Amazing how posts sometimes resurface long after originally being (well) posted. I think topics founded on intuition and surface appeal are particularly likely to reappear. Given an idea that has appeal ("Hey, my autistic kid has digestive problems...and I heard about this chemical that's involved in digestion. Getting her more of that chemical might-could solve the autism riddle for her.") and a dash of supportive evidence from a quasi-clinical trial...it's off to the races!
Why should we be bothered by the rise and fall of enthusiasm for ideas such as secretion and vaccines? It's not just that that fervor deceives people (dashing any hopes is a bummer, but I find dashing false hopes is especially saddening), but it's also that those deceptions stir up the environment, creating muddier waters. And, there's also the so-called "opportunity cost": Time and effort spent on pursuing misleading solutions is time and effort kids and families do *not* spend employing supports that actually do benefit them and scientists do *not* spend identifying and refining those helpful supports.
So., congratulations on having your post picked up by Buzzfeed (even without compensation--sigh). I hope that it helps divert people from pursuing both the vaccines false lead as well as false leads in general.
Amazing how posts sometimes resurface long after originally being (well) posted. I think topics founded on intuition and surface appeal are particularly likely to reappear. Given an idea that has appeal ("Hey, my autistic kid has digestive problems...and I heard about this chemical that's involved in digestion. Getting her more of that chemical might-could solve the autism riddle for her.") and a dash of supportive evidence from a quasi-clinical trial...it's off to the races!
The summer of 2024 I saw a resurgence of interest in administering secretin as therapy for autism. In the summer-fall of 1998, I reported that the evidence for beneficial effects of secretin was quite thin (https://web.archive.org/web/20180215201352/http://special.edschool.virginia.edu/information/secretin.html). But, interest resurfaced about 10-12 years later; the evidence was still thin, so I posted about it again (https://web.archive.org/web/20170206190833/http://ebdblog.com/2011/04/secretin-still-does-not-help/) in 2011. Then, it was back again about 10-12 years later...sigh. So, I dropped another post on Special Education Today https://www.specialeducationtoday.com/p/secretin-and-autism. If the 10- to 12-year cycle continues, we should predict a resurgence of interest in secretin in, say, 2035-36.
Why should we be bothered by the rise and fall of enthusiasm for ideas such as secretion and vaccines? It's not just that that fervor deceives people (dashing any hopes is a bummer, but I find dashing false hopes is especially saddening), but it's also that those deceptions stir up the environment, creating muddier waters. And, there's also the so-called "opportunity cost": Time and effort spent on pursuing misleading solutions is time and effort kids and families do *not* spend employing supports that actually do benefit them and scientists do *not* spend identifying and refining those helpful supports.
So., congratulations on having your post picked up by Buzzfeed (even without compensation--sigh). I hope that it helps divert people from pursuing both the vaccines false lead as well as false leads in general.