Paul Offit on the case of Hannah Poling
Paul A. Offit, chief of the infectious diseases division of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, writes this about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the case of Hannah Poling in an op-ed in today’s New York Times:
Now, petitioners need merely propose a biologically plausible mechanism by which a vaccine might cause harm — even if their explanation contradicts published studies [my emphasis].In 2006, for example, Dorothy Werderitsh claimed in the vaccine court that a hepatitis B vaccine had triggered an autoimmune response in her brain that led to multiple sclerosis. Two large studies had clearly shown that hepatitis B vaccine could neither cause nor exacerbate multiple sclerosis, but the court ruled in favor of Ms. Werderitsh, elevating a hypothesis above epidemiological evidence.
The Hannah Poling case is similar. In 2000, when Hannah was 19 months old, she received five shots against nine infectious diseases. Over the next several months, she developed symptoms of autism. Subsequent tests showed that Hannah has a mitochondrial disorder — her cells are unable to adequately process nutrients — and this contributed to her autism. An expert who testified in court on the Polings’ behalf claimed that the five vaccines had stressed Hannah’s already weakened cells, worsening her disorder. Without holding a hearing on the matter, the court conceded that the claim was biologically plausible.
On its face, the expert’s opinion makes no sense. Even five vaccines at once would not place an unusually high burden on a child’s immune system. The Institute of Medicine has found that multiple vaccines do not overwhelm or weaken the immune system. And although natural infections can worsen symptoms of chronic neurological illnesses in children, vaccines are not known to.
“There is no evidence that children with mitochondrial enzyme deficiencies are worsened by vaccines,” Salvatore DiMauro, a professor of neurology at Columbia who is the nation’s leading expert on the disorder, told me. Indeed, children like Hannah Poling who are especially susceptible to infections are most likely to benefit from vaccines.
Read the rest of Inoculated Against Facts.
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, georgie, mercury, mitochondrial disease, Parenting, pdd-nos, special education, vaccine court, Vaccines
10 opinions for Paul Offit on the case of Hannah Poling
Laura
Mar 31, 2008 at 11:04 am
I slept about 2.5 hours last night in bits and pieces because my daughter was having another crisis of some kind related to the unknown metabolic or mitochondrial disorder all the professionals at one of the best hospitals says is there - there just isn’t a test to prove it as of 2008. This the second episode this month and the fourth of the year.
While we were up this late, I spent some time reading “Inherited Metabolic Diseases” by Georg F. Hoffmann. In it, he states that these disorders, especially of the mitochondrial kind, can be triggered at the following places in ones’ life:
the first week of life from day 2 to day 5 typically (my daughter became rapidly and terribly ill at day 7, being hospitalized for a week, one day after her Hepatitis B vaccine)
the second half of the first year (specifically months 6-8) due to the introduction of solid foods (and thus more protein) as well as the beginning of fasting for a period of time as the baby begins to sleep through the night. (my child was sick and fell off the weight charts from the 25% to under the third beginning at month six, when we started solids, with a LONG eight month battle against food, sleep, infections and social settings.)
the late part of puberty as hormonal and weight changes affect the metabolic process. (we’re crossing our fingers on this one as she’s only three and we don’t know what the future will bring)
Also, he said this:
“catabolic states resulting from infections, fever, vaccinations, high-dose steroid therapy, surgery, accidents and pro-longed fasting through life can trigger the disorder…” This book was written in 2001, long before this debate over the Polling case.
It makes sense to me that if an infection or fever would/could set off these underlying, undiagnosed disorders, that vaccines (which have the fever and infection-like component as a common side effect) would play a part in this as well.
Having said that, if it wasn’t a vaccine that was going to do it, something else would. If the disorder exists, then something is going to trigger it at some point in a person’s life. I read a story recently about a woman that had a daughter about 30 years ago. Her daughter had one of these metabolic type attacks but no one knew what it was or what to do about it. The child recovered with fluids and lived a healthy childhood. Around her early 20’s, she went to a party, drank too much and then went on a hike with friends the following day. She became immediately ill and it progressed rapidly, with her dying later that day. In the autopsy, it was found that she had an undiagnosed metabolic/mitochondrial disorder. Something is going to trigger this underlying health problem at some point, it’s only a matter of time. It may not always be as fatal or serious as the above story, but if vaccines are going to do it, then so will something else at some point.
I do wish the schedule would be adjusted. I am tired of reading that the schedule exists as it is so that they can get as many kids vaccinated as possible in that first year window when parents are still bothering with well child visits. And I think birth (and even the first few months) is a little early to be giving a child anyone hardly knows (in regard to their ability to handle the environment, diseases, stress, allergies, etc) that isn’t at risk for a particular disease, i.e. Hepatitis B.
María Luján
Mar 31, 2008 at 11:38 am
There are so many aspects controversial/inaccurate with his statements that it will be very long to detail all in depth.
Main two
1-Where are the studies looking before and after vaccines-full schedule. the mitochondrial status and other related biochemical pathways (urea cycle-Krebs cyle-B oxidation of fatty acids and glycolisis -pyruvate /lactate levels) and ammonia/liver enzymes status?
2-Have the epidemiological studies values of proof? what about genetically susceptible population that is included and unknown in the selection of the population to study?
Joseph
Mar 31, 2008 at 11:55 am
The US government has conceded that vaccination (through fever no doubt) has resulted in developmental regression due to an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction. That’s the extent of what is believed plausible, and it has been believed plausible for a long time. But now some people are saying that the mitochondrial disorder itself may be due to vaccines. And I think that’s what Maria is suggesting. I don’t see any basis for making this leap.
Clearly, you gotta have a genetic suceptibility, otherwise every person who has a fever would regress. Then you have the “trigger”, a fever in this case. What else do you need?
If you think that vaccines alone are responsible for the initial mitochondrial dysfunction, you have to explain why it is that some people get it and some don’t. Maybe there’s a mitochondrial dysfunction dysfunction.
María Luján
Mar 31, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Joseph, before making without basis assumptions please ask.
I have never presented the situation as simple as you present. What else do you need to stop making unfundamented assumptions about what I think?
Thank you
Bad mommy
Mar 31, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Heck, when I have a fever I regress — but I don’t think that is what anybody means.
I was glad somebody finally said something about all the crazy media surrounding the Poling case. But it won’t change any minds. The wonderful thing, the thing I wish people would read, was the comments to Offit’s piece in the NYT. There were a couple of antivaxers on hand, of course, and a man who is a doctor who survived polio, almost lost a sister to intrauterine rubella, has SEEN whooping cough (as I have - it is horrifying) - and worries that we’re giving these proven killers a leg up because of some ill-defined fears.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Mar 31, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I often feel as if the vaccine-autism issue is one of the most polarized out there—-the twain shall never meet. At least in the US, there’s been suspicious about vaccines from the time they were invented—guess the tradition continues.
Regan
Mar 31, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Not just the US
Anti-vaccination fever
The Shot Heard Around the World
http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-01/anti-vaccination.html
Joseph
Mar 31, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I apologize then, Maria. I obviously did not really understand much of what you were trying to convey, and I’m frankly not sure what it is now.
Gaye
May 29, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Laura
I am so sorry for you, sleep helps with the situation tha you are in but if an infection or fever would/could set off these underlying, undiagnosed disorders, then why didnt they set disorders off 40 plus years ago. There would of course have probably been some but these problems are now epidemic??? I know of kids who came down with measles then a couple of weeks later they got mumps and they were rotten sick, but they were back at school as large as life a month later..
It appears to me that although immunization is supposed to cure so much that children are now a lot sicker than when I was a child, when there was only a couple of immunizations..
even the Journal of the American Medical Association, 2007; 297: 2755-9 says that,
1 in 5 American kids are chronically sick
12 July 2007
One in five children in the USA has a chronic illness. The figure has trebled in the last 20 years, and that More than 1 million children now receive disability benefit from the government, and a new study estimates that 5 million children – that’s 7 per cent of all children in the USA - have an illness that limits their daily activities.
something wrong here…
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 29, 2008 at 11:07 pm
1959 was the first year a patient was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease and much of what we know about mitochondria is post-1940. So people would not have what “underlying disorder” there was at all.
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