Autism Vox

70 opinions for It’s Not the Vaccines

• Cat M
  Mar 20, 2008 at 3:35 am

  I just want to say I agree with you on this issue. I was frustrated with the media hype surrounding this isolated case, because it only serves to cement in some people’s minds that vaccines cause autism, when all evidence is to the contrary. Putting money into helping families with autism could improve a lot of lives much sooner. I would love to be able to afford to put my 6th grader in a school that teaches in accordance with how he best learns. I know he would do well and be far less stressed. This certainly means more to me than identifying the cause.

• Val
  Mar 20, 2008 at 3:52 am

  The media likes to pretend like moms like me don’t exist. I don’t believe in an a urban legend that won’t remotely help my child.

• kal
  Mar 20, 2008 at 9:33 am

  How great to see you quoted in Newsweek. I agree with you 100%. In the last week alone two acquaintances with very young children asked me what I thought about vaccines and my boys’ autism. They were worried. Of course I told them what I believe. There will always be people like Kirby fanning the flames. That’s why I’m glad you keep on writing here.

• John Gilmore
  Mar 20, 2008 at 9:36 am

  Perhaps vaccines had nothing to do with your child’s autism. But it certainly did with other children including mine. And I don’t know what the “distraction” discussion of vaccines and autism poses to the other issues we all care about. No federal money is being spent on researching vaccines and autism as was explicitly required by the Combating Autism Act. Nor is Autism Speaks spending any of their research money on vaccines.

  And what makes you think the Poling case is an isolated incident? Rumors are emerging that the CDC is in an absolute panic about the Poling case becuase they know quite well that it is not an isolated case and that the mechanism that causes much of the damage to many kids, vaccine induced mitochodrial disfunction, has now been widely identified. And as the Polings have repeatedly siad, there is no evidence that Hannah Poling had mitochondrial disfunction prior to receiving her vaccines, this is a supposition the Department of Justice is presenting as fact.

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 20, 2008 at 9:45 am

  Rumors come and grow and certainly there have been so many in regard to autism aetiology. There’s so much we can to do in the here and now for the kids who stand before us; kids who need to be taught, understood, and loved in their different ways.

• Thorton
  Mar 20, 2008 at 9:49 am

  Finding the cause (vaccines or not) is as important as treating the currently affected. Fixing the problem is a better long term solution than managing the current situation.

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 20, 2008 at 9:51 am

  @CatM,

  Getting my son—he’s 5th grade age, 10 years and 10 months—into the right school program 2 years ago transformed his life and ours. It’s a great program, well-staffed, and the staff well-trained and supervised—-and I know it’ll only stay great if I and the other parents keep asking questions and trying to make and keep it better, and supporting the teachers and the staff in their work. Charlie used to be tremendously stressed—-threw his shoes out the window of my car en route to his old school once—-he just was not happy and had no other ways to tell us

  @Val, I’m always puzzled to see the phrase “autism advocates” and then read about organizations that continue to state that there is a vaccine-autism link. So much else to discuss.

  @kal, When the Poling case was discussed on Larry King, my MIL started leaving messages on my husband’s voice mail about how all these families were getting all this money from the government because it was found that vaccines cause autism…….so rumors start from a misunderstood information and grow and grow!

• Laura
  Mar 20, 2008 at 10:02 am

  You know, I suspect we all are guided by the best interest of our child. Even those in the biomed community. What separates us is not caring about our children; what separates us is intellectualism and standards of authentication. Yes, that’s an elitist view.

  It’s like astrology. You can look at your horoscope and say “wow that’s me to a tee!” There’s no moral harm in that. It’s just gullible. Similarly, you can look at the proximity in time between when you observed symptoms and the 18 month shots and say, “there’s my culprit!”

• Cindy
  Mar 20, 2008 at 10:20 am

  I certainly can respect the opinion of parents who believe that vaccines played no part in their children’s autism. But honestly, without any rancor or malice intended, I don’t understand why it offends you so much that others of us really do believe that our kids have been injured by vaccines and want some accountability as well as solid, independent research on causes and treatments. Our position doesn’t make us any less interested in quality education, insurance coverage, adult services, etc. The positions aren’t mutually exclusive. I agree whole-heartedly that our kids need to be “taught, understood, and loved in their different ways.” But I also want my daughter to be as healthy as she can be, and I can tell you without equivocation that all the love, attention, and countless hours of education and therapies didn’t help with her sleep disturbances, chronic constipation, recurring infections, gastrointestinal distress, etc. We began biomedical treatment very conservatively and saw encouraging progress almost immediately. As we continue, she becomes healthier and happier, and better able to benefit from OT, speech & language therapy, academics. I’m not trying to change her any more than you are trying to change your children. She’s my beautiful, remarkable, unique, fascinating, and fiercely lovable child who amazes me every day. But if there are any treatments to help her live her best life possible, what’s wrong with seeking that? We can all pursue whichever paths we feel best fit our children and still come together behind the common goals of education and services. I’m not going to attack anyone’s treatment choices, but I don’t understand why others need to challenge mine.

• Morgan
  Mar 20, 2008 at 11:19 am

  “How to find a school program that will actually teach their child and that their child will actually like?”

  I suppose this sort of thing doesn’t excite a lot of passion among the attorneys and scientists, but in my own humble and myopic view, it’s all that really matters.

• John Gilmore
  Mar 20, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  I guess for some people ignorance is bliss. Some people don’t want to know what happened to make their previously healthy children autistic. They will do whatever they can, I suppose, to get whatever they can to directly benefit their own child. But other children? Who cares? What if we can prevent other children from getting autism? The attitude I frequently see is “My kid already has it. What do I care if some other kid gets it.”

  It seems that the preferre tact for those who can’t tolerate any discussion of vaccines is to attack the messnger, David Kirby, In this case, rather that look objectively at the information that is out there. And I challenge anyone on this board to read the transcriptions of the Simpsonwood meeting(it’s all over the net) and say there is no reason to question the role of vaccines in autism causation.

• Cliff
  Mar 20, 2008 at 12:27 pm

  John, that’s needlessly demeaning of Kristina’s point of view. She’s made a consistent, rational argument based on the science and social circumstances surrounding this argument, and it’s not an argument which can be rationally attacked by “I guess for some people ignorance is bliss.”

  Oh, and I’ve read the “Simpsonwood Transcript”. Several of them, in fact, none of which say exactly the same thing. So I’d be appreciative if you could point to a specific transcript, as opposed to the second-hand accounts I keep finding.

  By the way, while I don’t agree with you on the issue, I liked what you wrote, Cindy. I personally think that the focus on vaccines as causing autism is so myopic at the expense of focusing on the education is where it becomes an issue. And while I’ll debate the scientific evidence (kinda, less than most here), so long as the biomedical treatments aren’t dangerous, I have no problem with that kind of treatment. But it’s where some of the immediate issues concerning autistics, such as the right to a decent education, get hidden under a debate of vaccine causation that becomes an issue.

  Cliff

• Regan
  Mar 20, 2008 at 12:55 pm

  Perhaps it’s just the way I’m reading it, but that sounds a little spiteful.
  Not everyone needs to be focussed on the same things; gosh knows there are plenty of areas that our children need assistance in…if education was completely satisfactory there wouldn’t be so many having to move, go to due process, trying to change laws relating to laws, training and ethical treatment, etc.

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 20, 2008 at 1:16 pm

  @John Gilmore,

  It’s been good to hear your views regarding this issue here and I thank you for it. Certainly David Kirby is but one messenger; as it is, he seems to convey only a partial message about the realities of autism. There are a number of posts here about vaccines, mercury, and related topics and I hope these might suggest that there is less “ignorance” here than might be presumed.

  @Morgan,

  “humble and myopic” is how I’m glad to characterize my views, especially after an incident a few weeks ago when I lost one contact lens under my desk and spent the morning teaching one-eyed.

• Leila
  Mar 20, 2008 at 2:39 pm

  It is not true that federal money is not going into vaccine research. There’s been a lot of money invested into research on thimerosal, MMR, autism prevalence pre- and post-removal of thimerosal, etc. Autism research centers all over the country are still investigating the role of thimerosal and any other possible environmental agents and their relationship, if any, to autism. A big federally-funded study called “CHARGE” is looking at a huge number of autistic children and their parents and siblings for any type of environmental marker they’d have in common. So please don’t come with the usual drama-queen argument that there’s not enough attention being paid to the vaccine causation theory. If anything, there’s too much attention devoted to it.

  “Ignorance is bliss”. That’s correct, and the same can be said for people who assume they already know the truth, when there’s not enough solid evidence on the table for them to claim they don’t need to look elsewhere.

  I share Kristina’s exasperation with the lack of attention being paid to educational methods. Autistic people have a different kind of intelligence and there’s not enough research being done for people to learn how to tap into our kid’s potential. I’m sick and tired of having to explain to “experts” about my kid’s learning style, I’m sure he’s not that unique in his amazing gifts and in his deficiencies. Also, more research is necessary into social skills therapies, and mainstream medications that are tailored to the autistic brain.

• Emily
  Mar 20, 2008 at 3:15 pm

  “I guess for some people ignorance is bliss. Some people don’t want to know what happened to make their previously healthy children autistic.”
  Do you really believe this? That parents wouldn’t seek a cause if there were some reasonable path to follow to that cause? I think that emotion has led you to type a blanket dismissal of parents who do not agree with you. Do you really believe that people who don’t find any vaccine “evidence” compelling prefer “ignorance”? Can it not be that having reviewed the evidence, they reached a completely different conclusion from yours? That’s informed, either way (yours or theirs), not ignorant.

  I’m curious about the data you have that demonstrate in your specific situation that vaccines were causative in your child’s autism. Is there anything beyond the temporal association? I can tell you–and you likely already know–that those kinds of associations are notoriously misleading and often arise from a tendency on our parts to magical thinking. I can think of many many examples of similarly misleading “correlations.”

  There is simply nothing in the literature that supports a specific vaccine-autism link, not epidemiologically, mechanistically, or physiologically. Even in Hannah Poling’s case, anyone with knowledge of physiology would say that if the vaccine-induced fever elicited her symptoms, then a virally induced fever would likely have ultimately had the same effect. And I just can’t wrap my mind around the assertion that her mitochondrial disorder was not pre-existing and could have been triggered by the vaccines: HOW? Would the shot have suddenly replaced all of the mitochondria in every single somatic cell of her body with defective organelles in a matter of days? And how is it that her mom–based on what I’ve read in news stories and have not seen denied, so please correct me if I’m wrong–also has defective mitochondria, which is exactly what any biologist would predict in these circumstances, on the likelihood that the disorder is, in fact, heritable? Add to that that any biologist would also predict differing disease phenotypes among family members with a mitochondrial disease, and all signs point clearly to a pre-existing mitochondrial condition in this child. And that just happens also to fit with previous sporadic reports of links between such metabolic–especially OXPHOS–disorders and autism.

  I’ll be happy to wander down other paths of investigation as they appear, but the vaccine pursuit is simply a dead end. I believe that we can distribute resources to different issues that accompany autism, from education to research into mechanisms and causes, but I fundamentally and adamantly do not believe that burning up federal funds on a hypothesis that has not withstood a single controlled test is defensible.

• Autismville
  Mar 20, 2008 at 3:42 pm

  I would like to know what the biology of autism is … not for the purpose of blame. I think we could be more effective in helping Jack if we knew what it was we were dealing with. It’s still such a mystery.

  That said, I love what you wrote …

  “I do try to learn as much as I can. I try to understand as much as I can about autism; about IDEA; about employment and housing options for disabled adults and how in the world these might get funded. I try to understand how the medications Charlie takes work and how to implement the teaching/speech therapy/sensory/relaxing techniques countless of Charlie’s teachers and therapists have taught me. I try to understand autism science and autism pseudoscience.”

  I’m trying too Dr. Chew..

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 20, 2008 at 5:18 pm

  Definitely a continuing education for everyone!

  Charlie’s never been healthier than he is now—-also was a pretty robust baby.

• Christy
  Mar 20, 2008 at 8:19 pm

  I’ve been reading your blog for a few weeks, and it’s certainly provided a much needed counterbalance to the other autism websites I’ve visited, so thank you.

  I’m writing for some advice, if anyone has any to share. I’ve recently become pregnant. (My husband and I had planned to adopt, and so I was on the pill. Oops! Surprise!!) My husband has a 12 year old daughter from a previous marriage who has severe autism and mental retardation. When she was about 18 months old, she had the MMR and that evening had a severe reaction to it. They took her to the emergency room, and by the next day, she had completely regressed, and was not answering to her name or responding to loud noises.

  My husband is terrified of vaccines now, and is trying to “put his foot down” on the issue, begging me to promise never to have our child vaccinated. I understand his fear entirely, but I’m having a hard time deciding whether I share it. On the one hand, there are so many stories like his, of people who watch as their previously “normal” child regresses within days after a vaccine. On the other hand, the evidence linking vaccines to autism seems to be shaky at best. The risk of letting my child go out into the world completely unvaccinated seems irresponsible.

  I think, though, that I’m willing to strike a compromise with my husband: I’ll agree to delay the MMR vaccine until the child is 4 years old, and then make sure that he/she receives a separate inoculation for each disease instead of the big wallop MMR. I understand that this may likely not prevent our child from developing the condition, but if he or she does develop autism, we can concentrate on making his or her life as full as possible, rather than wasting time on regret or blame.

  I feel that I need to say that even if our child develops autism, we are going to love that little bugger with all our hearts, and dedicate ourselves to making sure that he or she has the best education we can provide.

  So, Dr. Chew, if you found yourself pregnant tomorrow, would you take any additional precautions to try to mitigate the risk of your unborn child developing autism?

  Thanks, also, for sharing your story about life with Charlie. You are an amazing family!

• Jill
  Mar 20, 2008 at 9:50 pm

  Christy, I know of a family that has a daughter with autism and they had a younger daughter seven years later without autism. They are now the proud parents of a baby boy (born in December). Perhaps you and your husband can work out a compromise. Maybe skip the Hep B vaccination at birth (if you have no risk of it) and make a vaccination schedule that is suitable for your child. I am very pro-vaccination but even I feel that the vaccination schedule was created to make it convenient for the parents, not was is best for the child. The vaccination schedule is setup at the time you take your baby to a doctor visit. Also, many children are in daycare centers so physicians felt it necessary to get their immunity built up as soon as possible. I honestly do not know if it is possible to break up the MMR shot. My kids never had a period of serious regression and even I feared getting their shots updated so I do understand your husband. As a single mother of two boys with autism, I do hope you and your husband participate and support the mother and daughter as much as possible.

• passionlessDrone
  Mar 20, 2008 at 10:54 pm

  Hi Emily -

  “Is there anything beyond the temporal association?”

  I know a family whose daughter was talking in full setences, had hit every milestone until the day she got multiple vaccinations. She did not say another word for a full year, during which time she was diagnosed as autistic. These people are not crazy, and they did not imagine a sudden, dramatic change in their child. The idea that epidemiology from Denmark proves their childs autism wasn’t caused by vaccines is so absurd, it is hardly to be believed that people would continue to make the argument. By the way, I do not know the Pollings.

  There are likely many, many things that cause the set of behaviors we call autism. There are times that a sentence like ‘Is there anything beyond the temporal association?’ is just as simplistic as one stating that all autism is caused by vaccines.

  “I believe that we can distribute resources to different issues that accompany autism, from education to research into mechanisms and causes, but I fundamentally and adamantly do not believe that burning up federal funds on a hypothesis that has not withstood a single controlled test is defensible”

  I am curious, which, controlled tests have been performed to show that getting nine vaccinations at once has no more impact than having them spaced out? If such a test exists, it should be simple to provide a link.

  Take care!

  - pD

• Emily
  Mar 20, 2008 at 11:22 pm

  pD, that’s still a temporal association. And it would be an enormously rapid developmental effect to have happened in a single day.

  I never asserted that having nine vaccinations at once was wise, so I’m not sure where that came from. Hannah Poling’s parents made that decision in conjunction with their pediatrician for reasons that have been outlined in media stories. It was a real deviation from standard practice, and strangely enough, news stories, at least initially, did not really get into it much. For 18-month-old children, the standard is three shots. The most children are scheduled to receive at one time is six. Personally, I would not have my child receive nine vaccinations on one day, and that would be primarily because of the pain of so many shots. I believe Hannah received five shots that day.

  I realize that the CDC is the 21st-century equivalent to the Illuminati, but they actually do describe the data that are available from controlled studies of multiple vaccinations, and that information is…here comes your link…here:
  http://www.cdc.gov/od/science/iso/concerns/archive/multiplevaccines.htm

  The salient information from this page is, “a number of studies have been conducted to examine the effects of giving various combinations of vaccines simultaneously. These studies have shown that the recommended vaccines are as effective in combination as they are individually, and that such combinations carry no greater risk for adverse side effects. Consequently, both the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend simultaneous administration of all routine childhood vaccines when appropriate.”

  As they point out, we are bombarded daily from birth by innumerable antigens that challenge our immune systems, great numbers of them at a time. The shots carry far fewer than we’d encounter from a single wild-virus sally.

• Emily
  Mar 20, 2008 at 11:23 pm

  And asking the question “Is there anything beyond the temporal association” is a completely legitimate question. Perhaps you are not aware that the best science is done with elegant simplicity.

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 20, 2008 at 11:41 pm

  @Christy,

  You wrote: “So, Dr. Chew, if you found yourself pregnant tomorrow, would you take any additional precautions to try to mitigate the risk of your unborn child developing autism?”

  Your question is inspiring my next post—working on it! Thanks for reading here and for your very kind words—-more soon.

• A Personal Matter
  Mar 21, 2008 at 2:08 am

  […] a reader left a comment on the post It’s Not the Vaccines in which she noted (1) she is pregnant and (2) her husband […]

• larry
  Mar 21, 2008 at 2:39 am

  John Gilmore wrote this:
  “Perhaps vaccines had nothing to do with your child’s autism. But it certainly did with other children including mine.”

  That reminds me of the old protest, “Maybe your grandpa was a monkey, but mine sure as hell wasn’t!”

  The big retort is simply this: How do you know for certain what caused your child’s autism? If the top experts who write vaste tomes on the subject call autism “a mysterious illness”…

  If your child collapsed into full-blown autism at the precise the moment of the jab, even then you couldn’t be certain. What if the doctor and the mother smiled and acted really cheery and comforted the child beforehand, telling him “you won’t feel a thing. Mama gets shots all the time. They’re fun!” Then the baby feels a sting more painful than anything he has ever experienced in his life! Can you imagine the trauma of being betrayed by those you love and trust–and in such a painful way?

  You know, there is a statistical correlation between autism and infantile illness, blindness, precociousness and allergies to milk. There is also a statistical correlation between difficult birth and autism. But there is no statistical correlation between autism and vaccines.

  Make your own hypothesis as to why a child would regress after a shot. In light of current knowledge, my little hypothesis is MUCH more reasonable than the assumption that vaccines cause autism.

• passionlessDrone
  Mar 21, 2008 at 9:15 am

  Hi Emily -

  Thanks for the link; but it is curious that they give only two references, one a textbook on Nutrition, and another on the principles of physiology, and nothing in specific as to what the ‘number of studies’ are. It isn’t the number of studies, it is their quality, and the link you provide gives us no ability to gauge that. No doubt I could send you a link to a paper stating that ‘a number of studies’ showing autism is linked to vaccines, provide no real references on them; and we would be in exactly the same place we started, with nothing but blanket statements of safety or non safety. I am not accusing the CDC of being the Illuminati, but why not back their statements up with real references?

  I found this part to be most salient information from the link:

  “Research is underway to find methods to combine more antigens in a single vaccine injection (for example, MMR and chickenpox). This will provide all the advantages of the individual vaccines, but will require fewer shots.”

  Strange that you left this particular part out of what you pasted, it was the next sentence. Go figure.

  In any case, we all know how well that went, it had the effect of doubling the frequency of siezures.

  http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Germs/wireStory?id=4446847

  “As they point out, we are bombarded daily from birth by innumerable antigens that challenge our immune systems, great numbers of them at a time. The shots carry far fewer than we’d encounter from a single wild-virus sally.”

  LOL! How many of those antigens from Sally come along with aluminum based adjuvants to increase the response of the immune system?

  In any case, lets assume that the shots do carry fewer antigens than our normal exposure, and the number of antigens is the only mechanism for evaluating vaccine safety of effectiveness. Why not give every vaccine in a single appointment then? After all, the number of antigens is very small compared to what the child was exposed to in the waiting room of the doctor, and bundling them has been shown to have no effect through ‘a number of studies’ that we cannot reference.

  It seems like we are running quite the risk by NOT vaccinating for everything at our first visit. What if my child gets measles when he is a month old? Or chicken pox? Or diptheria? Sure, there may be some mild discomfort by getting all the shots at once, but that is nothing compared to the discomfort of getting ruebella. Why space them out at all?

  The ‘number of antigens’ defense sure does seem to get a lot of mileage in some cases, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Did you know that in order to get the ProQuad MMR+Chickenpox vaccine to protect against chicken pox, they had to push in five times the number of antigens than is in the stand alone chicken pox vaccine? Curious that this would be the case.

  Take care!

• Emily
  Mar 21, 2008 at 11:48 am

  pD, I’ll just say this: I find these arguments fruitless and exhausting and honestly, just really damned boring. You have an agenda–obviously–and will interpret what you read through the prism of that agenda. I have postgraduate training in biology and will form my conclusions through the prism of that training. I frankly am simply not interested in parsing every single uninformed assertion that people make about biological processes, whether that be evolution or an alleged vaccine-autism link. I run out of energy to counter the rampant ignorance too fast.

  I honestly feel like it’s not my freaking business to go around trying to make sure that people aren’t stupid or aren’t uninformed. My only venue for working against that tide is my classroom. You have questions, insincere as they are. Go find the answers. I’ve done my homework and am satisfied that my conclusions are valid based on available data. Obviously, you believe differently and enjoy using silly, insincere questions hoping to continue the discussion, but…it’s like being the Red Queen in Alice trying to address all of these misconceptions with actual facts. This Red Queen is tired of it.

  I have already sworn off vaccine posts on my own blog, and I’ve actually also sworn off trying to argue with fundamentalists about evolution, and both of these decisions are based in the tenets of the Serenity Prayer, with which I constantly remind myself to try to have the wisdom to know the difference. I’m not going to make a difference in these discussions with you, and you’re not really asking these questions out of hope for greater knowledge or information. And that’s just a waste of time.

• Doc Strange
  Mar 21, 2008 at 11:57 am

  I am fascinated by the eagerness with which antivaxers jump on news stories that address acknowledgments of problems with specific vaccines. I would think that an announcement put out by the CDC regarding an increased incidence of seizures following use of Proquad, and an accompanying recommendation that MMR and Varivax be administered separately, would be an indication that our public health system monitors vaccine safety and side effects and steps in appropriately to address problems.
  But no, it’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. If David Kirby or Dan Olmsted got hold of the data that the incidence of seizures increased following Proquad, antivaxers would be complaining loudly of the vast government-medical-pharmaceutical conspiracy to electrify our children’s brains into a catatonic state.
  passionless drone…yes, pharmaceutical companies are working to try to combine and modify antigens in vaccinations. The idea is to minimize the number of injections being given to kids, and create vaccines that can be given at younger ages to induce an immune response before an infant can be exposed to an infectious disease.
  In an ideal world, yeah, we could immunize at an early age against a wide range of infectious diseases that could cripple and kill children. Under antivaxer logic, though, there would be nobody but children with autism in the world, and the CEOs of Merck, GSK and Wyeth would be clinking champagne glasses with the heads of the CDC, NIH, and AAP in celebration. Amazingly, there are more than a few children out there who survive their immunizations without being “lost” to autism…and plenty of people with autism in the world who have missed out on the protection of immunizations.

• Lynn Ford, Ed.S.
  Mar 21, 2008 at 12:26 pm

  To Kristina–In a recent post on your website, you said you “know” that your son’s autism was not caused by vaccines. This statement implies that it is very threatening for you to even consider the possibility that vaccines may have played a role in the development of autism in Charlie–can you comment on this? Adequate research on the vaccine issue might ultimately prevent a lot of suffering for other children and families as well as providing clues for better treatment. (For example, one seemingly obvious study that has never been done is comparing large, actual groups of vaccinated and non-vaccinated populations.)

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 21, 2008 at 12:48 pm

  @Lynn Ford, Ed.S.,

  It’s easy for me to state that vaccines did not cause my son to be autistic: There is no valid scientific evidence for link between vaccines and autism and it’s disappointing to see how much time is spent on discussing this issue, when there is so much else to talk about. I have certainly got some emails that could be considered threatening in regards to this issue—-I’m always interested in learning about others views and thank you very much.

• Chuck
  Mar 21, 2008 at 1:54 pm

  Doc Strange,

  “…and plenty of people with autism in the world who have missed out on the protection of immunizations. ” these people are also alive and have not missed out on anything either.

  The idea is to minimize the number of injections being given to kids, and create vaccines that can be given at younger ages to induce an immune response before an infant can be exposed to an infectious disease.

  Where are the scientific studies that prove this is even necessary? If infant mortality was rampant due to vaccine preventable illnesses, this would have been done long ago. There is no need to do it now. The number of injections is not the issue that concerns parents.

• Emily
  Mar 21, 2008 at 2:08 pm

  @pD: “‘Research is underway (sic) to find methods to combine more antigens in a single vaccine injection (for example, MMR and chickenpox). This will provide all the advantages of the individual vaccines, but will require fewer shots.’

  Strange that you left this particular part out of what you pasted, it was the next sentence. Go figure.”
  I just noticed this. You seem to be accusing me of something here, but I can’t tell what that is. It just means that they’re trying to fit even more antigens into the shots. You find this relevent somehow and are using it to accuse me of…? What? I can’t tell.

  If it makes you feel any better, I’ll paste it all here, together:
  “A number of studies have been conducted to examine the effects of giving various combinations of vaccines simultaneously. These studies have shown that the recommended vaccines are as effective in combination as they are individually, and that such combinations carry no greater risk for adverse side effects. Consequently, both the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend simultaneous administration of all routine childhood vaccines when appropriate. Research is underway (sic) to find methods to combine more antigens in a single vaccine injection (for example, MMR and chickenpox). This will provide all the advantages of the individual vaccines, but will require fewer shots.”

  Still can’t tell what your point is. Perhaps that is because it lacks the ability to pierce its target.

• Chuck
  Mar 21, 2008 at 2:45 pm

  Fewer shots are a non issue. There is absolutely no need to repackage the old stuff if it is actually safe and effective. It is a credibility issue, not a marketing issue that the medical establishment just can’t get their arms around.

• daedalus2u
  Mar 21, 2008 at 4:45 pm

  Actually fewer shots is safer as far as vehicle accidents is concerned.

  If the Dr’s office is 10 miles away from home, a million trips is 20 million vehicle miles. Ten million trips is 200 million vehicle miles.

  Every 100 million vehicle miles there are about 2.7 fatalities. In 20 million that is about ½, in 200 million, that is 5.4 fatalities.

  http://www.tripnet.org/national/RuralRoadsPR030305.htm

  This doesn’t even include the vehicle injuries, just the deaths.

• Regan
  Mar 21, 2008 at 4:56 pm

  I think in following this debate that the only experimental design that would seem to satisfy some who find vaccines the sources of all sorts of speculative ills is a full reversal, because as long as vaccines are administered there is going to be attribution.

  Check back in 15 years and see what the data says.
  This is facetious, but only just…

• Regan
  Mar 21, 2008 at 5:56 pm

  Related to Chuck’s comment about public perception of credibility of the medical community.

  2 articles.

  Wilson, K., Mills, E., Ross, C., McGowan, J. , Jadad, A. (2003). Association of Autistic Spectrum Disorder and the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccine. A Systematic Review of Current Epidemiological Evidence. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2003;157:628-634.

  From the abstract:
  …
  Objective To systematically review the evidence for and against the existence of an association between autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

  Results Twelve articles met the inclusion criteria. One study found no difference in the rates of ASD and the MMR vaccine in children who were vaccinated and those who were not. Six studies examined for evidence of an increase in ASD associated with an increase in the MMR vaccine coverage, none of which showed evidence of an association. Four studies examined if a variant form of ASD was associated with the MMR vaccine, none of which showed evidence of an association. Eight studies attempted to determine if there was a temporal association between developing ASD and receiving the MMR vaccine. Of these, 1 study identified an increase in parental concern in the 6-month period following vaccination with MMR in one of its analyses. The results of all other studies showed no association between ASD and the MMR vaccine.
  …

  Hilton, S., Petticrew, M., & Hunt, K. (2007). Parents’ champions vs. vested interests: Who do parents believe about MMR? A qualitative study. BMC Public Health, 7, 42. Open Access.
  http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-7-42.pdf

  Related:
  Results: In the period after the MMR controversy, parents found it difficult to know who to trust to offer balanced and accurate information. The general consensus was that politicians were
  untrustworthy in matters of health. The motives of primary health care providers were suspected by some parents, who saw them as having a range of vested interests (including financial incentives).
  Among the sources of evidence seen by some parents as more credible were other parents, and Andrew Wakefield who was viewed as an important whistle-blower and champion of ordinary parents.
  Conclusion: The provision of accurate information is only one aspect of helping parents make immunisation decisions. Establishing and maintaining trust in the information provided is also
  important. The MMR controversy may provide useful lessons for health professionals about trust and credibility that may be generalisable to future health controversies.

• passionlessDrone
  Mar 21, 2008 at 9:46 pm

  Hi DocStrange -

  It’s so funny that I get branded as an ‘anti vaxer’ when all I have done is point out logical weaknesses in many of the arguements put forth to support the enhanced vaccination schedule. For the record, I am for a more intelligent, safer vaccination schedule. I have no doubt that vaccines for polio, smallpox, Hib and others have saved countless lives; but that doesn’t mean the science discounting an autism (or autism like behavior) is necessarily sound.

  “I would think that an announcement put out by the CDC regarding an increased incidence of seizures following use of Proquad, and an accompanying recommendation that MMR and Varivax be administered separately, would be an indication that our public health system monitors vaccine safety and side effects and steps in appropriately to address problems.”

  I pointed out this story for several reasons:

  1) The information was are usually given to allay concerns about the vaccination schedule fails some relatively simple logical tests. This bugs me a lot; I don’t have post graduate training in biology, but I know a bogus argument when I see one.

  What Emily posted was a great example; namely the defense that because children are exposed to lots of antigens during every day life (no doubt, very true), that therefore, the small number of antigens in vaccines must consequently be safe. Not only is this a gross, gross over simplification of vaccines versus what children are exposed to every day, but it has been shown to be false by what has happened with Pro Quad, has it not? Clearly, doing something as simple as addition or subtraction of antigens is not a useful mechanism for determining if a vaccine is safe; yet the argument is made again and again. Not just by Emily, but by the CDC themselves.

  The illustrious Paul Offit has stated on a well distributed article that an infant could theoretically handle 10,000 vaccines at once.

  http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124

  It would seem that with ProQuad, he was off by approximately 9,995 vaccines. Yet if someone decides to question the validity of using antigen counts as a valid mechanism for vacine safety, not only are they ‘anti vaccine’, but they are boring, ignorant, stupid, and a waste of time, among other things.

  2) It showed the apparent disconnect between what told to me by Emily, and with what we know happened when the MMR was coupled with the Chicken Pox vaccine. There it was, exactly one sentence below what she pasted; an official document trumpeting progress in combining shots when studies have shown a doubling of risk for seizures. That is some serious doublethink.

  This does not even speak towards the problems people who have got the chicken pox vaccine have reported in developing shingles later in life. The follow up for the pro quad vaccine study that revealed more seizures was all of forty two days; it is no wonder that with the standard chicken pox vaccine the increased prevalance of shingles was a surprize. Yet when you ask for real, long term follow up studies concerning children getting five, six, or nine vaccinations at once, you are anti science. Often times this defense is wrapped around a degree of training and the inability to of the questioner to see how simpleminded their argument is; after all, there is no mechanism identified which could produce the results. That is another thing that is is so funny about ProQuad, the scientists don’t have a clue in the world what caused the increase in seizures; only that it happened. But if you say autism, well, one thing is certain, and that is it is impossible. So impossible, you don’t even have to provide any studies on it. LOL!

  “passionless drone…yes, pharmaceutical companies are working to try to combine and modify antigens in vaccinations. The idea is to minimize the number of injections being given to kids, and create vaccines that can be given at younger ages to induce an immune response before an infant can be exposed to an infectious disease.”

  In my opinion drive for convenience (less car trips (?), less doctors appointments, fewer shots) is a dangerous trend; especially when we begin vaccinating for things that aren’t all that bad to start with. Chickenpox can really wreck your weekend, but the chances of it really hurting you are very, very small.

  “In an ideal world, yeah, we could immunize at an early age against a wide range of infectious diseases that could cripple and kill children. Under antivaxer logic, though, there would be nobody but children with autism in the world, and the CEOs of Merck, GSK and Wyeth would be clinking champagne glasses with the heads of the CDC, NIH, and AAP in celebration. Amazingly, there are more than a few children out there who survive their immunizations without being “lost” to autism…and plenty of people with autism in the world who have missed out on the protection of immunizations.”

  Gross oversimplification.

  Take care!

  - pD

• larry
  Mar 21, 2008 at 10:43 pm

  “The motives of primary health care providers were suspected by some parents, who saw them as having a range of vested interests (including financial incentives).”
  ——–

  Talk about irony! The health care providers who stand to make the biggest profit are the DAN doctors. And they’re the ones who are willing to go along with whatever quackery–including chelation–the parents believe in! In other words, parents reassure each other that those who get the big profits from frantic parents are actually the best doctors for autism.

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 22, 2008 at 1:26 am

  larry wrote: “In other words, parents reassure each other that those who get the big profits from frantic parents are actually the best doctors for autism.”

  correlation pointing to a suspicious causation……

• larry
  Mar 22, 2008 at 12:24 pm

  “correlation pointing to a suspicious causation……”

  Just remember that the next time you buy into self-serving, unprovable theory about neurolbiological determinants in autism.

• Chuck
  Mar 22, 2008 at 6:41 pm

  Related to Regan’s comments,

  http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/16/2/137

  Abstract
  Background: Coverage of the Measles–Mumps–Rubella combined vaccine (MMR) has declined in recent years in the UK, following adverse publicity about possible links between the vaccine, autism, and Crohn’s disease. The objectives of this study were to assess geographical variation in trends in MMR coverage and to identify the factors affecting MMR uptake at population level. Methods: We conducted an ecological study of immunization coverage by second birthday, based on routinely collected data from 1993–2004 for England. Trends in MMR uptake were assessed in 95 District Health Authorities in England over the study period. We investigated the relationship between MMR immunization uptake and deprivation, ethnicity, education, population density, rurality, and socioeconomic class. Results: Since 2000, MMR coverage has declined significantly in virtually all areas of England. Population density and deprivation were both strongly correlated with low MMR uptake. The decline in coverage since 1993–94 was significantly related to the proportion of educated population and was greater in densely populated areas. Conclusion: Decline in MMR coverage now affects most areas of England. The lowest rates of MMR coverage remain in urban areas, particularly in inner cities, which also tend to show high levels of deprivation. Public health resources should continue to target inner city areas, as well as focus on the concerns of the better educated about vaccine safety.

• Chuck
  Mar 22, 2008 at 7:10 pm

  daedalus2u,

  Statistically, you are more likely to have an auto accident within ten miles of your home. So if you REALLY wanted to be safe, you would park your car 10 miles from your home and walk home and if your doctor is less than ten miles from your home, you should walk there also. Walking there for more shots is probably better for your health as well.

  Now everyone has all the statistics about this non-issue that I originally pointed out.

• passionlessDrone
  Mar 23, 2008 at 9:26 am

  Hi Emily -

  “Perhaps that is because it lacks the ability to pierce its target.”

  Perhaps this is a function of the density of the target, as opposed to the sharpness of the message.

  - pD

• daedalus2u
  Mar 23, 2008 at 12:04 pm

  Chuck, your suggestion that walking would be safer than driving provides a nice illustration of the mistake that people such as yourself make in estimating risk based on feelings, faulty data and faulty intuition rather than on facts and logic.

  Walking is not safer than driving; it is many times more dangerous than driving. It is about 30 times more dangerous than driving in England and Wales;

  http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1533510

  and 15 times more dangerous than driving in the US.

  http://www.transact.org/library/reports_html/ms2004/pdf/Final_Mean_Streets_2004_4.pdf

  It is a similar use of feelings, faulty data and faulty intuition that leads people to erroneously believe that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases the vaccines are designed to prevent.

  To protect our children and keep them safe, we need to look at all potential threats, not ignore some and blow some all out of proportion.

• Chuck
  Mar 23, 2008 at 2:47 pm

  daedalus2u,

  Your non sequitur arguments about driving or walking have no real relevance about the safe number of vaccines to be given to a child. The obvious logical fallacy I presented in my walking example should not have been taken seriously, it was sarcasm.

• larry
  Mar 23, 2008 at 2:58 pm

  You know, literalism is a common autistic trait. You have to be real patient around here.

  ———-
  Betsy: I love Kristofferson’s line, “He’s a poet and a pusher.”

  Travis Bickle: I hate pushers.

  -”Taxi Driver”

• passionlessDrone
  Mar 23, 2008 at 5:51 pm

  Hi Daedulus2u -

  “Walking is not safer than driving; it is many times more dangerous than driving. It is about 30 times more dangerous than driving in England and Wales; ”

  “It is a similar use of feelings, faulty data and faulty intuition that leads people to erroneously believe that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases the vaccines are designed to prevent. ”

  LOL!

  The total number of children who died in the UK during the 18 year period of this study? 3060 == 170 /year * 18 years. Thus, if one hundred children died in a car, and 3000 died being a pedestrian while being a pedestrian, we’d be just about right. This is an amazing, amazing statistic, just under five children die per year in the UK while passengers in cars!

  Of course, it is also completely bogus. The only way to get these numbers is by averaging deaths out by 10 million passenger miles travelled, a ridiculous value to assign to pedestriants.

  If you asked a more reasonable question instead, such as, how many kids died in cars, versus how many were pedestrians, our ratio goes from thirty times, to less than two times.

  Table 2 from the paper you referenced makes this quite clear:

  http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1533510&rendertype=table&id=tbl2

  What could possibly be a better illustration of using faulty data to come to a erroneious belief?

  - pD

• daedalus2u
  Mar 23, 2008 at 7:52 pm

  Did you read the paper?

  The relevant comparison was deaths per mile walked vs. deaths per mile driven.

  If 10 million children walked 10 miles to get their vaccinations, more would be killed than if those same 10 million children were driven to their vaccinations.

  If those 10 million children were each taken on 10 trips more would be killed in automobile accidents than if they were each taken on 1 trip.

• Emily
  Mar 23, 2008 at 8:33 pm

  pD, that may well be. We Southerners lapse into an intentional denseness sometimes. It serves to keep up the social graces when we’re dealing with fools.

• Chuck
  Mar 23, 2008 at 8:52 pm

  daedalus2u
  Unless you are willing to include the number of deaths of adults and children who die or are injured while driving or walking to a doctor’s office to get a vaccine as part of the adverse reaction of the vaccine, your argument is pointless and worthless to the argument of the number of vaccines a child should receive.

• Chuck
  Mar 23, 2008 at 8:59 pm

  It makes sense that Southerners lapse into denseness but the problem is that most southerners are fools so they never have a reason to emerge from their lapse.

• Emily
  Mar 23, 2008 at 9:35 pm

  Wow. Can you provide a link to the controlled study that demonstrates that most (and by that, I assume you mean >50%) Southerners are fools? I apologize for being so dense. Bless your heart.

  Did you chelate your child, too?

  Pass the sherry.

• Regan
  Mar 23, 2008 at 9:35 pm

  “most southerners are fools so they never have a reason to emerge from their lapse”

  Unkind and untrue.
  Chuck…Chuck (shakes head).

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 23, 2008 at 9:46 pm

  Well, I am southern Chinese so maybe the above-noted lapses occur in me…. ahem.

• Chuck
  Mar 23, 2008 at 10:58 pm

  I’m sure there must be a study by a Southern scientist who determine who Southerners really are. Then measure how dense they truly became around fools and how Southerners determine who is a fool. There was probably a statistically significant correlation between when Southerners lapsed into denseness and when they chelated there children. I do hope that you don’t lapse often.

• Thorton
  Mar 23, 2008 at 11:27 pm

  Statistics are a funny thing:
  If you parked 10 miles from your home, and walked home, then the statistics would change an all of your accident would happen outside a 10 mile radius

  Realizing that the original comment was satirical, but that it had certain inferences. So is the case with this reply.

• Emily
  Mar 23, 2008 at 11:45 pm

  I only chelate often. Can’t drink too much EDTA, you know.

• Thorton
  Mar 23, 2008 at 11:46 pm

  If someone is only aware of temporal evidence of a link between vaccines and autism, then I would question if they had actually looked for that evidence.

  A few well placed internet searches will reveal several publications on autism in general and links between all kinds of causes. There are a zillion book on the topic. The only way I can imagine that someone thinks that there is only a temporal correlation is because they haven’t looked very hard.

  You’ll find very logical and very educated people reporting findings on both sides. There really is a lot of research on both sides.

  I really questions someones objectivity on complicated topics when they start saying their argument is completely logical and everyone else is sucked into media hype. It’s an arrogant and prideful approach.

  vaccines and encephalopathy
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?term=%22autism%20vaccines%20encephalopathy%22

  vaccines and autism in general:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?term=%22autism%20vaccines%22

  autism and yeast:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?term=%22autism%20yeast%22

  autism and genetics:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?term=autism%20genetic

  autism in general:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?term=%22autism%22

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 24, 2008 at 12:21 am

  Charlie was born in Missouri, diagnosed in Minnesota, spent the better part of his life in New Jersey (the northern part)—-I have to say he’s from various places, just as there may well be more than one single cause of autism (considering Thorton’s links).

• larry
  Mar 24, 2008 at 1:35 am

  I couldn’t find the autism/yeast article. Even so, that is one of my favorite theories. I mean I know there is a definite correlation between autism and urinary tract infections.

  Which came first though? Either yeast infections causes autism, or autistic children tend to do naughty things with their fingers!

  Unfortunately, we can’t discuss these things or even think about them, due to matters of decorum. It makes me mad how so-called scientists automatically ignore the obvious.

• Emily
  Mar 24, 2008 at 9:15 am

  Dear Thorton:

  If you refer to me, I never said that. Any of it.

• daedalus2u
  Mar 24, 2008 at 9:16 am

  It is completely appropriate to include consequential effects such as death in an automobile accident while going to or from a vaccination as a side effect of that vaccination. From a public health viewpoint such connections are important and completely appropriate. It makes no sense to save 10 lives with an intervention that costs 100.

  It is my understanding that exactly such thinking went into the decisions to incorporate more antigens into each vaccine. With fewer vaccinations needed, there would be fewer trips to the Dr’s office, fewer opportunities for missed vaccines, fewer automobile accidents along the way.

  Of course the accident can’t be blamed on the manufacturer of the vaccine, and a lawsuit asserting blame and demanding damages would be thrown out. But maybe that is the point.

  Is the goal to end up with healthy children or to win lawsuits?

• Emily
  Mar 24, 2008 at 9:16 am

  We’ve never had any trouble with yeast around here, but then…our children have been having acidophilus practically since birth.

• Emily
  Mar 24, 2008 at 9:17 am

  And saying that there is “a lot of research on both sides” doesn’t mean that the final conclusions of that research are equally positive on both sides in favor of the respective hypotheses.

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 24, 2008 at 12:55 pm

  Sometimes I think the word “research” is the most overused and under-understood word in too many discussions—-as I tell my students, just looking on the web is not enough.

• passionlessDrone
  Mar 24, 2008 at 8:48 pm

  Hi Emily -

  “It serves to keep up the social graces when we’re dealing with fools.”

  Now the same person who has called me stupid, boring, agenda driven, ignorant, insincere, and a fool is in also in the business of keeping up with social graces? R O F L. Either you had a horrible teacher, or you didn’t learn very well.

  Keep digging. You are making my point that you cannot defend your point with logic or valid information better than I could.

  - pD

• passionlessDrone
  Mar 24, 2008 at 9:00 pm

  Hi Emily -

  “We Southerners lapse into an intentional denseness sometimes. ”

  You went out of your way to ask me what my comment was about; thus, we can conclude it was not an intentional lapse into denseness. You were legitamately unable to discern my meaning. The hilarious part is that you couldn’t even keep that straight; you make the assertion that your denseness was intentional, when all available evidence points to the opposite.

  I am also from the South.

  - pD

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Mar 24, 2008 at 10:20 pm

  intentional denseness fallacy going on here…..

• Thorton
  Mar 29, 2008 at 11:12 pm

  Some have commented that giving so many vaccines so frequently is not a good idea for some kids. There doesn’t seem to be much refutation of this here. Though, no one has said what the consequences of this might be.

  If we’re willing to accept that some kids might have adverse affects to many frequent vaccines then might we be willing to accept that for some kids even a small number, or even one, vaccine could have ill affects?

  We know that some kids can actually die from vaccines (it’s one of the risks we sign knowledge of when we agree to administer vaccines to our kids). Can we really say that we understand every side-affect of vaccinations in all cases?

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