This is a little frightening:

At a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that “there’s strong evidence” that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. — a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment.

…

McCain said, per ABC News’ Bret Hovell, that “It’s indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.”

Of course, there’s not any evidence to support such a claim. The latest studies show that there’s no link and the evidence for it in the first place was flimsy at best.

As Tapper points out, this is actually a dangerous statement; McCain lending his authority to this could cause some to forgo vaccination of their children.

So, what do you think? Should presidential candidates be making statements about scientific issues, especially when the consensus of the scientific and medical establishment contradicts them? We expect them to act if we have solid scientific evidence of a problem, but this is veering into pronouncements on whether such a problem exists.

(via Political Animal)

I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving Day and enjoys the company of friends and family. Speaking of family I want to share this with all of you here at Montana Netroots. Many of you know I am still suffering from the effects of Agent Orange and Cancer but this is almost nothing when compared to my brother’s daughter. Please feel free to email her and thanks for your prayers and comments.

Ex-Husky battles hidden ailment

By GREG JOHNS
P-I REPORTER

Melissa Erickson used to dread the running. She was a big girl, a 6-foot-3 center, and tears would come to her eyes when former Huskies basketball coach June Daugherty pushed her body farther than she thought possible.

Oh, if only to feel that friendly pain again. Erickson is 29 now and her body aches once more, but for a far different reason. She’d give anything to be able to trudge through those old workouts, back when life and her legs were taken for granted.

	Former UW basketball player Melissa Erickson, 29, shown at Cal Anderson Park near her home on Capitol Hill, is suffering from muscular degeneration in her legs that has been difficult to diagnose. One doctor believes she has ALS and gave her 10 years to live.

When she tells friends her goal now is to run a half-marathon if she regains her health, they chuckle. Not because it seems unlikely that someone in an apparent fight with Lou Gehrig’s disease could journey 13 miles, but because it’s such an ironic carrot for the easy-going Erickson.

But nothing’s easy anymore.

Not walking around outside her Capitol Hill condo, where even the slightest upgrade makes footing treacherous for a young woman who already needs braces to support legs she says feel like cement.

Not standing in the bathroom, when the failure to set herself properly sometimes results in her balance giving way and leading to the awkward truth of a once-powerful athlete suddenly trying to un-turtle herself from the cold linoleum floor.

Not approaching each day with the wonder if that first doctor’s diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was correct and that she really does have only 10 years to live.

Her current physician, a Virginia Mason neurologist, believes she suffers from progressive muscular atrophy, a cousin of ALS since the illness hasn’t yet invaded her respiratory system and upper limbs. But Erickson continues searching.

Maybe the naturopath has it right, that she’s suffering from Lyme disease, which would be more treatable and thus provide more hope for recovery. Or the other naturopath, since discarded, who tried convincing her she’d been infected by a parasite while playing basketball overseas.

Sometimes Erickson just wants a name attached permanently to her problem so she can put the questions to rest. Sometimes she hates that any label is required, as if that really makes a difference. And sometimes she just acknowledges it probably is ALS, even while taking an assortment of foul-tasting concoctions and vitamins designed to rid her body of toxins that might fit with Lyme.

“I feel like I’m fighting shadows,” said Erickson, now working as a counselor at Echo Glen youth facility in Snoqualmie. “I get pulled this way and then they tell me something else. Just tell me what it is and let me do whatever it takes.”

Even if it’s the worst-case scenario?

“It’s a conundrum, but I think at this point I wouldn’t even care,” she said. “When I was told I had 10 years, I don’t think it can get any worse than that. But just when you think that, maybe it could.

“That was the lowest for me, but it’ll be a year this month I was told that. I’m sure the day will come up and I’ll be, hmm, I wonder if I do have nine years left now?”

She’s far too young to fret about that ticking clock. Far too fun to face this sort of pain. Far too strong to feel so vulnerable.

Friends and former UW teammates have rallied to her cause, helping form a Melissa Erickson Foundation (melissaerickson.org) that will hold a fundraiser Saturday night at Jabu’s Pub in Seattle from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., with a portion of all food and drink sales helping pay for medical treatment and support.

She’s happy for the help, but humbled at the same time. She hopes any extra money received eventually can be turned over to another cause once she gets better herself because, well, to think anything else would be giving in to a disease she’s not ready to fully adopt.

This all seems too sudden for a young woman who was playing professional basketball in Portugal just three years ago, when she first started noticing weakness in her legs.

At the time, Erickson figured she must be getting older and needed to train harder. Instead, she discovered after returning to the U.S. that something was attacking the muscles in her lower body.

Her hidden foe slowly stole her ability to play basketball, her lifelong crutch. Now she’s to the point where walking is difficult and going to the gym too painful for a whole different reason.

“I hate the reminder of what I once was,” she said.

But as the body weakens, the mind adapts. Perspectives shift. Focuses change.

“It’s made me think about each day as one day,” Erickson said. “Not one week or one year. Just each day. And I definitely don’t care what people think about me any more. I value my family and relationships so much now. Friendships are my medicine. They’re what heals me.”

In college, she was the Husky who often butted heads with authority. As a member of Daugherty’s first UW recruiting class in 1997, she was the one who didn’t work quite as hard, didn’t study quite as much, didn’t worry about staying out a little late.

“She was the one always getting into a little trouble,” said teammate Sarah Duncan, now an Everett attorney. “It was good trouble, not bad. You could always rely on Mo for a good laugh. She did well in school, but the rest of us were nerds, brainiacs, and Mo had more of a social life.

“I always enjoyed her as a teammate and we were close, but now as she’s going through this, we’ve grown to a maturity level where we love each other. It’s amazing how the whole class has pulled together.”

When Erickson was first given 10 years to live, she collapsed on her bed in an apartment she then shared with former teammate Kirsten Brockman, older sister of UW men’s standout Jon Brockman.

It was a rugged first year of acceptance and denial; the fight both physical and mental.

	Melissa Erickson calls for a loose ball recovered by Huskies teammate LeAnne Sheets in a 2001 home game against USC.

“Kirsten has always been a person with such positive strength,” Erickson said. “Whenever the devil in the back of my head was saying, ‘Give up, it’s hopeless,’ I had her as my angel on the other shoulder saying, ‘You are not a quitter. You’ve never quit before. Don’t quit now.’

“I’ve got lots of angels around me.”

Her mom and dad recently moved to Duvall from their longtime home in Colorado. Her older sister works at Echo Glen with her. Teammates and friends keep her going, even though she no longer parties like old times because alcohol slows her already-sluggish body.

She admits to slipping toward depression at times, but a two-week treatment program at Sanoviv Medical Institute in Mexico in September bolstered her outlook. Duncan, her pragmatic former teammate, said Erickson tended to get down on herself as an athlete, but has been much more positive as a patient.

“I think I’d have broken down a long time ago and said I can’t take this,” Duncan said. “I’ve never seen that with Mo. This has been a real gut check for her and she’s handling it better than anybody I can imagine.”

Erickson, who missed much of her senior seasons both in high school and college with knee injuries, draws on her athletic background for strength. She remembers playing basketball, trailing by 15 points, but knowing a couple of buckets, a forced turnover or two and suddenly momentum has shifted back.

She’s looking for that positive flow now, hoping that good days will lead to more. Thinking the chiropractic treatments and naturopathic medicines might ignite a breakthrough. Figuring there’s nothing to lose when the alternative is watching your body slowly give way.

But reality is harsh and Erickson finds herself accepting things now that seemed intolerable before, like the handicapped-parking pass in her car and the need to lean on friends for comfort and care.

She falls more now, losing balance and pride at the worst possible times.

“I feel like one of those ladies with the beeper on saying, ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,’ ” she said with a wry laugh. “It’s been such a humbling experience. Being as independent as I always have been and now always having to ask for help? It sucks.

“This has definitely been a teeter-totter of a battle that I never, ever thought I’d have in my life. It left me in shock, the normal ‘why me?’ and “what’s going on?’ stuff. There are no answers for that.

“But you know what?” she said. “I’ve always thought there are miracles out there. And I think I’m going to get one of them.”

If she does, there’s a half-marathon in her future. But regardless, Melissa Erickson has come to one realization.

For her, life now is about putting one foot ahead of the other. One step at a time. Surrounded by friends to help catch her if she falls.

HOW TO HELP

WHAT: Melissa Erickson fundraiser; a percentage of proceeds from food and drink purchases goes to the Melissa Erickson Foundation.

WHEN/WHERE: Saturday, 5 p.m.-2 a.m., Jabu’s Pub, Lower Queen Anne, 174 Roy St., Seattle

ALSO: Donations accepted at Melissa Erickson Foundation, c/o Sarah Duncan, Adams, Johnson & Duncan, Inc., 3128 Colby Ave., Everett WA 98201, or visit melissaerickson.org

Generally this denial of science is more easy for me to understand than the denial of evolution we discussed yesterday. I understand the fear and inability to comprehend let alone begin dealing with the magnitude of the problem. Really, consider the point of those that don’t believe that man contributes to global warming. How do you even begin the dealing with a problem of this magnitude? It is huge. Everyone drives, companies dump raw wastes etc etc. How do you fix all of that without harming the economy? This is compounded when you consider the fact that the Earth does not care about our artificial borders and so any valid effort would require global participation. If our brethren don’t live by the rules and we do then we would lose our ability to compete in the global economy.

See, I have been listening. I hear these arguments and I think that they are worth debating as we decide the best way to move forward. I am sure that the discussion I intended to have here will turn into that debate in the comments and that is OK. In fact, before I move on, I will take the opening shot. Imagine a world where we can’t grow crops because 2/3rd of the currently habitable world looks like it should be on a Sally Struthers show. What the hell do you think that will do to the economy?

What I don’t understand is the out and out denial of scientific evidence just because it does not suit one’s model of the world. Climatology is basically rocket science or brain surgery. It is complicated stuff and the intricate science involved is way above my lunch. I don’t trust one them at face value though, and I would not ask you to. However, when you have 99% of them moving towards the same conclusion using independent, verifiable, reviewed and validated methodology, who am I to say otherwise? When the vast majority of scientists in a particular field have concurred on a central fact, I have a tendency to trust them because I have an understanding of the scientific method. The only way that I can ‘debunk’ an accepted theory is to show that it is wrong using the scientific method. Why is the burden of proof on me? Because when the theory was growing legs, the burden of proof was on those that put forth the hypotheses in the first place.

Let’s go over the scientific method. Have you ever been to the city on a still summer afternoon around 5:30 pm and seen the could of carbon covering the city? Do you think that stuff has no effect? Now note that the more densely people are clustered the more polluted it is. These are not scientific fact though, they are only my anecdotal observations. That is how the scientific method begins, a simple observation. You ask yourself the question “Do these auto emissions contribute to global warming?” The next step would be to collect some data, look at trends and develop your hypothesis. In this case: Auto emission contribute to global warming. From there, you have to experimentally prove or disprove the hypothesis. Your experimental methods have to be documented, observable, reproducible. Now you can review what you have and form a hypotheses to explain the phenomena you have documented. Then you write about what you have done with copious amounts of details. Your work is reviewed by a panel of your peers and if they find merit it will be published. If further evidence backs your work, it will gain consensus. If further evidence disproves your work, it will be rejected.

You see, it is a rigorous process. While it is not perfect, it is a damn good system. Sure you can show examples where the occasional fraud has published a paper, but I think these exceptions go towards proving the rule.

While the biggest objections to man’s contribution to global warming have come from industry and a certain political party that may or may not be in bed with industry. I expected that, it really is a economic and lifestyle issue. What I did not expect was that it too would become a religious issue. Yesterday the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest protestant denomination in America, approved a resolution questioning the science behind man’s role in global warming.

Southern Baptists approved a resolution on global warming Wednesday that questions the prevailing scientific belief that humans are largely to blame for the phenomenon and also warns that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor.

I have to ask, how many climatologist were part of this drafting and what is the point?

There are many policies from the right that I accept and there are many that I take exception with. Almost all of them are debatable. For instance, I can debate the easy topics like free market manipulation, education funding, gay rights, the virtue of the UN, the war on terror and the like. I can even debate the tough subjects that have no good answers, like abortion. Often the key points in these debates are just a matter of degree or nuance and I get the feeling that each of us are able to see where the other guy is coming from.

What I don’t understand is the denial of ‘facts’ and distrust of the scientific method, especially when it might conflict with dogmas of religion. The one that strikes me the hardest is the denial of evolution. According to this Harris Poll, rejection of evolutionary science went up about 8% in the decade between 1994 and 2004. What does that mean? Has the science gotten weaker? No.

This is most often framed as a religious issue, though it does not have to be. Yes, the poll numbers show that the more religious you are the more likely you are to reject evolution. They also show that the more educated that you are, the more likely you are to believe in evolution. That does not mean that you are ’stupid’ if you don’t believe in evolution and it also does not mean that you are not religious if you do believe in evolution. The polls also show that democrats tend to believe in evolution at a higher rate than republican. This could actually be a reflection of the religious affiliations or of the educational background.

I like facts, so let us frame this as a fact based argument instead of religious or political dogma. Evolution is not a theory people, it is a fact. It is observable, quantifiable, repeatable and even predictable using complex models. We know that creatures evolve, though we don’t understand all the mechanisms. While the mechanisms are still theoretical, that says nothing about the process. We don’t know exactly how tornadoes work, but we sure as hell know they exist.

The question I have posited here is simple really. Why trust the science that helps people (medical, chemistry, industrial etc etc) but one that conflicts with a dogma that offers no proof is rejected out of hand? I have read the bible and I fail to find where evolution is in conflict. I would think that a God that is omnipotent could make a system that is alive, vibrant and has the ability to change.

Below the fold (click the ‘Read the rest of this entry’ link below ) I have pasted the facts of the matter. You can read the whole consensus document [PDF] here.

We agree that the following evidence-based facts about the origins and evolution of the Earth and
of life on this planet have been established by numerous observations and independently derived
experimental results from a multitude of scientific disciplines. Even if there are still many open
questions about the precise details of evolutionary change, scientific evidence has never
contradicted these results:

Read the rest of this entry »