unfortunately, seem to have a lot of), only that they would not be as
susceptible to autisms.

Bad genes not getting
weeded out, "loss of vigor" etc. If there were an autism
allele, a static gene pool would be the least defended
against it.

This is not true. If it's a closed population (that is, Amish do not
marry outside the Amish community), then there is no way for an autism
allele to arise, except by mutation, which would be an extremely rare
event.

Its only hope would be never having
had a single instance in the initial pool to begin with.

And why can't this be a possibility? Are you familiar with the Founder
Effect?

wrote in message
oups.com...
Vaccine-man wrote:
wrote:
Mark Probert wrote:
I'll leave that to your fantasizing. They do have a static gene pool.

So that should be worse, rather than better.

What makes you say that? If, as a population, they do not possess
alleles for autisms, then there would be a lower incidence (or none at
all).

That's already assuming it's a phenotype and not environmental.
That's possible, of course -- I am not into political suppression
of hypotheses, unlike the vaccine men. However, the observed
behavior of the disease is that it exploded in late 80's and early
90's.
That argues against your hypothesis.

As to why I said it would be "worse", that's standard
likelihood for static gene pools. Bad genes not getting
weeded out, "loss of vigor" etc. If there were an autism
allele, a static gene pool would be the least defended
against it. Its only hope would be never having
had a single instance in the initial pool to begin with.


So how to you count something in a time (like the 1970's) before there is
even an agreement of what the definition is? Before DSM IV there was no
concise definition of many of the things NOW called "autism". There was a
time not too long ago that schools did not even have the diagnosis of
"autism" in their list of disabilities
(http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...ull/116/1/e120 , "Only
data from 1993 and later were used, as autism was not reported separately
until 1992 and mandatory reporting did not begin until 1993"). Also, the
definition of some autistic types did not exist until DSM IV
(http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...29/ai_76558499 ).

I have a teenage son who has a severe neurologically based speech disorder.
Back when he was getting diagnosed, early intervention speech therapy and
enrolled in a special ed. preschool program about 12 years ago it was often
very difficult to get kids like him evaluated and treated. We were lucky
because our family doctor refered him for speech therapy when he was two
(having a history of seizures also meant there was a strong possibility of
neuro-damage). We have met many other parents (in speech therapy waiting
rooms and those that had kids in the special ed. program) who were not so
lucky. More often then not their doctor would give the "wait and see" line.
One of the speech therapists at school told me that every year they would
get a child in kindergarten who could not even speak at all... these kids
needed lots of work to catch up (if they could).

From attending parent programs put on by the special ed. program my son
started at, to being online for over ten years with various disability
forums I have seen an incredible change in attitude. Ten years ago it was
very difficult to get many pediatricians to refer kids with speech/language
problems (it didn't help that some professor of ECONOMICS wrote a stupid
book about "late-talking" kids which made them sound like future Einsteins
and disregarded the value of early intervention --- something his son
actually GOT!)... to now where almost every teeny tiny nuance of
developement is looked at with a microscope and lots of kids are being
called "autistic" (including a son of a friend of mine... a kid that just
does not fit the autistic spectrum from my perspective).

There has definitely been an increase of awareness.

Plus, the Amish are a small gene pool with their own problems (including a
genetic disorder that causes sudden infant death):
http://www.clinicforspecialchildren.org/research.html

Vaccine-man wrote:

That's possible, of course -- I am not into political suppression
of hypotheses, unlike the vaccine men.

Opinion not founded in fact.

Eh? See the end of this message.

However, the observed
behavior of the disease is that it exploded in late 80's and early
90's.
That argues against your hypothesis.

In what way? Has the incidence of autisms changed in Amish populations
in the last 50 years? Can you provide a mechanistic explanation for the
supposed role of vaccination for the increased incidence of autisms?

If there was an explosion of a disease at a point of time,
environmental
factors would need to be involved. A genetic disease would stay
roughly at similar levels.

As to why I said it would be "worse", that's standard
likelihood for static gene pools.

This is an inaccurate statement. If there are no "autism alleles" in
Amish populations (a closed gene pool) then the only way for an autism
allele to arise is through mutation. This is a central tenet of
Hardy-Weinberg. In this context, the Amish would not be susceptible to
autisms since there is no genetic predisposition in the population.
This does not mean they cannot suffer from other genetic disorders at a
frequency higher than the general population (which they,
unfortunately, seem to have a lot of), only that they would not be as
susceptible to autisms.

Bad genes not getting
weeded out, "loss of vigor" etc. If there were an autism
allele, a static gene pool would be the least defended
against it.

This is not true. If it's a closed population (that is, Amish do not
marry outside the Amish community), then there is no way for an autism
allele to arise, except by mutation, which would be an extremely rare
event.

The initial Amish would have to be substantially different from the
rest of the population, so the initial pool would have included
not a single allele. Or substantially small and skewed.

Its only hope would be never having
had a single instance in the initial pool to begin with.

And why can't this be a possibility? Are you familiar with the Founder
Effect?

Well, was the intial Amish population small enough for a Founder
Effect? I don't know, that's why I said your hypothesis could be
further
investigated and probabilities established.

Now if you could similarly examine and point out to me why
the hypothesis "mercury could be causing autism" was not worthy of
further (or initial) investigation in any single respected journal?
And if a hypothesis is not worthy enough for publication,
how come the most contrived refutation is worthy enough?
If Hviid's data deserves publication (without even asking
for any further defense against allegations that the data was bad),
why was the original data not so publicized?

Before you jump into why the original hypothesis is not correct -- I am
not asking about that at all. I am asking about why the hypothesis
was not well publicized?

HCN wrote:

So how to you count something in a time (like the 1970's) before there is
even an agreement of what the definition is? Before DSM IV there was no

It's imprecise, but can be done. Talk to (honest) pediatricians,
school teachers and such who have been around for a while.

You will find a general consensus (in the USA) that something
has definitely gone wrong over this time period.

While there have been developmental problems in children for quite
a while, the number has exploded since late 80's and early 90's.
I don't mean to imply that all problems fall in the new category. But
if do you encounter a problem that doesn't fall in the new category,
that doesn't negate others' experiences either.

wrote in message
ups.com...
Vaccine-man wrote:

That's possible, of course -- I am not into political suppression
of hypotheses, unlike the vaccine men.

Opinion not founded in fact.

Eh? See the end of this message.

However, the observed
behavior of the disease is that it exploded in late 80's and early
90's.
That argues against your hypothesis.

In what way? Has the incidence of autisms changed in Amish populations
in the last 50 years? Can you provide a mechanistic explanation for the
supposed role of vaccination for the increased incidence of autisms?

If there was an explosion of a disease at a point of time,
environmental
factors would need to be involved. A genetic disease would stay
roughly at similar levels.

What mind altering drugs were their parents
taking in the 60's and 70's ???? Gene damage ????

Coleah wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
Vaccine-man wrote:

That's possible, of course -- I am not into political suppression
of hypotheses, unlike the vaccine men.

Opinion not founded in fact.

Eh? See the end of this message.

However, the observed
behavior of the disease is that it exploded in late 80's and early
90's.
That argues against your hypothesis.

In what way? Has the incidence of autisms changed in Amish populations
in the last 50 years? Can you provide a mechanistic explanation for the
supposed role of vaccination for the increased incidence of autisms?

If there was an explosion of a disease at a point of time,
environmental
factors would need to be involved. A genetic disease would stay
roughly at similar levels.

What mind altering drugs were their parents
taking in the 60's and 70's ???? Gene damage ????

If that were the case, the "autism epidemic" would
have started in late 60's or early or late 70's at the most.