Steve Kirsch Wants to Do Parent Surveys to Find the Cause of Autism

Can you guess why Steve Kirsch’s idea to do parent surveys to find the cause of autism won’t work?

“We could easily and quickly find the cause if we funded four independent research groups to do parent surveys. I bet all four groups would find the same cause. Having four groups do their own study means we have replication, which is key to finding truth.”

For just $100K, we could instantly know what causes autism. It's a $500 billion/yr problem.

No, it is not simply because he is typically wrong when he posts anything about surveys, vaccines, or autism…

Steve Kirsch Wants to Do Parent Surveys to Find the Cause of Autism

It’s because studies have looked at parent reports and surveys before.

The studies found problems with the parent reports, including that they were “subject to problems of memory and interpretation” and “forward telescoping.”

“Why don’t these scientific studies just do a parent survey on timing of the obvious behaviors and vaccination?”

For just $100K, we could instantly know what causes autism. It's a $500 billion/yr problem.

These problems were confirmed by home video studies, which found “poor correspondence between onset classifications made by parent report and trajectory analysis of home videos.”

“Less than half of participants (9 of 20) whose home video displayed clear evidence of a major decline in social-communication behavior were reported to have had a regression by parents. Similarly, only 8 of 20 participants with evidence of early delays in social-communication and little evidence of skill decline on video were reported as having an early onset pattern by parents. Of the 10 parents who described a plateau in development, only 3 had home video trajectories consistent with such a pattern.”

Onset patterns in autism: correspondence between home video and parent report

And anyway, surveys, because they are prone to biases, are at the bottom of the evidence hierarchy.

Biases that Kirsch gives a clear example of in his post.

“At the recent Autism Health Summit, VSRF staffers talked to 20 parents at random. All attributed their child’s autism to the vaccines. 100%.”

For just $100K, we could instantly know what causes autism. It's a $500 billion/yr problem.

With speakers such as RFK Jr, Peter McCullough, Brian Hooker, and Del Bigtree, can you guess which parents attend the Autism Health Summit?

That’s right, parents who think that vaccines are associated with autism!

It’s like asking people at a Taylor Swift concert if they like Taylor Swift…

Oh, there is also the fact that plenty of studies have been done and have shown that vaccines are not associated with autism.

Autism is mostly genetic, with some environmental influences.

That’s not to say that parent reports aren’t important to help get kids diagnosed as early as possible. That’s where they are useful, but they won’t work as Kirsch wants them to.

References

Ozonoff S, Iosif AM, Young GS, Hepburn S, Thompson M, Colombi C, Cook IC, Werner E, Goldring S, Baguio F, Rogers SJ. Onset patterns in autism: correspondence between home video and parent report. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2011 Aug;50(8):796-806.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2011.03.012. Epub 2011 Jun 2. PMID: 21784299; PMCID: PMC3668453.

Sacrey LA, Zwaigenbaum L, Bryson S, Brian J, Smith IM, Roberts W, Szatmari P, Roncadin C, Garon N, Novak C, Vaillancourt T, McCormick T, MacKinnon B, Jilderda S, Armstrong V. Can parents' concerns predict autism spectrum disorder? A prospective study of high-risk siblings from 6 to 36 months of age. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2015 Jun;54(6):470-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2015.03.014. Epub 2015 Mar 28. PMID: 26004662.