The Vaccination Decision: Vaccines and Autism
Once again this week we are talking about vaccination. So far, we’ve covered the pros and some of the cons. But the biggest con by far, the potential link between vaccines and autism, warranted a blog post all on its own.
The sheer amount of news stories, studies, interviews, and papers released on this topic to date is nothing short of mind-numbing. As is the amount of finger-pointing, contradictions, and paranoia that exists on both sides of the debate. For every study that you find that either proves or disproves the connection between vaccines and autism, you will find a laundry list of concerns regarding the way the studies were set up and who funded them.
Complicating the issue further is the possibility that, the link between autism and vaccines (if there is one) may not be clear cut. Its entirely possible that vaccines may trigger autism in children who are “genetically susceptible” to the disease. Its also possible that it is not any one vaccine (or vaccine component) that can be linked to autism, but rather the fact that so many vaccines are given in so short a time, that may cause trigger the onset of autism.
In other words, regardless of your stance on the vaccine/autism issue, there is no shortage of information to support and/or refute your claim. Here are some links where you can find more details about vaccines and autism.
Pro-Vaccine: There is no link between vaccines and autism
- CDC: “The weight of the evidence indicates that vaccines are not associated with autism.”
- American Academy of Pediatrics:”there is no scientifically proven link between measles vaccination and autism.”
- Dr. Paul Ofitt, Director, Vaccine Education Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: “Studies of 1) the genetics of autism, 2) the timing of the first symptoms of autism (home-movie studies), 3) the relationship between autism and the receipt of the MMR vaccine, 4) the histopathology of the central nervous system of children with autism, and 5) thalidomide, natural rubella infection, fragile X syndrome, and tuberous sclerosis all support the fact that autism occurs during development of the central nervous system early in utero.” (From Vaccines and Autism)
- FDA: “There is no link between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine or the vaccine preservative thimerosal, according to a report released by the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Immunization Safety Review Committee.”
- National Institutes of Health: To date there is no definite, scientific proof that any vaccine or combination of vaccines can cause autism.”
Anti-Vaccine: There is a strong link between vaccines and autism
- K.N.O.W. Vaccines (Kids Need Options With Vaccines): “The strong correlation between autism and vaccine history becomes even more credible when the disease characteristics for both autism and mercury poisoning are compared.”
- Autism Research Institute: List of studies linking thimerosal and/or the MMR vaccine to autism: Part I and Part II.
- Evidence of Harm: 2005 book identifies a possible link between thimerosal and rising rates of autism.
- Generation Rescue: Jenny McCarthy’s organization that researches the causes and treatments for autism.
- Adventures in Autism: The blog of Ginger Taylor, and “autism mom” who writes about “news and commentary on the autism epidemic and my beautiful boy who is living with autism.”
Is your head spinning yet? Now consider these two recent headlines in the vaccine/autism debate:
March 2008: The Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation concluded that in the case of Hannah Poling (an eight year girl whose parents believe her autism was caused by vaccines,) an underlying illness that had predisposed her to symptoms of autism was “significantly aggravated” by the vaccinations she received as a toddler and that her family should therefore be compensated.
Feburay 1, 2009: A new study published in the journal, Clinical Infectious Diseases, finds “there is no correlation between vaccines and autism.”
And so we’re back to square one.
Photo: “Artism: art for Autism” by ciah ciah.
This is a very, very heated (and diffuclt) debate. Both of my children are on the autism spectrum and so for the past 2.5 years, I’ve read everything I can get my hands on about the vaccine/autism debate. I know that a lot of people are wanting to differentiate between autistic-like symptoms that arise from heavy metal/mercury poisoning and “true autism” which is difficult to do.
I know of mommas who have never vaccinated their child, have never been vaccinated themselves and had intervention and drug free pregnancies/homebirths but still have a child with autism. I also know other mommas who have had their child regress significantly after receiving vaccines so as you said at the end, we’re back to square one.
In the case of my kiddos, my vote goes for a genetic predisposition to autism/Asperger’s syndrome.
Well actually there is no genetic cause. A genetic cause to autism was searched for and not found. Even more interesting is that with identical twins, one may have severe autism and the other twin may be perfectly normal. Meaning that conditions in the womb and genetics cannot account for autism. Although it is possible that vaccines could turn on a autism gene or turn off another gene that helps to regulate how the body functions in numerous ways. Viruses can cause this gene regulation. So can hormones and numerous other environmental factors. So vaccines could cause autism in one child and a child whose mom consumed too much tuna during pregnancy could cause another child to be autistic. Or the strain of the virus in the vaccines itself could cause this neurological damage as seen in the past with certain flu epidemics where people exposed became catatonic.
However the last study mentioned did not find autism was not caused by vaccines or a series of vaccines. It simply found that earlier data showing the MMR vaccine virus strain in the digestive systems of autistic children was inaccurate. That is far from proving that autism is not caused by or made worse by vaccines.
I hope you will cover the latest from the UK:
Andrew Wakefield, the UK physician who first claimed a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, fabricated most of his data.
The most in-depth review is at Science-Based Medicine.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=370
Antivaccine hero Andrew Wakefield: Scientific fraud?
Published by David Gorski under Science and the Media, Vaccines
Comments: 11
Pity poor Andrew Wakefield.
Actually, on second thought, Wakefield deserves no pity at all. After all, he is the man who almost single-handedly launched the scare over the MMR vaccine in Britain when he published his infamous Lancet paper in 1998 in which he claimed to have linked the MMR vaccine to regressive autism and inflammation of the colon, a study that was followed up four years later with a paper that claimed to have found the strain of attenuated measles virus in the MMR in the colons of autistic children by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It would be one thing if these studies were sound science. If that were the case, then Wakefield’s work would have been very important and would have correctly cast doubt on the safety of the MMR. Unfortunately, they were not, and, indeed, most of the authors of the 1998 Lancet paper later withdrew their names from it.
I’ve done another round-up post — who is saying what about the Deer articles on Wakefield in the London Times.
11 years on, Wakefield Manufactured Data showing MMR-Autism Link?
I have a dear friend from my husband’s family practice residency days with two autistic children…and he vaccinates kids! That speaks very loudly to me!!!
I just read a study done by the IATP that states there is mercury in high fructose corn syrup.
Could this be a cause of rising autism? Isn’t that why some people say that vaccines cause autism? Because of the mercury? I don’t know if mercury will cause autism but here is some more information on the study I found: http://blog.calorie-help.com/2009/02/09/high-fructose-corn-syrup-andautism/
And so we’re back to square one.
Are you kidding? I hope to god you’re kidding.
Look at who is on the “there’s no link side” - the CDC; the American Academy of Pediatrics; an academic pediatrician vaccine specialist at the best pediatrics hospital in the country; the FDA; and the NIH.
On the other side: a northern Florida non-profit run by a Toni Krehel, AP; the Autism Research Institute; a non-peer reviewed book; Jenny McCarthy and her organization; and a personal blog by a non-scientist.
On one side, that is, you have the entirety of all the opinions of all mainstream science and medicine in this country; and on the other you have a couple of people, half of whom have no training or credentials of any kind.
If you are truly going to throw up your hands and say, well, there’s no way of knowing, then you should stop blogging on this subject entirely. There is NO CONTROVERSY HERE: and you are hurting people by pretending that there is one.
If you read mainstream medicine’s “Bible” - the Merck Manual, you will learn that the vast majority of diseases have no known cause. When you have no cause, all you have left is treatment. Treatments make more money than finding the cause. Mainstream medicine does not want to find the cause of autism especially if it related to vaccines or antibiotics. Isn’t it interesting that we can send men into space, send minute cameras into the body, look at live blood, but we have no idea what causes autism, allergies, ADHD, or asthma? There is big money to make treating people for life. Medicine has become BIG business instead of about really healing people. It is only a grassroots movement that will find the cause or cure for most diseases. So, yes, I will definitely listen to “a couple of people, half of whom have no training or credentials”, before I will listen to the FDA, CDC, Academy of Pediatrics, or NIH - because the credentials mean they only think within the allowed box of mainstream medicine.