Ethyl alcohol (ethanol) widely consumed. You may experience a wide variety of effects at small doses but adapt rapidly to the point where you can adapt to large doses.

Methyl alcohol. Very much more likely to kill you in doses as low as teaspoons.

Alcohol v. methanol (wood alcohol).

The same difference between ethylmercury and methylmercury. You can not extrapolate from methylmercury to ethylmercury.

To paraphrase Father Ted on the issue of perspective: “these cows are near. Those (gestures to field) are far away. Near. Far away”.

Holford doesn’t specify which report on the site shows that secretin is worth considering. What I have seen, though, does not fill me with confidence as to their research quality.

For example, The Institute have come up with an impressively novel excuse (I can’t bring myself to say ‘hypothesis’) as to why secretin is shown to be an ineffective autism treatments in double-blind RCTs: a “negative placebo effect“. I was trying to get a sense of the Institute’s response to the trials which show secretin to be ineffective, but the closest thing I could find was a letter from Rimlaud.

One more nugget from the Institute’s website that I think is worth posting: they do discuss safety concerns about secretin. While trying to argue in favour of its use, the Institute’s article states that: “It is possible that the problems described above [when secretin was administered] may not be caused by secretin but instead by the panic and stress experienced by a child who is held down by adults while an IV needle is inserted.” I hope I’m not alone in finding the idea of a child being caused considerable distress – by being held down so that an IV dose of an ineffective drug could be administered – rather disturbing.

I could have done some kind of survey of the Institute’s research – but it already feels as if this ‘research’ has been using my eyeballs as a tool to beat me over the head. And, to be honest, if Holford doesn’t go to the effort of referring to which part of the Institute’s (big, hard to navigate) website supposedly backs up his view, I can’t be bothered to inflict reading this whole website on myself.

One more thing re. the Institute – the article they carry on how autism is a type of mercury poisoning is a wonderfully Orwellian attempt to ignore the inconvenient facts about these two conditions. The table explaining how the symptoms of autism are the same as the symptoms of mercury poisoning, in particular, would be rather funny, if these people weren’t advocating certain ‘treatments’ for children. Off-topic, I know, but the article is such a classic I thought it would be worth sharing…