Today in the News (10 May 09)

Welcome to the first real blogging event for Facts, not fantasy. Each day that I am able to get to the computer, I will try to consolidate some news and items about vaccines, autism, evolution, or any of the related subjects that are the focus of this page.

Autism:
This article from The Guardian indicates that many children can overcome autism. That is NOT to say there's a cure, however the children that have a diagnosis of autism do have a chance to overcome the particular hadicaps that autism imposes on them. Granted, it's 1 in 10, so that's not all children. And I would say it's highly dependent on the type of autism the child is diagnosed with.

This article on ABC News indicates that there is a link to brain structure and Autism. They are not sure exactly what it is that causes the brain development to go off kilter like that, but since vaccines CAN'T cross the blood/brain barrier, we can rule that out.

Vaccines:
And as expected, parents who opt not to vaccinate their children are not only a danger to themselves, but other children as well. This is the herd immunity thing. This is exactly what cause an infant in Australia to die from a perfectly preventable disease. Watch the video clip, and if you don't hurt watching it, you can't be human.

People are starting to take note though. Hopefully doctors will make more of an effort to explain the dangers of opting out of vaccines.

Evolution:
As if to highlight why it's important to keep childish superstisions out of schools, and keep teachers reality based, this study shows that just the teacher's attitude can influence someone's view of evolution. I would not put it past the YECs to try to load up actual school science classrooms with their fairy tales.

And to drive home the fact that evolution isn't a simple field of study, try reading this bit of news. Heck, I am a very well educated individual, and I have quite an extensive background in many fields of science, yet I had to do some cross referencing to get the full meaning of that article. Although all the embedded links were quite helpful.

Well, there you have it, today's news.