Anyway, enough with the rants for now. It's time to get down to business. Earlier today, I saw a link to a YouTube video on Facebook posted by my best friend's older sister. It's about an experiment to see how mercury affects neurons. That caught my attention. She's also the mother of an autistic child. She believes that vaccines using mercury-based preservatives (which have long been removed from the market) might have had a hand in causing her son to become autistic, like the former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy thinks. We have had a LOT of conversations about this over time. I have tried my best to tactfully explain why Jenny is wrong but, she doesn't seem to believe me. I might have also unintentionally stepped over the line and been less than tactful a few times. Either way, I didn't seem to get through to her. She also does what most NT's do and assume that I don't understand the world very well too. Kind of annoying but, that's the unintentional arrogance that I expect from 'ordinary' people. I get that from all sorts of NT's all the time. Someone not seeing things the way you do does not necessarily mean that they don't understand, folks.
Anyway, as a naturally born Mad Scientist (aka someone with Asperger's Syndrome), I found this notion that mercury in vaccines somehow causes autism to be quite dubious. The burden of proof is rather high and there has been no convincing evidence to back these claims. The study from a now disbarred British Doctor named Andrew Wakefield that they tout as the proverbial 'magic bullet' was debunked and retracted. Conducting illegal experiments on children at a birthday party will do that... And yet, they still believe what that quack said in his so-called 'study.' I swear, that miserable asshole gives all the rest of us Mad Scientists a bad name!
So, she posts this video from the University of Calgary about how mercury exposure can cause damage to neurons. My immediate reaction was along the lines of... Well, no shit? A substance that is NOT supposed to be in your body in large amounts caused damage to a few cells in a petri dish? Who would have thought? [/sarcasm]
Anyway, you can see the video for yourself below...
After watching this video with the most open-minded mentality that I can muster (which I assure you is much more open-minded than you might expect), I still have several unanswered questions here...
1.) The description for the video mentions Alzheimer's disease and nothing else. How do I know this applies to one of these 'autism spectrum disorders' that shrinks keep labeling kids with these days?
Also, please remember, the video itself never did mention any specific neurological disorder, let alone Autism, Asperger's, PDD-NOS or any other issue. All it shows is that exposure to mercury can cause neurons to lose cohesion and become malformed. That's all. Nothing else.
2.) How much mercury was used in this test? Is it the same amount that one would get over time from various vaccinations?
Even if the amount of mercury these neurons were exposed to was the same amount as the mercury that were once used in vaccines, this test is still potentially flawed. Vaccines are not always given once and then never again. Many childhood immunization shots are given in doses over the course of years, including the much-demonized MMR vaccines. Wouldn't the mercury ingestion being spread out over years help to lessen the effects it could have on your neurons? This test also does not take into account whether or not the mercury you ingest from whatever source (vaccines, tuna fish sandwiches, et al.) even gets to your brain. The body will absorb a large amount of the mercury as the vaccine is pumped through the bloodstream. Much of it will probably never get anywhere near the brain.
It is worth noting that the Thiomerisal additive was removed from vaccines in 1999 as a precautionary measure. Children born and/or receiving the MMR vaccines made after that precautionary recall have absolutely no need to be concerned. Truth be told, you'd get 9 times more mercury in your system from eating a tuna fish sandwich (about 28 micro-grams) then you would get from ALL of your childhood immunizations before the Thiomerisal additive was removed.
So, why do I have to be so concerned? Why do I need to prevent my future children from getting these vaccines? Why do I need to risk them getting sick with Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Tetanus, Polio, Whooping Cough, Small Pox, Chicken Pox, Hepatitus, et al? Is the risk really that great? Of course not!
Ignore the emotional influences that are obviously at work here and think about this logically for a moment. Why would you virtually guarantee that your child will get sick with easily preventable diseases just to avoid a ridiculously small (and probably non-existent) chance of him getting something else? Especially if that disease/disorder/condition/whatever that is so scary is also quite rare and probably genetic? This anti-vaccination movement makes no sense at all.
3.) How was the test conducted? Where are their research notes? Has this test been run by other researchers? What were their results?
No one who knows anything about Science is going to think that ONE study will conclusively prove ANYTHING at all. There needs to be a lot more research and debate. The results of this test must be replicated many times to be proven reliable.
And finally, one question utilizing simple logic (or as Neuro-typicals erroneously call it, 'Common Sense') that Jenny McCarthy and her ilk just refuse to answer...
4.) What makes you so damned sure that Big Pharma and Uncle Sam set out to poison your children?
I find it extremely unlikely that any pharmaceutical company is going to deliberately market a product that they know could do such great harm to people. If nothing else, it would hurt their bottom line. No business is going to deliberately do that to themselves.Also, these so-called 'evil corporations' are run by people like you and me. Okay, maybe more like all of you. Either way, your average Joe is not going to go out of his way to poison people. That is both really freakin' crazy and something most folks would consider unconscionable.
It is also unlikely that they knew these drugs MIGHT be harmful and then talked the Feds into forcing these potentially dangerous vaccines on people. That creates a conspiracy that just does not exist. It would require government to be acting malicious when, more often than not, they are too stupid to come up with something that devious. After all, why poison a future taxpayer and potentially turn him into a future 'ward of the state'? That would be *quite* counter-productive...
Also, while I just hate to look like I'm sticking up for that bastard Uncle Sam, the government is also made up of people like you and me. Okay, maybe more like all of you... Anyway, like all of you, it's pretty unlikely that they are going to go out of their way to knowingly hurt other people. That would only come back to haunt them by getting them fired from the bureaucracy they work for or get voted out of office. So, can we please dispense with the obviously BULLSHIT conspiracy theories you all found on some crackpot's website?
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FINAL THOUGHTS
Don't be so quick to believe something just because someone else claimed to have done their homework. Remember, Science = pure, unadulterated skepticism. This test should be conducted again and again by numerous people in numerous locations. If the results are replicated time and again, then we can be reasonably sure that it is true. If the results differ when someone else runs this experiment, we need to go back to the original hypothesis and see what went wrong. Even if this experiment's results turn out to be accurate, there is still a lot of room for further research. Like I had brought up in questions 1 & 2, the video does not mention how much mercury was used or what kind of disorders and diseases that this neuron-degeneration can cause.
I do feel bad for Jenny McCarthy and other parents like her. They are burdened with a serious issue that will affect them and their children for the rest of their lives. They are desperately searching for answers to their questions, including the most important one: Why did this happen to my child? Sadly, that is a question that we just can't answer yet. I am quite sure that a vaccine I was given as a child did not cause me to become an Aspie. Asperger's, Autism and neurological differences have been part of the Human genome long before vaccines were ever created.
The rise in the rates for these conditions is also easy to explain. The diagnostic criteria was changed and it's now easier for doctors to diagnose someone as having a neurological issue. After all, do we really have a rise in the occurrence of things like ADD or, are the kids just being kids? Have you ever tried to get hyperactive children to pay attention in class when they're bored with the subject matter? Neuro-typical or not, that is often an impossible mission. If you don't believe me, just ask your child's teachers. Kids are always bouncing off the proverbial walls. That does not make them mentally ill or neurologically different in any way. It simply means they are being rambunctious and immature, like all children.
- Lord Publius
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