Story Landis resigns from autism committee - October 20, 2009
Posted for Meredith Wadman
The chief of neurological research at the US National Institutes of Health resigned abruptly on Saturday (17 October) from a pan-government committee coordinating autism research, after an Internet newspaper, Age of Autism, posted handwritten notes she left behind after a 30 September committee meeting.
Story Landis, the director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, had questioned in the notes whether one parent on the committee, [Lyn Redwood] “is pushing autism as [a] multisystem disorder to feed into vaccine injury”.
In her letter of resignation, first reported by The Huffington Post, Landis apologized for “unprofessional” behaviour and said “I understand how my comments triggered frustration and anger” in the autism community.
Image: NIH
Comments
This is truly a sad day for the autism community. Rather than work within the system, some of the "activists" decided that intimidation tactics must be used on the IACC.
As a bit of irony, these activists got someone to quit the IACC who was sympathetic to allowing the very research they are lobbying for.
Posted by: Sullivan | October 21, 2009 12:26 AM
As an Autism mom of a severely vaccine injured child I support Story Landis in her resignation. I think she showed grace and honor not evident in her colleagues on the IACC. I also think the notes found on the floor were a conversation among several IACC members and she took the fall for them. They should have spoken up. I also think that the tone of the notes speaks to the climate of the IACC which is set by Tom Insel. This climate distorts the pain of Autism parents as greed, invalidates our experiences of our children's medical problems which we deal with on the ground every day, and adds to the growing ugly discourse between those who believe vaccines haven't been properly researched for safety and those who feel they have. I will be thrilled to hear that Tom Insel has stepped down. His leadership has been disgracefully ineffective and on the backs of such vulnerable children and families in such stark pain and circumstances.
Posted by: alison macneil | October 21, 2009 02:42 AM
To Sullivan: autism parents have been trying VERY hard to work within the system. They have been knocking on the door of the system for years, and have been turned down again and again and again and again and again.
The main and only reason the parents are outraged is that the system, including IACC, have been ignoring and patronising them.
And by the way, Landis NEVER EVER openly expressed sympathy for the kind of research that parents are pleading for. Not until the day before her resignation. It would be very interesting indeed to hear why she had kept those views to herself for years!!!
Do come forward, Dr Landis. We are dying to hear from you.
Posted by: Natasa | October 21, 2009 02:48 PM
I suffer from Asperger Syndrome. I was born in 1956, well before the MMR vaccine was even thought of, and the quantity of mercury in any vaccines I did receive was almost vanishingly small - too small to make any conceivable difference.
The problem is that the symptoms of severe autism do not appear straightaway, so parents get the idea that there is nothing wrong with their child. Then the child is vaccinated, and the symptoms appear. Ergo, it 'must' have been the vaccine that 'caused' the autism. It is entirely understandable why parents should make this mistake, but it doesn't make them right.
Autism spectrum disorders are genetic in origin, some resulting from specific alleles in nuclear DNA, others from variants in mtDNA. The idea that autism has anything to do with vaccination is just mythology, I'm afraid, and it's pernicious mythology, at that, insofar as it's stopping parents from having their children inoculated against diseases there is no need for them to contract.
Posted by: Richard Blaber | October 21, 2009 03:16 PM
"And by the way, Landis NEVER EVER openly expressed sympathy for the kind of research that parents are pleading for."
To be accurate, you should state "some" parents are pleading for this research. I am a parent and I am not pleading for this research.
Secondly, Dr. Landis was open to discussing the subject, having chaired an IACC panel which included significant discussion on vaccines
http://iacc.hhs.gov/events/2009/scientific_workshop/docs/calls/sw_p3c2_20090924_call_summary.pdf
You can read this comment "Dr. Landis recommended focusing a study of vaccinated/unvaccinated children to measure a range of health outcomes, including preventable childhood diseases." in this document.
http://iacc.hhs.gov/events/2009/scientific_workshop/docs/calls/sw_p3c1_20090922_call_summary.pdf
She wasn't keeping her views to herself. She was stating them in public.
Had the bloggers at the Age of Autism (a) been paying attention to these panel discussions and (b) approached Dr. Landis for comment rather than launching a sneak attack, they might have had a clearer vision of what she thought.
Note that being sympthetic to the cause--looking for research to be done--is not the same thing as being sympathetic to the idea that vaccines cause autism.
Posted by: Sullivan | October 22, 2009 12:50 AM