Emily Willingham biologyfiles.fieldofscience.com This post was originally written in September, however questions and assertions about “Lyme-Induced Autism” still occasionally percolate online. Please do feel free to counter such concerns with a link to this analysis by our TPGA Science Editor. -The Editors —- In the “this isn’t science or news” category, a local Fox station story out of Sacramento. Let’s take this bit by bit, shall we? Headline: “Doctors find link between Lyme disease, autism” Problem 1: The story isn’t about “doctors” finding “links.” It’s about one doctor claiming to have seen children in her practice (more on that later) who are “cured” of their autism after treatment for Lyme disease after testing positive for it. In reality, the story presents only one example to support the claim. Problem 2: The story doesn’t show any “link” in the scientific sense of the word, at all. In fact, it produces no…
Tag: woo
(Or, A Good Dose of Humility Never Hurts) Kim Wombles www.kwomblescountering.blogspot.com I’ll have been involved in the online autism community for three years this March. I’d say the community has changed, but I’m thinking it’s more that I changed over the years. People still bicker about the same kinds of things (some of the people are the same ones who’ve been at it for years), and the divides seem to be more entrenched than ever before, if you go looking in those places. I try to avoid that, now. Sometimes, when I make the round of blogs, of bloggers posting their deepest feelings, only to be roundly attacked by others, I want to respond, to get into the middle of things. Most of the time, though, now, I don’t. I shrug and move on. I ask myself first what possible good could come out of my investment. It isn’t that…