http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2147919
Monday, October 26, 2009
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Controversial autism conference got funds from Sick Kids
Tom Blackwell, National Post
Peter Redman/National Post
A branch of Toronto's renowned Hospital for Sick Children is being
criticized for funding an autism conference whose organizers champion the
discredited belief that childhood immunization causes the neurological
disorder.
The event - to start on Saturday at the University of Toronto medical
sciences building - also includes presentations that some experts are
calling unproven science, promoting such alternative treatments for autism
as homeopathy and hyperbaric oxygen chambers.
Organized by the American group AutismOne and Austism Canada, the meeting
has received $5,000 in funding from SickKids Foundation, the hospital's
fundraising wing.
Blogs designed to expose practitioners of dubious science have railed
against the event for the past two months, questioning why a respected
health-care institution would offer its support to a group that considers
vaccination of children a health risk.
"The name of Sick Kids is worth more to them than the money: it is a stamp
of legitimacy," Scott Gavura, a Toronto pharmacist who runs the Skeptic
North blog, said in an interview on Monday.
"Sick Kids hospital has some of the world's most renowned autism
researchers. I suspect most of them would not be thrilled by the fact that
SickKids Foundation is supporting this conference."
Carole Duncan, a spokeswoman for the foundation, said the grant was awarded
in May after Autism Canada submitted a detailed application.
"From our perspective, Autism Canada is a reputable organization doing
excellent advocacy work in Canada," said Ms. Duncan in an emailed response.
"Based on our experience in working with Autism Canada, their grant
application and their reputation, we have no reason to believe the grant is
being used for anything other than providing a respectful forum for parents,
therapists, doctors, researchers and individuals with autism spectrum
disorder."
In an email sent to Mr. Gavura and others who asked about the grant
decision, the Foundation also indicated that it takes a "neutral stance" on
alternative and complementary health care for children, and has a history of
funding it.
The event's organizers were not available for comment yesterday.
AutismOne, one of the co-hosts, is a U.S. group whose website states
prominently that "autism is caused by too many vaccines given too soon." The
vaccine-autism connection was first promoted in a small 1998 study, but
several "large and well-conducted" studies have since unearthed no evidence
to support the notion, said Dr. Susan Bryson, a clinical psychologist and
autism expert at Dalhousie University.
Dr. Bryson said she did not know enough about the conference to comment
directly on the funding decision, but voiced skepticism about at least two
of the presentations. One supports the idea of treating autistic children
with hyperbaric therapy, where the patient is put inside a locked chamber
and delivered a high concentration of oxygen.
Though approved for treatment of problems such as gas bubbles in the blood
stream and carbon-monoxide poisoning, there is no evidence it helps autistic
children, said Dr. Bryson. She said she reviewed the last study published on
the therapy for autism and found it to be "very poorly conducted."
Another presentation promotes treating the disorder with homeopathy, which
uses heavily diluted solutions of miniscule amounts of substances like
arsenic. There is little evidence to support its effectiveness in treating
any condition, says the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bryson said
she is unaware of any research supporting its use in autism.
She said it would be wrong to "censor" any new or unusual idea for treating
autism, but argued such theories must be examined with scientific rigour,
not accepted on limited evidence.
Dr. Stephen Scherer, an autism researcher at Sick Kids Hospital, said he
also did not know enough about the conference to comment on it. He did note,
however, that one of the presenters was Dr. Evdokia Anagnostou, a "serious"
and science-based autism researcher at Toronto's Bloorview Research
Institute.
The keynote speaker is Dr. Martha Herbert, a Harvard Medical School
neurology professor, and a medical advisor to the Autism Society of America.
When she testified in support of the 2006 lawsuit of a woman who claimed her
daughter had contracted autism through mould in an apartment, however, the
Massachusetts Superior Court judge rejected her testimony. Her study method
appeared to be "a series of deductions based on possibilities, together with
a process of elimination," concluded Justice Judith Fabricant.
"Clearly, Dr. Herbert's method is not generally accepted in the scientific
community," she said. "Dr. Herbert's theory of environmental triggers of
autism may some day prove true. It has not yet."
National Post
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