Archive for June, 2005

Autism - Mercury Connection & the Medical Establishment

Posted June 25, 2005 * Comments(0)

As parents of a child with autism, my wife and I struggle with therapies and treatments. One promising line of attack is biomedical treatments and dietary modifications; we have found promise in these for our son.

NY Times has published an article [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/science/25autism.html?ex=1120363200&en=72b7420ebae0d3b3&ei=5070&emc=eta1 ]On Autism’s Cause, It’s Parents vs. Research[/url] (subscription required) pretty much calling these treatments junk science, questioning their value, and attacking the premise that mecury in vaccines (containing the preservative Thimerosal) had anything do with the epidemic of autism seen in the last 15 years, where its incidence has increased over 10-fold.

The medical establishment is solidly united in calling this connection junk science. Two years ago, when I first heard about the mercury/autism hypothesis, I naively accepted the establishment wisdom. But the more I read the accumulating evidence, the more I am persuaded that there may indeed be a connection that requires thorough investigation.

The NY Times article does a totally one-sided demolition job. They intereview and quote many establishment scientists, and they portray the other side as emotion-driven, scientifically illiterate parents, almost dismissing all the non-establishment doctors and scientists working on the mercury-autism connection as crackpots or worse, questioning their integrity.

They approvingly quote one of the establishment scientists:

Quote:

“It’s really terrifying, the scientific illiteracy that supports these suspicions,” said Dr. Marie McCormick, chairwoman of an Institute of Medicine panel that examined the controversy in February 2004.

Yet, the other side is portrayed, without even naming any names,


Quote:
Experts say they are also concerned about a raft of unproven, costly and potentially harmful treatments - including strict diets, supplements and a detoxifying technique called chelation - that are being sold for tens of thousands of dollars to desperate parents of autistic children as a cure for “mercury poisoning.”

In one case, a doctor forced children to sit in a 160-degree sauna, swallow 60 to 70 supplements a day and have so much blood drawn that one child passed out.

Hundreds of doctors list their names on a Web site endorsing chelation to treat autism, even though experts say that no evidence supports its use with that disorder. The treatment carries risks of liver and kidney damage, skin rashes and nutritional deficiencies, they say.

Very balanced, right?

Tearful Farewell to Govind

Posted June 13, 2005 * Comments(0)

Today is one of the saddest days for us at AdventNet and at vtiger. Govind, a dear friend and colleague of ours, died in a car accident near Chennai, India; he was 29. The accident happened just 2 days after he got married. He leaves behind his wife Sunitha, his parents, two sisters and grand parents. Our heart-felt condolences to them.

In his short life, Govind shone as an outstanding software engineer, with amazing leadership skills. He was versatile, able to move across technologies and domains with ease. We were truly fortunate to have known him, and to have worked with him. We will sorely miss his can-do spirit and his infectious optimism.

It is a tragic reminder for all of us to practice driving safety. Govind was driving long distance, late at night, when he was very tired, after several days of poor sleep and the hard work and excitement of the wedding. A momentary lapse in concentration proved so deadly. A life with so much promise was cruelly snatched from us.

Govind, may you rest in peace. We will miss you, dear friend.

Supercomm (and why I hate tradeshows)

Posted June 10, 2005 * Comments(0)

We just got back from Supercomm in Chicago, where we had a booth. We had decent traffic, and this year, the telecom industry seems to finally coming out of the long nuclear winter, so the mood was optimistic. But on balance, I believe there are better ways to spend marketing money, to people who treat you like a customer, not as prey.

I now realize why companies are shying away from tradeshows, and prefer to spend their marketing budgets elsewhere (Google?).

First the absolute arrogance of the people who set up the booth. Not only do they feel nothing about yelling at paying (as in “paying extorbitant prices̶ ;) customers; on top of that, there are all these rules like “No, you can’t plug-in the monitor yourself, you have to employ our staff at $50 for 30 minutes” kind of thing.

And Supercomm positions itself as the leading telecommunications show. Guess what they charge for internet connectivity to a booth? Upwards of $7000 - yes, that is no typo, it is SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. It is fair to say that if that price were divided by 100, they would still make money on the deal.

I know tradeshow industry has gone through a serious round of bankruptcies and consolidation, but if this is the kind of bitter taste they leave in the mouth of paying customers, they are not going to have very many of them for very long.

Yeah, the show itself was good for us. But I wonder whether paying this much money and then going through this much aggravation is worth it ultimately, in the Google era we live in.