EDIT NOVEMBER 1 2017: GINGER'S LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED TO 142 PAPERS. I HAVE ADDED ALL THE NEW ONES IN ORDER. NEW PAPERS ARE PREFACED BY **.







It seems like all I use Twitter for these days is arguing with antivaxxers. And occasionally flat earthers . . . no, seriously. Unlike "effective homeopathy", they exist. That's not at all why I started tweeting - in fact, I created my account solely for the purpose of shamelessly advertising this stupid blog which you good people are valiantly reading. But alas, I discovered very quickly that Twitter is a wretched hive of scum and villainy like nowhere else in the universe (as far as we know). Antivaxxers are not only present but also obnoxiously vocal, spreading various lies, half-truths, misinformation, and malinformation. They make the same tired (read: wrong) arguments repeatedly, never seeming to learn from the many mistakes they make:

that link (unless they give up and throw it out at the outset). I've mentioned this particular Gish Gallop in passing (it was formerly 99 papers that was increased to 124, then 130, and has now been rounded out to a nice even 157), but I've never really attacked it head on. This list of papers was compiled by And there it is. It nearly always comes down to(unless they give up and throw it out at the outset). I've mentioned this particular Gish Gallop in passing (it was formerly 99 papers that was increased to 124, then 130, and has now been rounded out to a nice even 157), but I've never really attacked it head on. This list of papers was compiled by rabid antivaccine lunatic Ginger Taylor , and Liz Ditz previously produced a nice compilation of refutations of many of them . And The Logic of Science blog just wrote a very comprehensive and well-written summary of the supposed evidence against vaccines which addresses several of them as well.



However none of them goes over each of the 142 papers individually. Moreover I've been feeling increasingly uneasy lately about using other folks' blog posts to shoot down this "proof". To that end I've decided to do my own. I'm not saying that the others aren't good enough, it's just that I'm apparently a masochist and enjoy wasting my time by reading irrelevant and/or nonsensical papers for hours at a time. Or something. As you've probably guessed, I've now read every . . . single . . . one of these 124 (now 157) papers and will address any and all concerns I found relevant. Despite the fact that many of Ginger's links were broken, the titles here are all clickable and go to the original abstract (or the full paper for some of them).



If you'd like the short short version , click here:

VACCINES DON'T FUCKING CAUSE AUTISM SPOILER ALERT



WARNING:

This post will be long, painful, difficult to get through, heavily laden with citations, and most likely fruitless. I'm doing it anyway because I'm tired, I'm grouchy, and it's either this or help my son take apart and put back together the Lego jet for the 23rd (edit 41st) (edit edit 74th) time.



*sigh*





And here we go.





does not cause autism. Thimerosal has been removed from all childhood vaccines in most countries since 2001, yet autism rates continue to rise. It is only present in certain multi-dose influenza vaccines. Plus, Taylor et al performed a meta-analysis that included over 1.2 million children that found no relationship between vaccination and autism or ASD, no relationship between MMR and autism or ASD, no relationship between thimerosal and autism or ASD, and no relationship between mercury and autism or ASD. There was also a study done in California that tracked autism rates after thimerosal was removed, and it confirmed the same result - thimerosal



Michael Pichichero, MD, a physician researcher with over 300 (!) Pubmed citations to his name, reviewed the evidence regarding thimerosal and autism for the UN Environmental Program back in 2008 and again in 2012. A full pdf summarising his review can be found here , but his conclusion was this: "No new evidence could be found in the published literature that brings into question the decision by WHO to endorse the continued use of thimerosal as a safe preservative in multi-dose vaccines." That should be entirely clear and should require no further explanation.





Regardless, I'll repeat for those too slow to get it the first time: THIMEROSAL DOES NOT CAUSE AUTISM .



This is a recurring theme, as you will see.



2) {formerly 125} Pilot comparative study on the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated 6- to 12- year old U.S. children

hadn't included it. In short, this is an online survey of mothers who homeschool their children about their self-declared health issues, including autism, allergies, etc. That would be bad enough. But homeschool parents have been found to be Frontiers in Public Health (where the peer reviewer was a chiropractor with ZERO vaccine papers to her name), but it was Journal of Translational Science (which just so happens not to be indexed on Medline), though it was retracted there again, presumably because it was still bullshit. It then reappeared on that journal's website with no explanation as to why it was removed or replaced. In short, this is a terrible "study" with worthless statistics that is entirely meaningless. This piece of garbage is one of Ginger's new updates since I initially wrote this piece in mid 2016. I can't say I'm surprised to find it here, and in fact I'd be surprised if sheincluded it. In short, this is an online survey of mothers who homeschool their children about their self-declared health issues, including autism, allergies, etc. That would be bad enough. But homeschool parents have been found to be less likely to give their children vaccines . So just how bad is this "paper"? I won't even go into the terrible statistics, but suffice it to say it was initially published in the journal(where the peer reviewer was a chiropractor with ZERO vaccine papers to her name), but it was retracted within a week because it was bullshit. It was then published nearly word-for-word in the(which just so happensto be indexed on Medline), though it was retracted there again, presumably because it was still bullshit. It then reappeared on that journal's website with no explanation as to why it was removed or replaced. In short, this is a terrible "study" with worthless statistics that is entirely meaningless.





65) Activation of methionine synthase by insulin-like growth factor-1 and dopamine: a target for neurodevelopmental toxins and thimerosal

Thimerosal again? Come on, Ginger. At least pretend to list these in some semblance of organisation.

Autistic regression exists. I'm not sure who is denying that, but I certainly am not. Vaccines are not mentioned, and rightfully so.

Mercury. Next.

I admit that when I first read the title of this one I got a bit nervous. It certainly sounds convincing, right? Then I actually looked at it, and before the abstract even came up there was a warning from the editors about potential bias in the authors' opinions and choice of citations in their literature review. Uh oh - BIG RED FLAG. And if that weren't bad enough, this paper investigates "word frequency patterns" in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) . HAHAHAHA no, seriously. In case you don't know, VAERS is a repository of any and every adverse event that is reported after vaccines are given. Anyone can file a report, and some of them are downright risible (see this collection of deaths by car accident, drowning, suffocation, and even AIDS reported to VAERS). I can't take this paper seriously. There are myriad criticisms of its main author Stephanie Seneff around the internet which I won't bring up here.

Another one about oxidative stress. Nothing to see about vaccines here, please move on.

This is the famous Hannah Poling case. The first author of this paper is her father Jon, an MD PhD neurologist at Johns Hopkins. Those are indeed impressive credentials. His daughter Hannah regressed after receiving a series of several vaccines and being diagnosed with encephalopathy due to a rare mitochondrial enzyme deficiency. Her parents sued the Vaccine Court and won. Is this a smoking gun? No, not really, though it is definitely a sad case (mitochondrial enzyme deficiencies are extremely rare). Dr. Paul Offitt, a world-renowned expert (and thoroughly reviled shill according to antivaxxers) explains why this isn't the smoking gun antivaxxers want it to be.

Another broken link. How annoying. Another paper about oxidative stress that has nothing to do with vaccines; even more annoying.

I have no idea why this paper is included here, except perhaps that in includes the words "neuroinflammation" and "heavy metals". Vaccines are, once again, not mentioned or implied. Oh, and the author is Martha Herbert. I won't rehash all that.

The authors find that oxidative stress markers are increased, and some antioxidant proteins are decreased, in autistic children. Fascinating. Nothing to do with vaccines.

Back to thimerosal again? Could you at least try to organise your bullshit at least a little?

Heavy metals are involved in oxidative stress. Nothing to do with vaccines. Again.

Well this is interesting. A small study that was never replicated, has nothing to do with autism, and was done on mice. How very not at all fascinating. But it has "aluminum adjuvant" in the title, so goodness knows it simply must be included on this list.

The researchers found that children with more severe autism symptoms have higher levels of a certain marker of oxidative stress. Interesting! But wait . . . how does this prove vaccines did anything? Oh right, it doesn't.

This is very simple to dismiss as "MERCURY. NEXT!", but let's delve a little deeper here. The researchers (including Mark Blaxill, whom we will meet later) found decreased levels of mercury in hair of autistic children compared to neurotypical children. Wait, DECREASED levels? Yes, decreased levels. What does this mean? Well, it 1) doesn't lend any support whatsoever to any autism-vaccine link, 2) it points away from mercury causing vaccines, and 3) has nothing to do with vaccines anyway. Why is this paper here? Ginger?

This is Geier and Geier again banging on about mercury in vaccines causing autism. Which it doesn't. If it did, autism rates would have gone down after thimerosal was removed from vaccines, which they did not. Wait, have I said that before?

This is a commentary, not a scientific paper, by Mark Blaxill, an antivax father who has vehemently defended Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent study which started this whole thing. In his commentary he claims that diagnostic substitution cannot explain at least part of the increase in autism prevalence despite evidence to the contrary . Does he offer any proof? No he does not.





researchers have Mark Blaxill again claims that diagnostic substitution cannot explain the rise in autism. However multiple found the same thing, despite Blaxill complaining about it.





And this still has nothing to do with vaccines.

I'm kinda getting tired of the broken links. Regardless, this paper again tries to link oxidative stress with autism without mentioning vaccines.

that Brian Hooker who thoroughly abused statistics in a Uh oh, two of the authors are Brian Hooker (yes,Brian Hooker who thoroughly abused statistics in a retracted paper that didn't actually indicate that vaccines increase risk of autism in black boys and has led to the whole #CDCWhistleblower nonsense) and Martha Herbert, whom we met in #63 and 72. Leaving that aside, this is another speculative paper that concludes that "overzealous neuroinflammation" can lead to autism. Interesting hypothesis, but it still doesn't lend any support to the idea that vaccines cause autism.

Mercury. Nope.

This article speculates that some environmental toxin causes damage to mitochondria, and this may cause autism. The author lists those potential toxins (valproic acid, thalidomide, rubella, cytomegalovirus, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), industrial chemicals, mercury, lead, cadmium, nickel, and tin), but curiously vaccines are not on the list. So why is it on this list? I can only guess, but then I'd be delving into the abyss that is Ginger Taylor's addled brain. No thanks.

Mercury. The abstract even starts off "This study should be viewed as hypothesis-generating". That's it, "hypothesis-generating", not "proving vaccines cause autism".

Vaccines are not discussed, but the buzzwords "mitochondrial disorders" did. Unrelated.

Thimerosal. Nope.





Thimerosal again. Nope again.

I admit I laughed out loud here. The title isn't overtly funny and it certainly sounds damning (See right there? AUTOIMMUNITY!) , but the findings are downright hilarious. In her efforts to prove vaccines cause autism, Ginger linked a study which found lower rates of anti-MMR antibodies in autistic children than in control children. That made me laugh. But what made me laugh even harder is the finding that autistic children have a higher rate of anti-casein and anti-gluten antibodies than controls. This was the first paper I had seen linking dairy and gluten to autism. So it isn't mercury or aluminum or whatever, now it's milk and bread! But despite the unintended comedy ("GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES CAUSE AUTISM!"), it firmly points away from vaccines causing autism. Nice one, Ginger.

no differences in macaques given the full infant vaccine schedule with and without thimerosal versus controls who were given saline injections. I'll repeat for those antivaxxers too slow to understand: the full infant vaccine schedule was given, the monkeys were followed for 5 years, and there was no evidence of any neurobehavioural differences. Feel free to use that reference ( If I was laughing at #68, I was rolling on the floor (metaphorically speaking) after reading this one. This was a pilot study which showed (in its preliminary data) that macaques given childhood vaccines showed some neurodevelopmental deficits. The followup 5-year comprehensive study, which was funded by Safeminds (another rabidly antivax group) was published in 2015 , showedin macaques given the full infant vaccine schedule with and without thimerosal versus controls who were given saline injections. I'll repeat for those antivaxxers too slow to understand:. Feel free to use that reference ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25690930 ) with any antivaxxer that tries to claim "BUT THE VACCINE SCHEDULE HASN'T BEEN TESTED!" It has, and it was funded by antivaxxers. Safeminds was, as expected, not happy that their money went to fund a study that refuted their own pre-determined conclusion. If that isn't comedy, I don't know what is. What is even funnier is antivaxxers citing it without knowing what it actually shows.

I knew Geier and Geier would show up again. Anyway, thimerosal.

Another one about oxidative stress. You want to prove that causes autism? Fine, then do it. But don't google a couple of terms, throw out the words, and expect it to stick.

The investigators used only data prior to 2000 specifically to look at children who were given the HepB vaccine, which at that time contained thimerosal. Regardless, this isn't even about autism. They surveyed parents and asked them if their children received early intervention or special education services. THAT is their "proxy" for autism. Really? REALLY? I realise I could have just said "thimerosal" and ended it, but this was way more satisfying.





1) This is an animal study, 2) previous research by this team showed no increase in the cerebrum of metallothionein levels in these mice after injection of thimerosal, 3) even if MT was increased in the cerebellum, that doesn't mean the brain tissue was "damaged" or that it could cause autism. In other words, thimerosal. Nope.

This isn't about thimerosal at all, but rather mercuric chloride. Nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines or thimerosal.





This one is rather curious. It showed that brain biopsies in autistic individuals had lower expression of several genes associated with the blood brain barrier (leakier tight junctions, for lack of a better term). How this relates to "vaccines cause autism" is beyond me. I have to assume that they believe that people with a "leakier" blood brain barrier may allow "toxins" to "cross" into the "brain" and cause "inflammation" which can "then" "lead" "to" "autism". "I" "guess".

This is by the same group which did #69. Again, this was the pilot study, and the full study thoroughly negated any connection between the full infant vaccine schedule and autism. I got another good chuckle out of this.

A fascinating study where researchers exposed cells from autistic children and their non-autistic siblings to zinc, thimerosal, and a control medium. They then checked for up-regulation of metallothionein. Thimerosal did not upregulate it while zinc did. However there was no difference in the cells from autistic children versus their non-autistic siblings. This non-difference MATTERS, just not to Ginger apparently.

Essentially an opinion paper that concludes that environmental toxins shouldn't be ruled out as a causative factor in autism. I have no problem with that statement. It still has nothing to do with vaccines.

I thought we finished with the porphyrin discussion 30 papers ago? Actually it was 48 papers ago. Actually now that the list has been updated, it's oh fuck it who cares. God damn it this list is long, and I'm only 67% done with it. What the fuck am I doing here. Anyway, this paper is a discussion of mercury exposure, not vaccines. Next.

Ah, finally - a systematic review and meta-analysis! From Nature, no less! Finally some meat! But wait, the conclusion is that mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with autism. Well that's all fine and dandy, but it is a huge leap in logic assuming vaccines cause or activate mitochondrial dysfunction which is associated with (but doesn't necessarily cause) autism, when no such link exists. A fine example of putting the cart before the horse.

Thimerosal. Someone needs to teach Ginger how to organise.

HAHAHA! No seriously, Mark Blaxill (again) titled this "What's going on?" I can't even make this stuff up. Anyway, this "article" merely documents the increase in the incidence of autism, not what's causing it.

This was written by Bernard Rimland, a psychologist (and father of an autistic child) who interestingly was the technical adviser for the movie Rain Man. Anyway, this is not a scientific study, rather it is merely a discussion (mainly of the evils of thimerosal). There is no evidence here, just opinion and misinterpretation.

Twice. At one point the author mentions how autism levels in California continued rising after thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines (indicating that it isn't thimerosal), then ends the same paragraph with "despite its implication in autism". What? Are you even reading what you are writing? Did you proofread this dreck before publishing it? Another gem is this unsubstantiated bit: "A challenge by so many vaccines while the immune system is compromised might contribute to an onset of autism." No reference, no data, no evidence, just an unproven, uncorroborated hypothesis. Does the author have any idea how many thousands (possibly millions) of antigens babies are exposed to on a daily basis, crawling on the floor, putting anything and everything in their mouths, smearing poop on the wall (what, only my kids did that?)? Orders of magnitude higher than any vaccine. When the title of a paper starts with "Theoretical", it probably isn't a good idea to use it as evidence of anything. Even ignoring that, this is a terribly written piece which uses an insane antivax blog called " ChildHealthSafety " as a reference.. At one point the author mentions how autism levels in California continued rising after thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines (indicating that itthimerosal), then ends the same paragraph with "despite its implication in autism". What? Are you even reading what you are writing? Did you proofread this dreck before publishing it? Another gem is this unsubstantiated bit: "A challenge by so many vaccines while the immune system is compromised might contribute to an onset of autism." No reference, no data, no evidence, just an unproven, uncorroborated hypothesis. Does the author have any idea how many thousands (possibly millions) of antigens babies are exposed to on a daily basis, crawling on the floor, putting anything and everything in their mouths, smearing poop on the wall (what, only my kids did that?)? Orders of magnitude higher than any vaccine.



This suggests that interactions between multiple genes cause "idiopathic" autism but that epigenetic factors and exposure to environmental modifiers may contribute to variable expression of autism-related traits." The author goes on to discuss other unproven or disproved hypotheses, including MMR, mercury, and other metals. Eventually she hits on genetics, including a study which showed a strong concordance for autism in monozygotic (identical) twins with a much lower concordance for dizygotic (fraternal) twins. She actually plagiarized word-for-word this sentence: "



Yes, word-for-word. Like I said, terribly written. You know, except for the part she stole from another author.

This is a continuation of the awful Mawson pilot paper we saw way back at #2. It simply rehashes the same bullshit.

This one, published in 1999, starts with "Thimerosal, a derivative of mercury, is used as a preservative in hepatitis B vaccines." No it isn't. It was in 1999, but that was 20 years ago. I can fault the authors who published this in 2000, but Ginger has no such excuse. Try to keep up, Ginger. Anyway, they show that mercury levels are higher in preterm infants after they receive thimerosal-containing vaccines compared to term infants.





So what? Childhood vaccines don't contain thimerosal.

Preterm children were found to be significantly more likely to have a positive autism questionnaire screen. Three very small problems here: first, this was based on parent questionnaires, second 83% of the children who were screened as autistic by the parents' answers were not actulaly autistic, and third and just slightly more importantly THIS HAS ABOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH VACCINES. Why put this one on the list? Why?

Wait, what? An article that discusses increased risk of death and autism in severely premature infants, one that states that preterm birth is likely causal for both mortality and psychiatric morbidity (ie autism)? How in the world does this implicate vaccines in any way? This points towards something other than vaccines as causative of autism. It's thus the exact opposite of what they're trying to show. Yet another good guffaw from Ginger.

Pink disease? Seriously? This one takes several leaps of faith: 1) Pink disease was caused by mercury exposure in the early 20th century, and 2) not every child exposed to mercury developed it, so 3) it is presumed that those children who did develop pink disease had a mercury sensitivity, and 4) it is postulated that mercury causes autism, and 5) mercury exposure is widespread (is it?), and 6) not every child exposed to mercury develops autism, so therefore 7) children who are hypersensitive to mercury may develop autism. Whew - did you get all that? Anyway, there's no mercury in vaccines, so this entire silly endeavor was a waste of my (and your) time. Sorry about that.

Another one that takes a rather large leap of faith. First, vaccines are not mentioned. However, using multiple logistic regression febrile seizures were found to be associated with autistic regression. What I'm assuming Ginger means by including this article is that febrile seizures are associated with autism, and vaccines can cause febrile seizures, so vaccines therefore cause autism. Or something like that. I found a total of -0- articles which demonstrate a link between febrile seizures and autism, though there are several which refute it.





I think this confirms my suspicion above. Did Ginger read the conclusion of this paper? Obviously not. Before I get to that, let's all remember that febrile seizures are common and quite scary, but they are not dangerous. They are benign and do not increase the risk of seizure disorders. Do we all have that? Good. Now with that out of the way, let me help Ginger with the conclusion of this paper, which she seems to have completely overlooked: "CONCLUSIONS: MMR vaccination was associated with a transient increased rate of febrile seizures but the risk difference was small even in high-risk children. The long-term rate of epilepsy was not increased in children who had febrile seizures following vaccination compared with children who had febrile seizures of a different etiology." Emphasis added for additional oopsies. Oh, and seizures don't cause autism either. Sigh.

This article nicely discusses the genetics of children who are more likely to develop febrile seizures following vaccines. But even if we didn't learn anything from #107, this paper is irrelevant as febrile seizures don't cause autism.

Another curious paper which tries to tie febrile seizures to autism, even though there is no association. But the statistics are still interesting - several hundred thousand children who were vaccinated were followed up for several days after their 12- and 18-month vaccinations to see if emergency room visits were increased in that time period. There was one additional ER visit per 168 12-month vaccination, and 1 additional ER visit per 730 18-month vaccination. There was no increase in severity for these visit compared to ER visits outside the study period and no increase in children admitted to the hospital. Most of the ER visits were for febrile seizures (SHOCKING) or viral rashes. There were an additional 20 febrile seizures per 100,000 children vaccinated at 12 months. For those of you bad at math (GINGER) that's 0.02%. Oh, and this has nothing to do with autism.

I've gone over this paper thrice and I still can't figure out why it's here. Essentially they suggest a disruption in inhibitory pathways in the brain of autistic people. What does this have to do with vaccines? The only clue I have is that the word "seizures" is present in the abstract. Other than that, I have no idea.

Oh good good good, thimerosal in rats. I was hoping we would get to that. Actually, no I wasn't. And here I thought we were done with thimerosal. And rats. My mistake, apparently. Anyway, the researchers gave rats 20 times the normal vaccine dose of thimerosal, and they found it increased the level of several neuroexcitatory amino acids in the brain. However, at normal vaccine doses of thimerosal, they found no difference. Hey Ginger, that means thimerosal doesn't do what you seem to think it does.

Apparently we are done with neither thimerosal nor rats. Ugh. Anyway, the researchers showed that thimerosal changes the density of mu opioid receptors in the brain of rats. What does this have to do with autism? Nothing whatsoever.

not a scientific paper. It was an examination of "vaccine damage" claims paid by the vaccine court which was apparently published in a peer-reviewed law journal. In it, they really stretch to make the case (ha ha) that because the vaccine court paid the claim, this proves vaccines cause autism. Er, no. Just no. Courts and lawyers and judges don't decide on science, science does that. In case you don't like my "just no" argument (and because I'm not a lawyer), here is an I almost laughed again at this one, which is a peer-reviewed legal paper,a scientific paper. It was an examination of "vaccine damage" claims paid by the vaccine court which was apparently published in a peer-reviewed law journal. In it, theystretch to make the case (ha ha) that because the vaccine court paid the claim, this proves vaccines cause autism. Er, no. Just no. Courts and lawyers and judges don't decide on science, science does that. In case you don't like my "just no" argument (and because I'm not a lawyer), here is an explanation by someone who IS a lawyer (and licenced to practice before the vaccine court) why that argument is so ridiculous.





The short version here is that the burden of proof in the vaccine court is lower than that of civil courts. Causation does not have to be proved.

Back to thimerosal. Got it. It still doesn't cause autism, and it still isn't in childhood vaccines.

A very curious addition. The researchers dripped the Hep B vaccine onto mouse liver cancer cells in a petri dish (not human cells, not normal cells, not injected, but dripped onto mouse liver tumour) and found that some of the cells died. Well isn't that interesting. Let's see if we can break this down - A) humans aren't mice, B) humans aren't mouse livers, C) humans aren't mouse liver cancers, D) even if we were mouse liver tumours, vaccines are not dripped onto the liver, and E) so what? Is this about autism? Not remotely.

Though this is about thimerosal and I could easily just skip it, I'm going to discuss it just to show you the lengths these people will go to prove some kind of link. In this study, rats were given thimerosal while pregnant and lactating, and the pups were evaluated for motor and auditory function. How much thimerosal? 200 μg/kg body weight. That may not seem like a lot, especially considering an adult female Sprague Dawley rat weighs only 300 g. For those of you bad at math (GINGER) I did it for you, and that's still 60 μg of thimerosal. Compare that to the 25 μg of thimerosal in a flu shot (though many flu shots are thimerosal-free), which even if given to a small child weighing 10 kg, that's merely 2.5μg/kg, nearly 100X less than the 200 μg/kg given to the rats. Seeing the ridiculous yet? The "normal" test dose of thimerosal is 12



Oh yeah, and there's no thimerosal in childhood vaccines. I feel like I may have said that before.

This article chronicles the increasing rate of autism in California (again). They estimate that the changing age of diagnosis explains 12% of the increase, in the inclusion of milder cases 56%. In other words, over 2/3 of the increase can be explained by how autism is diagnosed. How are vaccines discussed in this article? They aren't.

Finally some real meat! A discussion on aluminum potassium sulfate (alum) and how it can persist! About time we got something I can sink my teeth into. Ok, let's see. The researchers injected mice with alum and found that it can persist in distant organs (including the spleen and brain) for at least a year. Ok, so that means . . . nothing. Especially when they conclude that "This occurs at a very low rate in normal conditions explaining good overall tolerance of alum despite its strong neurotoxic potential". It may be increased in an extremely small subset of the population with an anomolous CCL-2 gene. The research there is ongoing, but the authors essentially say that alum is very well tolerated. Another case where Ginger and her colleagues didn't understand a word of what they were reading, but gosh the title sure sounds scary.

Another one that gave me a good chuckle. The first thing to notice here is that it was published in the journal Medical Hypotheses. Strike 1. The second is that it is written by Mark Blaxill, whom we have met several times. The third is that oh, fuck it. This isn't research. Fucking thimerosal, fucking hypothesis, fucking Blaxill, not fucking research, fucking next.

I have to admit this was a new one for me. I've seen antivaxxers move the goalposts so many times I've lost count, but apparently now the argument is "AIR POLLUTION!" I mean, seriously. Seriously. This isn't about vaccines, it's just changing the argument. But still, it's TOXINS.

This is about environmental released (ie dumped) mercury. Not vaccines.

Autism is higher near industrial facilities that release arsenic, lead, or mercury into the air. Fascinating. This is a rehash of the "AIR POLLUTION!" from #121, I suppose. Vaccines aren't airborne last I checked (despite what the chemtrails nutters would have you believe), nor do they contain mercury, lead, or arsenic.

Wow is this one a stretch. Pregnant women given the flu vaccine were found to have an inflammatory response. As much as I can't stand saying this, I have no choice: DUH. That's exactly what the vaccine is supposed to do: elicit an immune response. Plus, the authors note that "The inflammatory response elicited by vaccination is substantially milder and more transient than seen in infectious illness, arguing for the clinical value of vaccination." In other words, if you are trying to make the case that the flu vaccine causes autism because it induces an inflammatory response, then THE ACTUAL FLU should cause autism a lot more often because the inflammatory response is that much greater. And trying to make the leap to "transient, mild, and fully expected inflammatory response causes autism" is risible.

Another stretch of a study which found that high maternal C-reactive protein (CRP), a nonspecific marker of inflammation, was associated with a 43% increased risk of autism in their children. While interesting, it has nothing to do with childhood vaccines. Infections cause a lot more inflammation than vaccines.

The author of this "article", Graham Ewing, is not a doctor. He is not a scientist. He is not a psychologist. He is a businessman and CEO of a company called Montague Healthcare, he and his wife run a website called PositiveHealthOnline, and he promotes his "Virtual Scanning" which uses a oh god damn fuck it all, I can't do it this one anymore. Just go to his website and experience the bullshit for yourself. Anyway, he bullshittily claims that autism is due to "subtle DNA alteration" from the "overuse of vaccines", no evidence required or supplied.

This is a 2012 Polish review of adverse events following vaccination. At least up to 2011 thimerosal was still present in several childhood vaccines in Poland, and this article focuses on that quite determinedly. It also shockingly descends quite deep into the "Vaccines Didn't Save Us" pit of stupidity before making several recommendations (including eliminating thimerosal, giving a maximum of 3 vaccinations per day, and eliminating live-virus vaccines). The authors must have missed the study from just the previous year , also from Poland, that found no link between thimerosal and autism. Oops. When supposed vaccine researchers start using the "Vaccines Didn't Save Us" gambit, you can dismiss their work out of hand.

This is a review, not a scientific research paper. It discusses the association between inflammation and autism, but it still does not link vaccines, nor does it try to.

Not about vaccines in any way. I guess it's another way to say "inflammation = autism". I guess.





Mercury. Not vaccines.

A very small (N=28) study which found that 76% of autistic children may have a cell-mediated immune response to brain tissue. 1) Small sample, and more importantly 2) NOTHING TO DO WITH VACCINES. Honestly, "inflammation" does not equal "vaccines".

same children from his original fraudulent study. And Oh this study. I was so hoping Ginger would include it. Happy day! The lead author, Hideyuki Kawashima, studied nine children diagnosed with autistic enterocolitis and found measles genes in three of them. This seems to confirm Andy Wakefield's research! Stop the presses! Wakefield is exonerated! Right? Right!? But wait wait wait . . . who diagnosed these nine children with autistic enterocolitis? You guessed it - ANDY FUCKING WAKEFIELD. These are nine of thefrom his original fraudulent study. And study after study after study after study after study has found no evidence of measles in autistic children.

Tomljenovic and Shaw again. This is another speculative piece about how aluminum might perhaps maybe vaguely do something, but again no direct evidence of its evils is presented.

I was kinda hoping to get an easy one on thimerosal. Doing this is freaking exhausting.

Yet more goalpost moving. Topoisomerase is an enzyme which regulates the winding of DNA. It's been found to be mutated in some people with autism, and topotecan (which inhibits topoisomerase) reduces the expression of long genes. And many potential autism genes are long. So . . . wait, what does this have to do with vaccines? Nothing.

It's our friends Tomljenovic and Shaw again, and it's yet another not-a-scientific-paper, but hypotheses and conjecture. This is the time when I should point out that this study was funded by the Dwoskin Family Foundation, which was founded by Claire Dwoskin. Mrs. Dwoskin is a board member of the horribly misnamed National Vaccine Information Center , a public charity anti-vaccination advocacy group. Shaw and Tomljenovic have been speakers at conferences with such other speakers as antivax neurosurgeone Russell Blaylock, MD , NVIC founder Barbara Loe Fisher , and Andrew Wakefield. As I'm not terribly fond of ad hominems, I'll stop there.





Anyway, this is a shift back from mercury to aluminum. Tomljenovic and Shaw again say that the number of aluminum-containing vaccines that children receive correlate with the rate of autism. Great, so does organic food sales. Does that mean that either organic food or vaccines cause autism? Of course not. They also say that aluminum-induced toxicity may be autoimmune mediated, though autoimmunity is more common in females and autism is more common in males. Got all that?

The researchers injected mice with 20 times the normal does of thimerosal, and they found it negatively affected their neurological development. If you want to know how ridiculous that is, next time you go out for a burger, instead of eating one, eat twenty. Or if you smoke a pack of cigarettes daily, instead of smoking one pack, smoke 20 packs a day. Then you'll know how this silly article relates to real life. It doesn't.

Repeated immunisation can cause autoimmunity. IN MICE. No definitive link between autoimmunity and vaccines has ever been shown . Oh, and this has nothing to do with autism anyway.

ZERO. Even "Homeopathy" has an impact factor of 0.76 (by comparison BMJ's is 17.4, Lancet's is 45.2, and New England Journal of Medicine's is 55.9). That aside, the author Elizabeth Mumper (who coincidentally has a terribly unfortunate name for an antivax paediatrician) is the CEO of Rimland Center for Integrative Medicine who runs a not unvaccinated (though they did not get Hep A, Hep B, rotavirus, or flu vaccines). So does this prove vaccines cause autism? Er, no. Let's start by saying that this was published in the North American Journal of Medicine & Science. What, you've never heard of it? Neither had I, and neither has anyone else apparently, since it has an impact factor of 0. Yes,. Even "Homeopathy" has an impact factor of 0.76 (by comparison BMJ's is 17.4, Lancet's is 45.2, and New England Journal of Medicine's is 55.9). That aside, the author Elizabeth Mumper (who coincidentally has a terribly unfortunate name for an antivax paediatrician) is the CEO of Rimland Center for Integrative Medicine who runs a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to treat children with autism. Shockingly (not really), HBO has been shown not to be effective for autism. Anyway, back to the "study". Dr. Mumper introduced an alternative vaccine schedule to her patients and had a 0% rate of autism among 294 subjects. Note these children wereunvaccinated (though they did not get Hep A, Hep B, rotavirus, or flu vaccines). So does this prove vaccines cause autism? Er, no.









This is Leo Kanner's seminal description of autism from 1943. I'm honestly shocked Ginger would include this article, since it was published several decades before most current childhood vaccines were introduced (polio 1955, measles 1963, mumps 1967, rubella 1969, HiB 1977, meningitis 1978, hepatitis B 1981, varicella 1984 rotavirus 2006). I can only assume this article was included because Kanner describes one of the case studies as getting "an attack of diarrhea and fever, from which he recovered in somewhat less than a week" after getting a smallpox vaccine. Now that is the ultimate stretch, considering routine smallpox vaccination hasn't been done since the 1970's. So what, according to Ginger and her friends, caused autism before vaccines? Hmm??



DELETED:

I'll let the abstract on this one (on which Tomljenovic and Shaw are both authors) speak for itself. Oh wait, there is no abstract. In the place where the abstract should be is only this:

"This article has been withdrawn at the request of the Editor-in-Chief due to serious concerns regarding the scientific soundness of the article. Review by the Editor-in-Chief and evaluation by outside experts, confirmed that the methodology is seriously flawed, and the claims that the article makes are unjustified. As an international peer-reviewed journal we believe it is our duty to withdraw the article from further circulation, and to notify the community of this issue."

I have nothing to add other than HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.



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And that is it. THANK FUCKING GOD. As I was going through every single paper in this list, it became increasingly clear that Ginger simply went to Pubmed, typed in her search terms (thimerosal, mercury, oxidative stress, autism, heavy metals, glutathione, seizures, etc), and copied the links without bothering to read or understand what the hell she was reading. Of the 157 papers presented, exactly -0- of them proves any link between vaccines and autism, and a few even disprove any link. I sincerely doubt that any antivaxxer who sprays this list around the Twitterverse (or anywhere else) has read any of these papers, let alone all of them. Having now read every single one, I feel . . . well, I feel exactly the same.





VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM.



A hearty congratulations (and a heartfelt 'thank you') to anyone who actually got this far. Hopefully this will be the longest blog post I ever write. I intend never to do this ever again. Ever. EVER.





Until I do.

This article proposes the hypothesis that oxidative stress causes certain brain cells to die after birth, and that could cause autism in some children. Another giant leap to a conclusion.This is Mark Blaxill again, who argues that the increase in autism (the "autism epidemic" as antivaxxers like to call it) is real and not due to diagnostic substitution and/or increased awareness, because the rate in California is rising.Ok, I'm going to assume this is true (which it may or may not be). Does this mean it is true everywhere? Because this study from the UK shows autism rates plateauing in the early 2000s.But here is the bigger question - if this is indeed true, how the fuck does this show a link between vaccines and autism?It doesn't.This is another new addition to the list, another review article about how autism may be related to mitochondrial dysfunction. It's a rather interesting read, including a study of 60 people with autism, 8% of whom were found to have biochemical markers of abnormal aerobic respiration. There is also evidence of decreased levels of various mitochondrial complexes in the brain tissue of autistic people.So what does this have to do with vaccines? Well, absolutely nothing. I've read over the full paper 3 times, and the word "vaccine" does not occur, nor does "aluminum" or "mercury". "Oxidative stress", however, occurs 37 times. That is the only explanation I can come up with.You've spent all this time arguing that mercury causes autism (it doesn't), but now you've moved on to IL4. I should mention that IL4 is an anti-inflammatory cytokine, and Ginger seems to think inflammation is a hallmark of autism. Or something. Though IL4 is anti-inflammatory. So which is it? Inflammation or anti-inflammation? This is just another example of throwing shit against the wall and seeing what sticks.Anyway, researchers found that the hepatitis B vaccine induces IL-4 production in mice. They then found inflammation in the hippocampus of these mice along with impaired cognition.Fascinating. Except for one small problem - children are not mice, and there is no evidence that vaccines cause any cognitive problems in humans.This study looked only at children both extremely prematurely, so extrapolating this to all children is impossible (and rather silly). Regardless, researchers took blood samples from these preemies at 21 and 28 days of age. Higher levels of IL4 and IL10 were correlated with lower scores on certain intelligence tests, and higher levels of IL4 were associated with increased risk of autism.Vaccines are not discussed. Oh but I guess Ginger was using this article and the previous one to say "Hep B vaccine causes increased IL4 in mice, and increased IL4 in 1-month old previously extremely premature children is associated with an increased risk of autism 10 years later, so therefore vaccines cause autism". You would need to be as limber as Stretch Armstrong to be able perform such mental gymnastics and reach such a conclusion.Head circumference of boys (but not girls) who were diagnosed with regressive autism was found to be the same as neurotypical boys at birth, but by 4-6 months of age tends to increase in autistic boys.Yet another example of Ginger not reading what she throws against the wall, because this has nothing to do with vaccines. Unless the claim here is that vaccines make your head grow.Mitochondrial diseases are so rare that they are difficult to study. If they were causative in autism, they should be common (and rising in incidence), which they are not.Early-life seizures were found to be associated with autism and language disorders. That's it. That's the whole study.I tried to figure out why this is on the list, and the only thing I could imagine is "Vaccines cause seizures and this says seizures are associated with autism, so vaccines cause autism". While it is certainly true that vaccines can cause febrile seizures, they are benign and self-limiting and do not increase the risk of seizure disorders (ie epilepsy) . That is a completely different phenomenon than the seizures this article discusses. I actually can't fault Ginger for not knowing that, though if she every reads this (she won't), now she knows.An in vitro study showing how thimerosal can affect cells in a petri dish that has not translated to actual human studies.μg/kg, so using 200 μg/kg and trying to say "SEE? A PROBLEM!" is ludicrous.I see we're back to the microbiome argument from #19. Organisation is not Ginger's strong suit. This article hits all of Ginger's buzz phrases, including immune system dysregulation, inflammation, oxidative stress, metabolic and methylation abnormalities, and gastrointestinal distress. Not shockingly, the word "vaccine" appears exactly zero times.Finally, another article from Nature. Maybe something good here! The researchers looked at twins where only one was autistic and looked at methylation patterns of their DNA. And they were different.That's it. Seriously, that's it. No mention of vaccines.I'll just quote from the abstract here: "Thimerosal, a preservative added to many vaccines, has become a major source of mercury in children who, within their first two years, may have received a quantity of mercury that exceeds safety guidelines."No it isn't, no it hasn't, no no they haven't. Again, I can possibly fault the authors since this was published (in Medical Hypotheses again) in 2001, but Ginger has no such excuse.