Six degrees of irresponsibility from Chuck Norris

Our Wednesday edition of The Eagle newspaper ran a syndicated piece of nonsense by Chuck Norris.

Chuck - who I would not take acting lessons from. let alone listen to him about public health issues - was asked by a reader:

Chuck, I keep hearing conflicting reports that certain vaccines are dangerous and even can cause autism in children. What do you know? – Cheryl M., Charlotte, N.C.

Chuck's response in his commentary called "C-Force" was titled:

Link between autism, vaccines 'biological certainty'

What Chuck doesn't understand is that "biological certainty" is only one of the nine Hill's Criteria of Causation "minimal conditions needed to establish a causal relationship between two items." (1) (2)

But what do you expect from a guy who's research into this topic was gleaned from two anti-vaccine websites. In fact, if you read what ol' Chuck writes, and then read what's on these two websites (3) (4), you would swear it was plagiarism, but that's for another post I suppose.

If you have read any of my previous blogs, you know that the anti-vaccine rhetoric really gets to me.  It's not good science supporting it, it's dangerous to children who go un-immunized, and it creates unnecessary concern and stress for parents who want to do what is best for their children.

Chuck Norris should know better than to print something as fact that is not thoroughly researched.  His editors should have fact checked his writing, and my newspaper should have done so as well.

There is no credible evidence linking vaccines to autism.  Yes, both these two websites Chuck regurgitated "fact" from claim to have evidence showing a "CDC cover-up" and "biological certainty" are easily explained and do nothing to advance the thimerosal-autism correlation other than make a general connection that both can be present.

I'll write more on the "cover-up" in a later post, for now, I want to show you how six degrees of irresponsibility from Chuck Norris works:

1. Chuck Norris writes an article titled: Link between autism, vaccines 'biological certainty'

2. The "biological certainty" claim comes from the National Autism Association website (3) which states:"Recent studies have confirmed the association between the use of thimerosal and autism has moved from "biologically plausible" to a "biological certainty" and attributes this to a scientist named "Boyd Haley."

3. Boyd Haley is a co-author on a paper titled:   "Mercury and autism: Accelerating Evidence?" in Activitas Nervosa Superior; Jul 2007; 49, 1/2; ProQuest Central pg. 22.  In this paper the authors state:

Source: Mercury and autism: Accelerating Evidence?

4. This paper is critical of the paper "Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism: Negative Ecological Evidence From Danish Population-Based Data" in Pediatrics 2003;112;604.  This is the paper that the other website claims there was a "CDC cover-up."

The plot now thickens....

Doing a Texas A&M Library search for journal articles attributed to Dr. Boyd Haley, I find nothing written by him stating or using the term "biological certainty."  I did a Google search using the words:  "biological certainty Boyd Haley"  Nothing pops up except page after page quoting the National Autism Association's claim that Dr. Haley made this claim.

So I do a Google search using the words "Boyd Haley"

....which brings up the 5th degree of irresponsibility from Chuck Norris:

5. Clicking on the third link I read this: "OSR was developed and patented by Dr. Boyd Haley PhD, who has said that his OSR product will permanently bind with Mercury 1 million times better than either DMSA, DMPS, or EDTA."(5)

According to this website:

"Boyd Haley is highly respected and well known throughout the community of holistic Mercury-free dentists and "Defeat Autism Now!" (DAN!) medical doctors. Boyd Haley is a vigorous opponent of the use of Mercury in vaccines and dental fillings, and he is very active in the Defeat Autism Now (DAN!) community. DAN! is a nationwide association of medical doctors who believe that Autism can be treated primarily with Mercury chelation, anti-Candida medications, and diet. The DAN doctors are in the process now of transitioning away from DMSA, towards OSR, as their Mercury chelator of choice. 

Which brings me to the 6th degree of irresponsibility

6. According to the first website on the search page , the Chicago Tribune reports the following:

Source

The problem with folks like Chuck Norris and the National Autism Association and The Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs (CoMeD) is that they want so badly to find a cause that they are willing to latch on to anyone that supports their thinking.  Even snake oil salesmen.

Chuck Norris wrote this irresponsible piece of nonsense without spending anytime asking the question, are these statements valid?  Why would the National Autism Association still use anything attributed to Boyd Haley?  Why would website after website regurgitate the same National Autism Association claim of "biological certainty" without looking up to see who and what the guy is involved with?

Good science demands objectivity.

If you don't want thimerosal in your kid's vaccination ask your Doctor to provide thimerosal free vaccines and boosters (yeah, I know its no longer used....I'm trying to get folks past this reason not to vaccinate).

And Chuck, stick to writing about exercise and a good diet.  Leave science to those who are willing to do the research.

For a recent scientific journal article on the topic of Thimerosal and Autism click here.


Edit.  Notes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11111798


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