Seth Mnookin has written The Panic Virus, a study of broad public acceptance of a vaccine-autism link.
Here is the Amazon page for the book.
I've written on this and related subjects before in this blog, the first time almost four years ago now, when I was as I said at the time only vaguely aware that there was a controversy underway.
When I first heard about this, though, my thoughts focused on the name "Seth Mnookin." Who the heck is he? It took some wracking of the brain but I eventually realized where I had first encountered that name. He wrote a (fascinating) account of the Jayson Blair scandal back in 2004. Here's a review of that book, by Michael Getler.
Getler called Mnookin's book "a must-read for anyone interested in this episode and what it says about the larger issues of journalism today."
Going back a bit further, Mnookin is a former heroin addict. Not long after the Jayson Blair book had made Mnookin famous he recounted his experiences along that line in SLATE.
He tells in that article for example about the time he was thrown out of the "hard-core treatment center in Boca Raton" for having sex with one of the other patients there (that's a no-no? even though she was 18?) and tells of being "given two black Hefty bags filled with my clothes and told I had 10 minutes to get off that property." Fortunately, things headed up for him from there.
So, what does Slate have to say about Mnookin's latest? You can find out here.
Even before all of that, Mnookin was a writer for Addicted to Noise, an online music magazine. You can read about A to N here.
I was planning to bring all this back to the issue of an alleged vaccine/autism link. Really I was. But now I'm thinkiing ... to heck with that. Enjoy your Sunday, everyone.
Showing posts with label autism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autism. Show all posts
27 February 2011
28 March 2010
Kudos to Brian Deer
Who is Brian Deer? He is a reporter who works for the SUNDAY TIMES, who did a thorough investigation of the alleged connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, an investigation that forced the Lancet into its retraction on January 28 of this year.
I had heard of that retraction, of course. I noted the news thereof casually in stories like this one soon after it happened. But Deer's role had not registered for me, until I saw a write-up in the latest issue of Health Care News, a publication of The Heartland Institute.
Heartland quotes Trisha Greenhalgh, a professor of primary health care at University College, London: "The hero of this story is Brian Deer, who persevered for years even after the Lancet editors had apparently done their investigation. Increasingly the knowledge to nail people like Wakefield is in the public domain, so journalists can play the 'free market' to their advantage."
Greenhalgh is referring there to the fact that back in 2004, the Lancet ran an internal investigation and issued a partial retraction. But Deer continued to research the matter for six years, producing in time a full retraction.
The cause of autism remains unknown, but the notion that it is due to vaccines seems to derive its plausibility from the matter of timing -- symptoms manifest themselves at around that time in a growing child's life when he receives these shots. One might as plausibly say, though, that going to junior high school causes acne, on precisely the same evidence.
Anyway: Kudos for Deer.
I had heard of that retraction, of course. I noted the news thereof casually in stories like this one soon after it happened. But Deer's role had not registered for me, until I saw a write-up in the latest issue of Health Care News, a publication of The Heartland Institute.
Heartland quotes Trisha Greenhalgh, a professor of primary health care at University College, London: "The hero of this story is Brian Deer, who persevered for years even after the Lancet editors had apparently done their investigation. Increasingly the knowledge to nail people like Wakefield is in the public domain, so journalists can play the 'free market' to their advantage."
Greenhalgh is referring there to the fact that back in 2004, the Lancet ran an internal investigation and issued a partial retraction. But Deer continued to research the matter for six years, producing in time a full retraction.
The cause of autism remains unknown, but the notion that it is due to vaccines seems to derive its plausibility from the matter of timing -- symptoms manifest themselves at around that time in a growing child's life when he receives these shots. One might as plausibly say, though, that going to junior high school causes acne, on precisely the same evidence.
Anyway: Kudos for Deer.
29 May 2007
The Autism/Vaccine Controversy
The title of this post names a token of a type, one of a class of controversies where I have a vague awareness that there is a discussion underway, I regard the subject (from the clues that have wafted there way into my ears) as a fascinating one, yet I haven't found time for real research into the matter -- surely not research sufficient to have an opinion.
This is a blog, so let's not let my ignorance stand in the way of some bloviation! Have any/many children acquired autism due to mercury? The debate centers on thimerosal, a mercury-containing and inexpensive preservative that used to be used (my understanding is that has been phased out due to an act of Congress in 1997) in a variety of childhood vaccinations.
In 2005, freelance writer David Kirby completed and St. Martin’s Press published a monumental work of investigative reporting, EVIDENCE OF HARM, an account of the controversy over the use of thimerosal in children’s vaccines.
My personal interest in the matter dates from the flurry of critiques around the time of the release of that book. The book itself is more than 400 pages long and reportedly contains a good deal of discussion of a technical nature -- it never did make it to the top of my personal "to do" list.
But admirers of the book say it is balanced. Kirby doesn't contend that there is a real thimerosal/autism connection, although he gives very sympathetic treatment to a parents group, Safe Minds, that contends exactly that. One quotation from Kirby's book that made it into the Publishers Weekly review was, "each side accuses the other of being irrational, overzealous, blind to evidence they find inconvenient, and subject to professional, financial, or emotional conflicts of interest that cloud their judgment."
When such is the case, both sides may be right.
The Safe Minds activists have by now generated, in Newtonian fashion, a set of counter-activists, consisting of people who on the "autism spectrum" themselves who want to be accepted "as we are," and who dislike the stigma of poisoning. Or the parents of such persons. It is an old debate, "love your child as he is" versus, "love him enough to cure him," and it appears in a lot of other contexts.
Having said that, I believe, I have said quite enough. Perhaps too much.
This is a blog, so let's not let my ignorance stand in the way of some bloviation! Have any/many children acquired autism due to mercury? The debate centers on thimerosal, a mercury-containing and inexpensive preservative that used to be used (my understanding is that has been phased out due to an act of Congress in 1997) in a variety of childhood vaccinations.
In 2005, freelance writer David Kirby completed and St. Martin’s Press published a monumental work of investigative reporting, EVIDENCE OF HARM, an account of the controversy over the use of thimerosal in children’s vaccines.
My personal interest in the matter dates from the flurry of critiques around the time of the release of that book. The book itself is more than 400 pages long and reportedly contains a good deal of discussion of a technical nature -- it never did make it to the top of my personal "to do" list.
But admirers of the book say it is balanced. Kirby doesn't contend that there is a real thimerosal/autism connection, although he gives very sympathetic treatment to a parents group, Safe Minds, that contends exactly that. One quotation from Kirby's book that made it into the Publishers Weekly review was, "each side accuses the other of being irrational, overzealous, blind to evidence they find inconvenient, and subject to professional, financial, or emotional conflicts of interest that cloud their judgment."
When such is the case, both sides may be right.
The Safe Minds activists have by now generated, in Newtonian fashion, a set of counter-activists, consisting of people who on the "autism spectrum" themselves who want to be accepted "as we are," and who dislike the stigma of poisoning. Or the parents of such persons. It is an old debate, "love your child as he is" versus, "love him enough to cure him," and it appears in a lot of other contexts.
Having said that, I believe, I have said quite enough. Perhaps too much.
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