yersinia29 said:
that article said that there was a study in California showing that autism rates went down after 1999 when thimerosol was removed from childrens vax.
is this true?
i want a link to that study
No study, but I did an ad-hoc analysis of the California DDS rolls - the same ones SafeMinds and others claim show a decrease in the number of case of autism.
To start, here are some numbers to look at. Probably not the best example, but it will have to do.
Column 1-total number of cases in the DDS
Column 2-total number of cases defined as autistic
Column 3-total number of 3-5 year olds with autism
Column 4-total number of 22-31 year olds with autism
Column 5-pct change (Column 1) over previous qtr
Column 6-pct change (Column 2)
Column 7-pct change (Column 3)
Column 8-pct change (Column 4)
Column 9-population change in California from previous year
Date-------Col 1--Col 2-Col3-Col4-Col5--Col6--Col7--Col8--Col9
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1-Jun-2005 178993 28046 5446 2000 0.69% 2.62% 2.55% 2.55%
1-Mar-2005 177749 27312 5307 1949 0.72% 2.69% 2.85% 1.85% 1.50%
1-Dec-2004 176465 26576 5156 1913 0.89% 3.04% 3.08% 2.56%
1-Sep-2004 174903 25769 4997 1864 0.69% 2.91% 2.06% 2.25%
1-Jun-2004 173689 25020 4894 1822 0.77% 2.89% 2.06% 2.47% 1.67%
1-Mar-2004 172358 24297 4793 1777 0.85% 3.27% 3.80% 2.42%
1-Dec-2003 170900 23502 4611 1734 0.96% 2.88% 1.15% 1.79%
1-Sep-2003 169257 22826 4558 1703 0.99% 3.44% 2.46% 2.94%
1-Jun-2003 167583 22040 4446 1653 1.22% 3.77% 4.90% 3.51% 1.69%
1-Mar-2003 165535 21209 4228 1595 1.05% 3.92% 4.47% 2.07%
1-Dec-2002 163792 20377 4039 1562 1.13% 3.57% 2.65% 0.90%
1-Sep-2002 161947 19649 3932 1548
If anyone is bold enough to play with the data on their own, go ahead.
The percentage changes are interesting - as the new entries into the DDS system declined, so did the number of new cases of autism. If you plot this on a graph, it's interesting...as entries into DDS as a whole decline, the number of new entries for autism decline as well.
It's also interesting that rate of new adults entering the DDS system was similar (and sometimes above) the rate of 3-5 year olds entering the system.
The total number of new cases for the last twelve months is actually slightly more than the number of new cases for the previous twelve months. Depending on the time period you look at, there's either a small increase in new cases, or a small decrease.
The point is that SafeMinds and others have claimed that thimerosal is a major player in autism, that it's a cause for the epidemic, etc, etc, etc. If that was truly the case, why is the decline (if there is any) so narrow? If we were seeing dramatic decreases in the number of new autistic children, then yes, I'd believe that maybe thimerosal had something to do with it. But we're not, really.
And this isn't even considering that fact the Eos, and others, have made the point that studies show this type of data is useless anyway.
