More BAD Science

A commenter on yesterday's BAD Science post raised a new abortion 'complication'.

Abortion and autism.

I knew about the autism and vaccine, specifically measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), fraud but an abortion and autism link was new to me.

I got googling.

Found something from a couple of years ago that attempts the feat and look who's propagating it. Big Nursie.

The allegation is abortion is linked because the vaccines use 'dead babies'. SHRIEEEK!

Indeed. And the study in question, the one being cited here, briefly summarizes the other studies that have been done that have pretty much demonstrated that there is NOT a link between MMR and autism. NOT. Not is. Is not. No link. No link mentioned in this study.

No link shown anywhere else. The only link is in the feeble and demented brain of “blogger Jill Stanek.” Jeesh.

So the MMR – autism link is dead, so the fetal tissues don’t really matter, but what about that? Are dead babies used to prepare the MMR vaccine?

Well, no. Human cell lines have provided some of the substrate for one part of the MMR vaccine (the “R” part) in the past, some of that from old non-abortive tissue lines, some from abortive tissue lines. But there were religious objections for using the abortive tissue lines, so now, if I understand correctly, we use … cow fetuses and human tissues that are not from abortive material. Which is probably inferior (but I’m not sure if it makes a difference in this case)

Lies, fabricated links, bad information, scare tactics. What are they getting out of this dishonesty?

I found another from the infamous Elliot Institute linking (in a roundabout way) autism to abortion.

Is it biologically plausible that prior maternal induced abortions elevate a newborn baby’s autism risk? In a word, yes. This is because of two mechanisms — preterm birth (very preterm and extremely preterm) and raised parental age at delivery. Six significant studies report that prior induced abortions boost extremely preterm birth risk (under 28 weeks’ gestation).

Extremely preterm babies have about 25 times the autism risk as do full-term (at least 37 weeks’ gestation) babies. The older the parents are at delivery, the higher the autism risk. In a 2001 study of French women, Dr. Henriet reported that French women with more than one prior induced abortion had 2.4 times (i.e. 140% higher) the risk of maternal age over 34 at delivery compared to women with zero prior induced abortions.

The 'six significant studies' links to a PDF. What the hell. I downloaded and got 'Does Induced Abortion Account for Racial Disparity in Preterm Births, and Violate the Nuremberg Code?'

Seriously.

It was published in the journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which bills itself as 'A Voice for Private Physicians since 1943'.

Here's what Wiki has to say:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative American non-profit organization founded in 1943 to "fight socialized medicine and to fight the government takeover of medicine." The group was reported to have approximately 4,000 members in 2005, and 3,000 in 2011. Notable members include Ron Paul and John Cooksey; the executive director is Jane Orient, a member of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

AAPS publishes the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (formerly known as the Medical Sentinel). The Journal is not indexed by mainstream scientific databases such as the Web of Science or MEDLINE. The quality and scientific validity of articles published in the Journal has been criticized by medical and scientific authorities.

Or, more succinctly, here's RationalWiki:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a small group of "conservative" quacks, cranks and fundamentalist zealots which likes to rail against such timeless evils as abortion, vaccination and the idea of universal health care coverage.

So, add the Association and, in particular, its journal to our list of BAD Science purveyors.