Meddling Kids

Well, the big news in my nerdy little world is the results of the Autism Omnibus. What’s that? Well, essentially it’s a special legal entity presided over by three judges known as the Special Masters to assess whether or not there is a link between vaccines, thimerosal, and autism. There were 5000 cases before the vaccine court, and they split the question into two separate parts and chose three test cases for each of the parts, considered the strongest cases, and heard them. The first part was around the question of whether or not the MMR vaccine caused or contributed to autism, and the second was around whether or not the mercury in the thimerosal preservative caused or contributed to autism.

The first three cases were rejected a year ago, and now they have rejected the second batch. There’s some great commentary on these stories in places like Neurologica and Respectful Insolence which will give you a full understanding of what the purpose of the Autism Omnibus was, how the decisions went the way they did, and what that all means. But the short and skinny of it is that thinking beat out feeling.

Now, honestly I don’t like the idea of science being decided in a court of law, but I do believe that this was a necessary situation. You had 5000 people claiming a vaccine-related injury and wanting their due. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was set up for this very reason, and this court process was the best way to evaluate the evidence and claims on both sides and determine whether or not the MMR vaccine and/or thimerosal were damaging factors. I’m happy, though unsurprised, that the scientists won. We have had numerous tests and a nearly infinite number of anecdotal noticings and observational studies that have shown time and time again that this is simply not a casual relationship.

I understand the people who want to believe this to be true. If one of my kids had autism, I’d want to know why. And saying “Well, sometimes these things happen” holds as much water to me as “It’s the will of God” does. So I’d dig. Given my skeptical mind, I’m sure that I’d dismiss the lunatic ravings of the Jenny McCarthys and Joe Mercolas, but it’s easy to see how people would believe their paranoid knee-jerk reactions. But an impassioned opinion doesn’t mean a correct opinion, no matter how sad that is for the parents.

Autism is awful and I sincerely hope we find the cause and cure of this disease. In order to do that, though, we can’t get mired down in fighting over something we already know is not the cause. Hopefully this ruling will result in some more forward motion on the subject.

Oh, and the picture? Well, I searched for autism and found a picture of Denis Leary. It made me giggle.

Jim