trashcan wrote:
Perhaps I should clarify, when studies are done in a manner that limits the effects of external variables, no correlation is found
"...when studies are done in a manner that limits the effects of external variables, no correlation is found."
You call that a clarification?
That's funny.
[quote]trashcan wrote:
As I mentioned above, 1 million other things have changed over that time, and therefore also have this time correlation affect with autism diagnoses. Literally all of them make more sense as a cause of autism.
Such as?
Parsec wrote:
The Unkle wrote:
Dude.
Just proving there is a correlation between vaccines and autism, which the poster I was replying to denied.
A little pedantic, since the implied point is obvious (Harambe and others aren't debating the technicalities or correlation or not)...but fair enough.
But to you're statement that:
You don't find the correlation between vaccines and autism the least bit troubling
No. I don't. Not with that verbiage.
Interesting? Sure. I don't dismiss it, it sits there in the back of my mind as a factor to consider, but no causal link has been found with autism/vaccine even though people have tried, so that relegates it a little further back.
I think modern environments, older parents, and especially dietary changes + increase in exposure to various compounds that affect biology far more pressing and interesting possibilities to explore.
I read that entire comment and learned nothing at all.
In fact, you appear to acknowledge the obvious correlation between the increase in vaccines and autism.
You guys appear to think I am concluding that vaccines cause autism. I am not. But I will not dismiss it given the correlation
Your answer to the bold points is here...
1. Small business --My argument has never been about the economy. I'm the working dirt poor. I'll let someone more qualified step into this arena because while I am dirt poor, the job that I and my colleagues do takes all the precautions that the state and CDC prescribe in order to avoid an outbreak.
2. Young people in isolation - as a kid, I had one best friend. Close to 36 years later, I still have that one best friend. While I was active, I was not a social butterfly. Children having to play with one friend or having to create their own activities is not really the end of the world. Parents are the ones I see complaining more about having to be home with their young kids. And no, for the teens...no partying is not the end of the world. A teen doesn't need to party.
3. We need more social programs to help people in poverty and to help people cope with their addiction, but we can't be reckless about business and best practices (which may include a shutdown) because we fear for those who are addicted.
If we relent on these careful practices, as much as it seems intolerable, we could easily go from 16,000,000 cases to 60,000,000 cases in a month..dragging in those who were always following orders into a state of risk that they made sure to avoid.
I really hate how this has devolved into anti vax. Vaccines have been one of the most powerful tools we have seen in medicine. A big part of what has curtailed infectious disease along with antibiotics, hygiene etc . Are there risks involved with vaccines...yes. Do benefits on average outweigh risks...no question. Am I a little concerned with the covid vaccine...yes but mainly because of rushed timeframe and how political it has all become.
Stoppit Smith wrote:
Good question.
I've been a germaphobe most of my life (once I knew better)
Frankly, I don't want to go back to the 2019 way of life any more than I want to go back to the 2000 way of life, etc etc.
People are/were way too focused on hugs, shaking hands, whispering in ears, lining up far too close to each other and being careless with food prep or making sure those at work were actually well.
The American way of life was never prepared for a pandemic because seats are way too close, people speak way too closely and there is a lot of unnecessary touching.
American culture in the 90s-00s went through a rave phase where people were doing God knows what with God knows whom and communally sharing God knows what with God knows whom.
This led to increases of exposed young adults bringing whatever disease and filth they were into that weekend to their workplace or classroom or lecture hall.
It was not uncommon to have some careless, sniffling reckless youngster taking orders or even preparing food, and management was okay with this....
And customers didn't care.
Now, customers want shelves and products and facilities wiped down and disinfected. They want more distance and are less willing to jam an aisle for the products they want.
Patrons, managers, and workers are more cognizant of the health of the workers and are more likely to speak out if someone is sick.
People are being more selective of those whom they trust to not get them sick and evaluate circumstances such as where either has been to decide if meeting each other should be possible.
School kids are having to wash hands more frequently and are practicing safer behaviors that will continue an awareness of closeness vs safety.
More people are learning about respiratory science, and also the science of being near the bacteria of someone's sweat such that if there is a row of 6 treadmills and only 2 people want them, they don't have to take the one immediately adjacent to someone else.
No.
I don't want to go back to 2019.
We've learned too many valuable lessons that we can pick from to move forward safely.
Anything less is backward, especially once the pandemic ends.
There's your answer.
Parsec wrote:
That statement by itself is utterly insane. It's also utterly critical for the discussion.
It's insane because everything carries some degree of risk. Nothing is safe. So, the discussion isn't about safety YES or NO. It's about what level of safety/risk are we shooting for, and how does that safety/risk tradeoff with the expected harms.
There is a significant risk of repeated use of say, driving a car. Yet, most of us drive. We elect to do this because the penalty/cost for not driving is very high and the advantages afforded by driving are well worth the risk. Same holds for exercise with greater risk of injury at higher, less stable forms of movement combined with increased cardiac risk. Or dropping weight on yourself. Yet many elect to exercise.
If there is going to be a meaningful discussion...then the question that sets up the discussion that you need to answer is: What level of risk would be acceptable to you to return to 2019 style of living? By metrics would you assess that?
Answer that and there is a discussion to be had.
Random curiosity: are you generally conservative? It's fairly rare to find liberal people with a high disgust sensitivity.
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Outside of that, I can definitely imagine that you're generally happier with the structure of things under the pandemic given that orientation. On a personal level, I certainly wouldn't mind aspects like better general hygiene awareness, increases in spacing, etc. being maintained and becoming a more constant part of culture.
The only thing I will say for that is while okay with it, I would want to monitor impacts that would have on hygiene hypothesis and immune function. Especially in kids, too much sanitation can be problematic.
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Most of those things are also the "easy" fruit, because they cause negligible or no inconvenience to most people. What about the aspects that are more onerous to people, and/or have harmful side impacts namely:
- Mask Wearing
- Restrictions/Lockdowns on Gathering/Events/Businesses
What would you like to see as the future of both of those, and specifically in the case of COVID, given it's not going away, what metrics or criteria would you use to say "okay, we are going to eliminate or reduce these measures?"
The Unkle wrote:
[quote]trashcan wrote:
As I mentioned above, 1 million other things have changed over that time, and therefore also have this time correlation affect with autism diagnoses. Literally all of them make more sense as a cause of autism.
Such as?
I will invite anyone else to contribute, now or in the future, whether in response to this particular post or another related post
Literally anything that changed starting in that time period or increased( or decreased) as a protective factor) during that time period is more suspect, as the relationship between vaccines and autism has been studied and found to be non-existent:
Prevalence of personal computers
Number of people working as software engineers, or IT professionals.
Number of college students
Children’s outdoor play time
Rap
The end of disco
MTV
Role Playing Games
Star Wars Movies—the more there are the more autism there is. Really all movies with sequels fits that Bill.
You may say that some of these are ridiculous, the point is that none of them are as ridiculous as continuing to think that the one change that has been demonstrated to not predict autism when studied rigorously is the thing we should be worried about, or act upon. It also happens to be a huge boon to the world, that is being reduced by this nonsensical thinking.
If you want to reduce the incidence of autism, you would have a better chance by bringing back disco.
Btw average age of a father is up by 3.5 years since 1972
As usual, the Covid threads on Letsrun become a refuge for the lunatic fringe. Each thread should contain a public health warning, that reading them will lead to brain damage.
Stoppit Smith wrote:
Your answer to the bold points is here...
1. Small business --My argument has never been about the economy. I'm the working dirt poor. I'll let someone more qualified step into this arena because while I am dirt poor, the job that I and my colleagues do takes all the precautions that the state and CDC prescribe in order to avoid an outbreak.
2. Young people in isolation - as a kid, I had one best friend. Close to 36 years later, I still have that one best friend. While I was active, I was not a social butterfly. Children having to play with one friend or having to create their own activities is not really the end of the world. Parents are the ones I see complaining more about having to be home with their young kids. And no, for the teens...no partying is not the end of the world. A teen doesn't need to party.
3. We need more social programs to help people in poverty and to help people cope with their addiction, but we can't be reckless about business and best practices (which may include a shutdown) because we fear for those who are addicted.
If we relent on these careful practices, as much as it seems intolerable, we could easily go from 16,000,000 cases to 60,000,000 cases in a month..dragging in those who were always following orders into a state of risk that they made sure to avoid.
My broader point is that it needs to be about the economy. And about COVID. And about impacts on peoples health. Essentially, the total picture needs to encompass all positive and negative externalities.
1) If I'm reading you correctly, you have no strong opinions on businesses, which to a lesser extent means you have no strong opinions about whether or not lockdowns should be in place, and feel comfortable deferring to those in power? If not, please correct where I'm not accurately stating your thoughts.
2) I disagree strongly here for numerous reasons. First being that children and teens are not significant vectors of COVID spread comparatively, which reduces the impact of them. Second, you're reasoning here is weak. It amounts to "Not being a social butterfly didn't fvck me up massively, ergo it's fine".
You are not other people. Humans evolved as exceptionally social creatures, and not just one on one socialization. They vary significantly on the amount of socialization required. A small percentage are like you, and can have social interaction like that relatively unscathed, develop well into confident, high esteem adults. The majority cannot, and are deeply affected by it and this is consistently borne out in the literature. Everything about establishing your mental models of the world, your own biology, your self concept, is related to other people and how you interface with them.
It's massively damaging to children, who are biologically driven to high levels of group social interaction FAR more than adults. Even to adults it's damaging, and that's reflected in the significant rise in anxiety, depression, other mental illnesses, and in suicides. These are MAJOR harms. Every kid that suicides is orders of magnitude worse than someone in their 80s dying of COVID. Ten, probably even a hundred, older people dying is absolutely worth it to prevent one kid from suiciding or even from developing depression that begins to sabotage his/her life.
As far the partying...I agree with you in concept. On a theoretical sense, teenagers and college kids don't NEED to party. However, they DO need group social interaction. More importantly, parties serve as a primary means of mating and hierarchical establishment that is fundamental to human biology and thus human nature. Fighting against nature is a lost cause on the population level (some individuals succeed) and is doomed to failure. It's basically a waste of time to try and stop kids of partying. The only ways to succeed would be to have an army of authoritarian parents and institutions that prevent all gatherings of youth or to memetically propagate some other replacement to partying that satisfied the mating and hierarchical aspects that partying does.
3) Not sure I have strong thoughts here. I'm not clear on what the interplay would even be.
Stoppit Smith wrote:
If we relent on these careful practices, as much as it seems intolerable, we could easily go from 16,000,000 cases to 60,000,000 cases in a month..dragging in those who were always following orders into a state of risk that they made sure to avoid.
My general framework is that for the vast majority of individual people (emphasis individual) COVID is of lesser concern than typical seasonal influenza, with influenza actually taking the lead as you move into those in their 20s and especially teens. Flipside....COVID is massively more dangerous for those over 60, and also for those over 50 lacking metabolic health.
COVID is also a little unique in that high doses are not good for anyone, even healthy young people in their teens or twenties, to a much stronger degree than appears to be the case with colds or seasonal influenza.
This sets up a situation where, on an individual level, concern for COVID should be low for most of school or working age. Fear should border on non-existent. With a specific caveat, gathering at times of high population viral load is riskier than would be the case for say seasonal influenza.
COVID has another unique dynamic though, in that because it hits older individuals so hard relative to other illnesses, it creates a level of social responsibility towards those that are older. Moreover, as a novel pathogen, COVID immunity is drastically lower than most seasonal illnesses, which adds another layer of concern with resource allocation and capacity in the short term.
On the plus side, the continued spread is reducing the lack of immunity. Combined with a vaccine, that is likely to be more than sufficient to put an end to hospital capacity and resource concerns. Add in rollout of the vaccine to the extent that any elderly or metabolically unhealthy person that wants the vaccine can get it, and you have the conditions that, in my mind, eliminate societal concern of COVID. At that point, I would be absolutely okay with lifting any mask requirements (no objections to recommended masking) and would be insistent on removing any lockdown related measures.
The Unkle wrote:
coach wrote:
What about the link between older parents and autism? Perhaps environmental toxins and older eggs and the sperm of older men are more to blame than vaccines.
Maybe.
I don't think older men being dads is anything new.
Maybe older women. Maybe not.
Environmental toxins is surely worth considering
Older men being dad's is not new.
The percentage of older men being dad's, combined with a shift in average age of being a father (and probably mother) could easily be significant.
Many effects are not linear. A change in 10% of average age of parents can easily cause 20%, 50%, or 500% changes in negative effects on offspring.
Not suggesting this is the cause of autism, but it's fundamentally wrong to say "There have always been older dad's and so this is unlikely to be a cause".
Let me start by saying that your understanding of my mindset overall is pretty accurate...so that you're assessing my concerns in a way that is congruent with how I am viewing things...so that is good.
Overall, your perspective is balanced. But, I saw one statement that just threw me for a loop... "Children and teens are not significant vectors of COVID spread comparatively..."
Here in Middle Tennessee, we have empirically seen a difference in case upticks
within several school districts that suggest that children are, in fact, vectors in the true sense of the word. Many of the quarantined cases are because a child attends school before a parent tests or finds out they have Covid. Then other children catch the Covid (symptomatic or asymptomatic) from the child that was exposed without knowing it.
Just weeks after Metro Nashville schools opened, several had to go virtual because of a sudden increase in Covid cases.
This seems to be the case with schools that are completely indoors or are densely populated. So, they are thrust into being unintentional vectors because of the fact that it's almost impossible for children to distance themselves in schools that were never built for distancing.
I sense this is similar in most states that have cold weather.
Before schools opened, the case count among children was extremely low, suggesting that children only started transmitting the virus to other people when around other children because during the summer, parents may have been positive but the children rarely were. I say people because teachers only started getting Covid once they were back in school.
The other point I disagree on is the value of a senior. I work with kids and I love to see children thrive. But our 80 year olds were the Vietnam generation. Many of the soldiers who survived were exposed to chemical warfare and memories of tragedies nobody should have to see...but they did. In fact, a few of our mid-80s seniors fought in Korea. It would likely break their hearts to know that their service and sacrifice no longer is worth it because the kids need to be saved.
But, the suicide route could be slightly better mitigated if parents helped their children understand the pandemic and how doing their part will help later. Right now, a good portion of the parents are in the throes of massive angst. Possibly understandable angst, but still angst.
Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington with Kurt Cobain years before them should teach us the sad path of angst.
But parents have a choice to be constructive or destructive. I think a change in parental behavior would be in good order.
But, either way, we have to stop treating our seniors like they are expendable.
I wondered when I commented if that would get a comment. Its accurate that kids end up being vectors. Obviously they are capable of being sick and transmitting virus, but much less so than other groups.
In bubbles, especially collegiately and to a lesser degree in HS populations, you end up with higher transmissions because of young adult and teen behavior: far more drive for social gathering, greater recklessness combine to result in very large exposure doses which drive up viral load in population, increasing transmission.
Stoppit Smith wrote:
The other point I disagree on is the value of a senior. I work with kids and I love to see children thrive. But our 80 year olds were the Vietnam generation. Many of the soldiers who survived were exposed to chemical warfare and memories of tragedies nobody should have to see...but they did. In fact, a few of our mid-80s seniors fought in Korea. It would likely break their hearts to know that their service and sacrifice no longer is worth it because the kids need to be saved.
But, the suicide route could be slightly better mitigated if parents helped their children understand the pandemic and how doing their part will help later. Right now, a good portion of the parents are in the throes of massive angst. Possibly understandable angst, but still angst.
Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington with Kurt Cobain years before them should teach us the sad path of angst.
But parents have a choice to be constructive or destructive. I think a change in parental behavior would be in good order.
But, either way, we have to stop treating our seniors like they are expendable.
Yes. A change in parental behavior would be good. Unfortunately falls into the category of "winning the lottery would be good". Population level parenting quality is not changing over the short or medium term. Perhaps not ever.
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As for the seniors, I disagree that they are expendable. That's a very crass, bankrupt way of looking at it.
However, without additional information, if you have a choice to save a 5 year old child or an 80 year old man....you save the child.
10 years to 20 years of life left versus 65 to 95 years of life left. Not to mention the sadness and psychological harm is MASSIVELY greater for lose close to someone young dying than to someone older who had had a long life dying.
Everything about the older individual dying causes less sadness and loss than the young individual dying. The only exception would be if the 80 year old man was days away from curing cancer. Then obviously the child is the one you dont rescue. A priori though, answer is obvious.
That same reasoning is why I would gladly prevent one 15 year old with likely 70 years of life left, compared to ten elderly people of age 80 all likely with 5-10 years of life lost.
Less years of life lost, especially years with far more untapped and unknown potential ahead outweighs losing more years of life.
That doesnt mean that seniors are expendable. They arent, and ideally you want to do all you can to protect them. But...if protecting them results in harm to others, as in the case of COVID, then you have to weight which harms are greater and make decisions along those lines.
That's all possible.
But in order to affirm that, we would have to see hard statistics showing a high correlation coefficient to show that teenage suicides have gone up exclusively because of isolation due to Covid.
I say this because the isolation leads to increased internet usage (since most teens can access social media through phones, tablets or computers). One would have to extrapolate all of the embarrassing, scary or incendiary conversations and posts that teens submit from the sum total of posts first before attributing any larger numbers of suicides to isolation itself.
My honest opinion is that it has many factors, but the one I am most concerned about is the epigenetic effects of our day to day behavior and environment (for example screen time). Your DNA says what proteins you can make, but epigenetics has major control over how MUCH of a given protein you make. Your behavior and environmental exposure does not really affect the DNA makeup you pass on to your child. Your behavior and environmental exposure DOES affect the epigenetic makeup of your child.
To the extent this is a factor, we as a society have got to be screwing it up massively
Actually the diagnosis existed before the second world war. It was debated for a long time, though. When you were a kid there were autisic kids, even before the first diagnoses.
No there weren't. I was there.
In 1968 there were 4 or 5 kids per 100,000 with autism.
Now there are 1 in 68.
So, as I did not know 100,000 kids growing up, it is no surprise there was no autism in my life.
Now I know many kids with it. And it's not a matter of changing standards of diagnosis. These kids have serious issues.
And to claim no correlation between the massive increase in vaccinations and cases of autism is absurd.
Both have grown exponentially over the same period of time.
You do know what correlation means, don't you?[/quote]
Please, don't try to be smart, Unkle. What you wrote was thast you didn¨t know people who got sick from Covid. When you write that. "I was there". Where were you?
What do you mean that I or other claim that there is "no correlation"? Sure there is a correlation. It might even be a negative correlation. Can you 1) document the strong i.e. high correlation coefficient between vaccinations and cases of authism. 2) document the absurd claim that there are 1 of 68 and in 1968, an exiting year by the way, there were 4-5 out of 100000. Where I live it is about 1 in 1000.
May be 1 in 68 in US? Something strange must either has happened in US or with you. Give me the correlation coefficient, please. 1968 - 2020. You can do that can't you. And with a reference to a peer reviewed study. Come on.
Parsec wrote:
The Unkle wrote:
Maybe.
I don't think older men being dads is anything new.
Maybe older women. Maybe not.
Environmental toxins is surely worth considering
Older men being dad's is not new.
The percentage of older men being dad's, combined with a shift in average age of being a father (and probably mother) could easily be significant.
Many effects are not linear. A change in 10% of average age of parents can easily cause 20%, 50%, or 500% changes in negative effects on offspring.
Not suggesting this is the cause of autism, but it's fundamentally wrong to say "There have always been older dad's and so this is unlikely to be a cause".
Any evidence that the percentage of older men being dads has risen?
I suspect its not true.
Aren't there many societies in the past where young women were married off to old guys?
[quote]Stoppit Smith wrote:
That's all possible.
But in order to affirm that, we would have to see hard statistics showing a high correlation coefficient to show that teenage suicides have gone up exclusively because of isolation due to Covid.
Yet we need no evidence to claim that excess deaths are due to Covid.
Funny how that works.