Talk:Dan Olmsted
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[edit] Gold salts
Ombudsman, you haven't listed Olmsted's discovery of gold salts yet. JFW | T@lk 05:17, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Dan Schulman
Excerpt from Columbia Journalism Review re: Olmsted: ... UPI senior editor Dan Olmsted’s “Age of Autism” series, which he began late last winter, occupies a file that at this writing is more than an inch thick and growing. He averages two columns a week on the topic. Aside from the Washington Times, though, not a single U.S. paper that Olmsted knows of has run any part of the series. It has, however, been widely disseminated on the Internet. Olmsted, a former assistant national editor at USA Today, found his way into thimerosal through another medical side-effect story. It involved an antimalarial drug called Lariam, which was prescribed to Peace Corps volunteers, travelers to third-world countries, and more recently to U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Olmsted and his UPI colleague Mark Benjamin (now a national correspondent at Salon.com) detailed in an investigation that spanned more than two years, starting in 2002, Lariam, which had been approved by the FDA and recommended by the CDC, also appeared strongly linked to psychosis, including homicidal and suicidal behavior. Partly because of their reporting, the effects of Lariam are now under study by the Pentagon. “If it hadn’t been for Lariam, I don’t think I would have ever thought twice about autism,” Olmsted told me. “With Lariam, CDC officials said many times that there’s absolutely no problem with side effects from this drug, it’s extraordinarily safe. That’s just not true.” Instead of wading directly into the thimerosal controversy, Olmsted approached it, as he puts it, “sideways.” By this he means that after reading what had been written on autism and noticing a relative dearth of material about its origins, he set out to write a natural history of the disorder. Eventually, Olmsted began thinking of ways to test the thimerosal theory. He wondered whether researchers had ever examined the prevalence of autism in an unvaccinated population, such as the Amish. That, it would seem, would be the most likely way to determine whether the vaccine link held water. If the number of autism cases among the unvaccinated mirrored the national average, then it would seem that thimerosal played no role. Olmsted found that though researchers had discussed such a study, none had ever been done. “That’s an expensive study,” he said, “but for a journalist all you have to do is get on the phone and start asking.” After spending weeks searching for cases among the Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he managed to find three children with autism, two of whom had been vaccinated, a rarity in that community. “The cases among the Amish that I’ve identified over the past several weeks appear to have at least one link — a link made of mercury,” Olmsted wrote in a column on May 20, referring to the vaccinated children. “That’s not something I expected to encounter.” Looking at other large Amish populations in the Midwest, such as those in Middlefield, Ohio, and Goshen, Indiana, Olmsted found similarly low autism rates. He admits that his findings are not scientific. “I could be getting a completely wrong impression from what I’m finding, but it’s interesting,” Olmsted told me. Interesting enough to get the attention of members of Congress, including Representative Dave Weldon of Florida and Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut; officials at the Department of Health and Human Services; and researchers, including Mady Hornig, the Columbia epidemiologist, who now hopes to devise a study looking at the Amish. Privately, two reporters told me that, while intriguing, Olmsted’s reporting on the Amish is misguided, since it may simply reflect genetic differences among an isolated gene pool (Hornig, however, said that a study on the Amish may still be valuable should the prevalence of autism in that community indeed be low, allowing researchers to study the genetics of people who are not susceptible to the disorder). Both reporters believed that Olmsted has made up his mind on the question and is reporting the facts that support his conclusions. “I’ve just tried to find a way to get into this that adds something to the debate and is original,” Olmsted said.
So, two anonymous reporters thought Olmsted’s reporting on the Amish is misguided, since the paucity of autistic spectrum diagnoses may simply reflect genetic differences in an isolated gene pool. That doesn't sound much like Olmsted was trying to conduct scientific research himself, as the latest edit to the Wiki article alleges. The Columbia Journalism Review writer quotes two anonymous sources who cast doubt upon Olmsted (while carefully making sure CJR itself doesn't appear unkind to Olmsted). The gist of the article is summed up by another anonymous source, who reveals a great deal about the hierarchical caste system of mainstream media, by invoking the term untouchable with regard to the potentially catastrophic consequences of daring to write about the thimerosal debacle. The article also portrays New York Times writers as both two faced and as having written a heavily one sided story, The real take home message about Olmsted from the CJR, in stark contrast to the dubious allegation, would seem to be that "not a single U.S. paper that Olmsted knows of has run any part of the (Age of Autism) series", despite the fact his investigative reports have been "widely disseminated on the Internet." In other words, similar to the transparent attempts at deleting content critical of mainstream medical dogma wholesale within the Wiki, the mainstream media has been allergic to the facts surrounding the autism epidemic. Ombudsman 03:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC) ps: Thanks for sharing the link to the article...
- You're welcome. I thought the article should be NPOV. What is the source of your assertion that covering the "thimerosal controversy" makes one a journalistic pariah? This is not reflected at all by the Schulman article but your own assertion. It is written by an individual and in no way purports to be the opinion of a large group of people.
- I have remarked in the past (on Talk:Homefirst Health Services) that Olmsted's research is of the dilettante variety, paying no attention to basic epidemiological principles on sample size, null hypothesis, possible confounders (both amongst the Amish and the Homefirst cohort, and likely the Olympia cohort just the same) and replicability of diagnosis. Those are legitimate criticisms and they are not necessarily the result of bias on behalf of Schulman or his anonymous sources (which he is protecting, like a good journalist should).
- I wish you would stop ranting about "mainsteam medical dogma" etc etc. This is annoying, distracting, and actually uncivil. JFW | T@lk 17:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Employment connections
I've seen Olmsted's articles in some online sources and corresponded with him several times. He comes across as civil and reasonable, willing to listen to other's opinions, if not agree. I do have a concern, and likely this is unfair, about his employers, since both WT and UPI are part of the Moon Sun Myung empire. Is anyone aware whether that organization holds a position official or otherwise on vaccination? --Dan 20:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
