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Genetic Linkage

A Necessary Retelling of the Smallpox Vaccine Story

People once feared that small cows would emerge from the arms of vaccinated people. Ignorance about vaccines persists.
A curious confluence of events unfolded January 10. Just hours before President Obama uttered the powerful “science and reason matter” in his farewell address, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the incoming president had tapped him to head a committee on vaccine safety.

RFK Jr. is not a pediatric immunologist nor an epidemiologist, but a vocal "vaccine skeptic". Although the PEOTUS dialed back on the purported appointment shortly after social media erupted, a tweet from March 28, 2014 clarifies the new president’s analysis of the history and science of vaccines:

Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes – AUTISM. Many such cases!  Read More 
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Autism Gene Discovery Recalls Alzheimer’s and BRCA1 Stories

Discovery of a new gene behind autism cleverly combines genetic techniques new and classic.

Autism has been difficult to characterize genetically. It is probably a common endpoint for many genotypes, and is a multifactorial (“complex”) trait. That is, hundreds of genes contribute risk to different degrees, as do environmental factors. Research reports implicate either dozens of genes in genomewide sweeps, or focus on a few genes that encode proteins that act at synapses, such as the < href="https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/grants/neuroligins-and-neurexins-autism-candidate-genes-study-their-association-synaptic-con">neuroligins and neurexins. Read More 
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Prenatal Genetic Testing: When is it "Toxic Knowledge"?

When I was a fetus, I was left alone. My amniotic fluid and chorionic villi were untouched, and I arrived apparently normal, except for a mark on the part of my anatomy where a bullet “directly bit” Forrest Gump.

Perhaps that’s too much information.  Read More 
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