It is too priceless an opportunity to let it pass. The obsessive blogger Dr David Gorski [aka ORAC] has gone into apoplectic overdrive [again] over the CHS article here:  New Survey Shows Unvaccinated Children Vastly Healthier – Far Lower Rates of Chronic Conditions and Autism

It is not every day we can rip into the science free zone of Orac’s brain [aka pharma's very own Homer Simpson of the blogosphere, Dr David Gorski - David Gorski’s Financial Pharma Ties: What He Didn’t Tell You].  But aside from the difficulty locating it, [his brain, if there is one] that is only because we don’t usually have the time – no other reason.

In Gorski’s latest rant Gorski’s apoplexy [standard issue for him] is in evidence. So not a reliable source to start with but it gets worse. Wot a nutter.  Apologies to our usual readers for the lower than usual standards.  These have been suspended for this post to write it in Gorkieese, Gorski’s style of scribble-drivel.

His near 2500 words we can encapsulate in a few quotes.

First the abusive rhetoric and derision which is the main basis for all his arguments [ie. bullying - so he obviously has a personal issue over self-esteem].

a study that’s just so mind-numbingly, brain-meltingly awful”

the sheer intensity of its burning stupid”

a starving cheetah ripping into its prey look downright restrained”

anti-vaccine loons” “anti-vaxers”

…. they’ve been clamoring for what they like to call a “vaxed-unvaxed study.”

Now they’re at it again”

anti-vaccine propaganda”

now this “study” will no doubt join the Generation Rescue “study” in the annals of crap vaccine/autism science, to circulate around Whale.to (where it belongs) and be dredged up as “evidence” periodically.”

Then we get the “scientific” criticisms [Ha] buried in Gorskidrivel:-
 

the whole survey was so ridiculously badly designed that you really couldn’t tell anything from it at all”

an anonymous Internet survey that anyone can fill out? Let’s … have an actual control group, namely vaccinated children.”

Generation Rescue did a crappy and arbitrary job of it”

a poorly designed phone survey”

entirely unvaccinated children.”

Less than 10% said they preferred conventional medicine.”

the parents who filled it out were a self-selected, biased sample, the vast majority of whom favor alternative medicine”

99.69% of the respondents report being happy that they did not vaccinate their children”

So wee Davy Gorski, if you don’t like it, its about time we had a well funded independent objective and impartial study done. Stop complaining when independents take a crack at it. Its their taxes which are being spent wasted on the vast amount of useless medical research [genetics is a prime candidate along with cancer and psychiatry - the latter being the least successful branch of medicine in history].

And don’t fob the public off with the usual unscientic junk studies put out in drug industry funded medical journals to claim everything apart from Gorski’s brand of medicine is valid – people are voting with their feet – GorskiCare kills people and injures them in droves in the USA with adverse drug reactions and botched procedures

Then Gorski spews out in a rant the usual complete tosh to justify the nonsensical claim that:
 

“…. such a study is neither feasible nor ethical”

But this is the real hoot. These children might really have asthma but because they don’t have any symptoms their parents don’t know. Ha ha ha ha ha ha …..:-

“a lot of these children could have subclinical or mildly clinical disease that goes undiagnosed because they never take their children to a real doctor”

“One of the most common presentations of asthma is cough alone” …. “milder cases of asthma can be difficult to diagnose in children”.

“what the parents report probably doesn’t tell us much. Neither does the claim that far fewer of these children had allergies.”

What the Mighty Officials of GorskiCare did not tell you is that asthma and allergy have increased so dramatically in the 25 or so years since the late 1980s drive for vaccination that his profession in the UK were instructed just a handful of years ago to go out and look for as many cases as possible. The Mighty Officials then wanted to use the increased statistics to claim the science shows it was all greater awareness and better diagnosis. LOL.

And then Gorski reveals he has had an analytical skills total bypass from birth and his math education was wasted. He says:
 

Apparently, basic math isn’t a homeopath’s strong suit ….. if 20% of autistic children equals four, then there could only be 20 autistic children, but the survey suggests that there were twice that many in unvaccinated children.”

Really David? Let’s see what he bases this on and show that Gorski’s math is sadly a long way from his strong point [if he has one].

The numbers cited are entirely in keeping with the text:

• there were 44 children reported as having an autistic condition

• over 80% of parents reported the autistic conditions in children were mild and of the Asperger type.

• only 4 were reported as having severe autism

What does that tell us?

• Over 80% means 35 of the 44, leaving 9 or less cases.

• 4 of the 9 were reported as having severe autism.

• That leaves 5 cases where 1) either the parents did not say what kind of autistic condition their child had or 2)there were less than 5 cases of severe autism in those 5 or both.

• Let’s say it was 5 cases and the parents did not say. At over 80% the probability is of those 5 cases 4 were mild, leaving 1 which might be the more severe autism.

So Gorski, 4 cases of severe autism or even 4 +1 is not 20% but that is still consistent with “over 80%” of parents reporting mild autistic conditions.  We hope that is not too hard for you to understand.

And here is another hoot:

a prevalence of 0.57%, even if this survey were accurate, would be within the range of estimated prevalences found in various studies.

0.57% is 1 in 175. But wait a mo’. In the USA the figure is nearly half that at 1 in 100. In the UK the figure is a third of that at 1 in 64.

And David, these figures reflect the kinds of differences seen in the Generation Rescue telephone survey you decry don’t they?

Here are the results of the Generation Rescue Survey mentioned above:-

Cal-Oregon Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Survey

All vaccinated boys, compared to unvaccinated boys:

• - Vaccinated boys were 155% more likely to have a neurological disorder (RR 2.55)

• - Vaccinated boys were 224% more likely to have ADHD (RR 3.24)

• - Vaccinated boys were 61% more likely to have autism (RR 1.61)

Older vaccinated boys, ages 11-17 (about half the boys surveyed), compared to older unvaccinated boys:

• - Vaccinated boys were 158% more likely to have a neurological disorder (RR 2.58)

• - Vaccinated boys were 317% more likely to have ADHD (RR 4.17)

• - Vaccinated boys were 112% more likely to have autism (RR 2.12)

(Note: older children may be a more reliable indicator because many children are not diagnosed until they are 6-8 years old, and we captured data beginning at age 4.)

All vaccinated boys, removing one county with unusual results (Multnomah, OR), compared to unvaccinated boys:

• - Vaccinated boys were 185% more likely to have a neurological disorder (RR 2.85)

• - Vaccinated boys were 279% more likely to have ADHD (RR 3.79)

• - Vaccinated boys were 146% more likely to have autism (RR 2.46)

All vaccinated boys and girls, compared to unvaccinated boys and girls:

• - Vaccinated boys and girls were 120% more likely to have asthma (RR 2.20)

• - No correlation established for juvenile diabetes

All vaccinated girls, compared to unvaccinated girls:

• - No meaningful differences in prevalence were noted for NDs (which may be due to the smaller sample size of the study because girls represent about 20% of cases.)

And in the UK 30% of autistic conditions are the more severe autism – in the US we understand the number is higher.

Yet for the unvaccinated this survey suggests the number [4 cases or less than 10%] is 300% lower or 1 in 2000 cases which is close to the pre vaccine era of 4 in 10,000. And the affected children had higher exposure to mercury or heavy metals.

And this GorskiDrivel is a hoot too:-

autism prevalence is so obviously not appreciably different in the unvaccinated in this survey compared to reported prevalence numbers

When Gorki in the same passage notes that:-

depending on the age range it ranges from 0.37% to a whopping 2.36%, ….. 3,075 were for children under two years old, … autism might very well have not been diagnosed … the reported prevalence was 0.37%, while in the 11-12 year range the prevalence was highest, at 2.36%.

But at the same time ignores that in the 15-16 year age group the figure is 0.62%.

But that does not stop the science free zone between Gorski’s ears from concluding so stupidly it burns:

The prevalence of autism in unvaccinated children in this survey does closely match reported numbers for overall population prevalence in populations where the vast majority of children are vaccinated.

This result is an unmitigated disaster for Bachmair and his groupies …

But hang on Gorski old boy, didn’t you just say a mere few million drivel points earlier hidden in abuse and rhetoric that:

the whole survey was so ridiculously badly designed that you really couldn’t tell anything from it at all”

We told you he is a nutter. That demonstrates it – the stupid it burns.

And what is Gorski and his band of amateur night pseudo-scientists going to do. Yep you guessed it they are going to sabotage this genuine effort to get data that everyone has been clamouring for for years.

How do we know? GorskiCare’s postscript to his blog:-

NOTE: I notice that the total number of children is increasing. It’s now up to 7,799 at this moment, suggesting that 30 people have filled it out since last night. Given that Child Health Safety lists it as 7,724 five days ago that suggests that the surveys still open and is automatically updating totals.