Autism Vox

Rebranding Autism and David Kirby’s Rhetoric

by Kristina Chew, PhD on May 29th, 2008

It was not unpredicted and it has happened again.

David Kirby is again rebranding autism in his latest post about fever, vaccines, and mitochondrial autism. Now it’s “vaccine-induced mitochondrial regression” and even something like “Mute Fever” (a “folksy” name that Kirby comes up with on the side, for reasons noted below). Over a year ago, he rechristened autism as Environmentally-Acquired Neuroimmune Disorder” or “E.N.D.”; more recently, it’s been “vaccine-aggravated mitochondrial disorder” and also “autistic encephalopathy.” Kirby seems to constantly change what he calls autism to suit the latest studies, findings, and documents available about autism, vaccines and (in particular) vaccine-related injuries. While this provides fine fodder for him to speculate about the causes of autism, it (rather obsessively, at this point) keeps discussion about autism focused on hypothetical causes—-and, in my household at least, new ways of labeling and categorizing autism are not helpful. It’s real changes (in legislation and policy, for example) and real solutions (like Charlie having APE everyday at school) that make the difference in his life, and so in ours.

But back to autism, rebranded. Kirby returns to the case of Hannah Poling, the 9-year-old Georgia girl whose “pre-existing mitochondrial disorder…. was ‘aggravated’ by her shots,” as conceded by the government a few months ago. He zooms in on one detail found in a “second concession statement” from the government in which it is specifically noted that, as Kirby writes:

…..the “cause” of Hannah’s “autistic encephalopathy” was:

“Underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, exacerbated by vaccine-induced
fever and immune stimulation that exceeded metabolic reserves.”

Kirby cites an unnamed expert on “mitochondrial dysfunction and autism that [he] interviewed, who has studied 30 children with regressive ASD at the same clinic” (the clinic and the specific study are also not identified). Kirby writes, again citing unnamed sources:

But if 20% of ASD kids have a mito disorder, and six percent of those kids regressed due to vaccines, then just 1% of all autism could be attributed to vaccine induced “mitochondrial regression.”

If 1% of all autism cases were actually vaccine-induced mitochondrial regression, this would suggest that another 19% of ASD cases may be mitochondrial regression induced by fever alone.

Kirby is arguing that there is some subset of people who have “mito issues” and then, “after normal births and development, suddenly stopped talking and regressed into autism, following some kind of childhood fever.” According to Kirby, this is what happened to Hannah Poling who (as he writes) did have fevers at 13 months prior to receiving her vaccinations, but did not at that point “regress” into autism.” Further, as Kirby says he has “also learned,”

Hannah has suffered from extensive bouts of fever ever since her autism diagnosis. Like with many ASD kids, her symptoms actually improve remarkably during these episodes, and when they happen, she seems to temporarily “come of her cloud.”

This temporary improvement was documented in the December, 2007 issue of Pediatrics in a study titled, “Fever May Briefly Alleviate Autism Symptoms.” The authors reported that, out of 30 ASD children observed before and after a 100.4 degree fever, more than 80% showed some improvement in behavior and other signs, and 30% showed “significant improvement.” Changes included longer concentration span, increased amount of talking and improved eye contact.

This is the study Kirby refers to, and some discussion about it. What’s missing in Kirby’s discussion of the study is how it’s directly relevant to Hannah: Does she “come out of her cloud” whenever she has a fever now, and how might other treatments and/or educational therapies also play a part in her (transitory, it seems) improvement? Further, the changes noted in the study about fever were not observed directly by the authors of the study, but were taken from questionnaires that parents had filed out, so the results of the study are somewhat anecdotal.

Citing the fever study helps Kirby’s argument in this particular piece, as he is arguing that it is something about the vaccines that Hannah received that made her post-immunization fever different—that resulted in that fever leading to “symptoms of autism.” And, this is why Kirby suggests that autism could be considered “Mute Fever”: If I follow Kirby’s logic, plenty of kids get fevers (and plenty of kids in “Africa and developing nations” even more so) and don’t become autistic (I guess that’s why he uses the word “mute”—not that all autistic individuals are mute; this seems to be a rather careless choice of words). Fever that leads to autism would then be “Mute Fever.” And so if Hannah and the other child in a test case, Alex Krakow, got fevers and then became autistic, there must be something else about that fever that “caused” autism—something else like…..vaccines?

(Had to slip in a rhetorical question; Kirby relies on this particular rhetorical device to build up his argument. A dozen or so rhetorical questions appear throughout his essay—not that rhetoric is the stuff on which science should be based.)

It being the very end of May, I suppose we might take Kirby’s latest post as a prediction of what he’ll be saying on his imminent visit to the UK. Certainly it seems that vaccines will be a topic of discussion: Mike Stanton at Action for Autism shows that the British Peer, Lord Hodgson, who is sponsoring Kirby’s visits, has a particular interest in thimerosal/thiomersal, the mercury-based preservative that has been pointed to (contrary to the scientific evidence) as a cause of autism. And though I clearly don’t think this is the direction discussions about autism anywhere should be headed, I’m always glad to consider theories and hypotheses—-unlike at a recent autism conference in Chicago, no ideas and certainly no one (especially journalists) ever gets expelled.

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POSTED IN: Environment, Rhetoric, Science, Vaccines