“AutismFreeBrain”? Selling supplements to cure autism

[SidDithers]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/07/30/autismfreebrain-selling-supplements-to-cure-autism/

You might find this hard to believe, but sometimes I find the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism to be useful. Obviously, I don’t find it useful in the same way that its editors think it is useful. Those paragons of the arrogance of ignorance and fetishism of hatred of science-based medicine don’t actually teach me anything about vaccines and autism. The torrents of pseudoscience, quackery, conspiracy mongering, and hostility do, however, serve their purpose. They keep my finger on the pulse of the “autism biomed” movement and what the latest “autism biomed” quackery du jour is. It looks like I just found out too, and I’m amazed. I thought that I had heard of every organization promoting autism quackery. The vast majority, but not all, of them are also rabidly antivaccine, but it’s not just antivaccinationism. Basically, if AoA likes something, the odds of its being based on good science are about as high as the odds of a single molecule of starting remedy being left in a 30C homeopathic solution. AoA is just that reliable when it comes to science.

This time around, AoA introduced me to something called AutismFreeBrain, whose tagline is “breakthrough science for a cure.” Now, whenever I see a phrase like “breakthrough science for a cure” applied to autism, it sets the skeptical antennae a’twitchin’ fast and furious, and there’s a lot on this site to set the frequency of this twitching to “vibrational frequencies” that would make a woo-meister envious. I guess I might as well start right at the beginning. See if you can see what I see in the way of red flags. It begins right on the main page:

Putting an End to Autism by Fighting Brain Immunity Storms™

AutismFreeBrain, Inc. was created to fund innovative research to develop a cure for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Our studies have identified inflammatory processes in the brain, we called Brain Immunity Storms, that are much like an allergic reaction, releasing surges of molecules that disrupt areas of the brain responsible for emotion and language.

First of all, whenever you see a website like this asserting that neuroinflammation is, in essence, the be-all and end-all of the pathogenesis of autism, you know that there’s likely to be some mighty fine woo there. There’s no doubt that there have been studies suggesting an association of markers of inflammation with autism, but the significance of these observations have not been worked out. Not that any of this deters antivaccinationists. As many of you quite correctly pointed out yesterday, the term “inflammation” is a term much beloved and abused by quacks of all stripes, and autism biomeddlers are no exception. This tendency to view autism as an inflammatory condition probably has a lot to do with the general antivaccine leanings of most such practitioners. Basically, inflammation is a convenient means for them to link their two greatest hatreds: vaccines and autism.

More greatness from Orac.

Sid

[Archae]

1. Hucksters. Pure and simple.

And people wonder why I gripe about woo?