Do Vaccines Cause Autism In Children?
We often hear from parents with one or more children with autism that they believe or think that somehow their children contracted or developed autism as a result of some vaccinations as a baby or child. This is indeed a controversial question.
The issue whether vaccines can cause autism is a concondrum of much arguement, pitting science against faith, doctors against parents, and parents against one another.
As a researcher who is out to find the truth, I would like to share with you the research items and publications with the relevant references so that you, as a parent, can study the research and information presented therein, and to form an opinion or make a decision yourself. As there are numerous citations, it is important for you to read all these reports to have a good understanding before you form your own opinion.
In a video below, you can watch Julie Gerberding, the head of the CDC, went on CNN’s House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta to discuss the Hannah Poling case.
Here is another video where Rober Kennedy talks about about vaccines and autism, and presents his view on this question - does vaccines cause autism.
I will first present a brief extract of the publication or research report and then provide the reference link so that you can read the entire research or report as they were presented originally at their respective websites. Here are the relevant references:
Health headlines often broadcast that one study or another has “proven” that vaccines do not cause autism. Look a little deeper, and what those studies have actually done is failed to prove that they do. Others claim to have indeed proven a connection, but their results are not embraced by the scientific community. Disagreements rage over the way studies are set up, and who funds them.
Link to full report
Any rite of passage that involves jabbing needles into small children is bound to worry more than a few parents. But that doesn’t begin to explain why so many moms and dads are convinced–despite mounting scientific evidence to the contrary–that the triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) causes autism in some youngsters. The latest study exonerating the MMR vaccine comes from Denmark, where investigators looked at the health records of every child born from 1991 through ‘98, more than 537,000 children. No matter how researchers analyzed the data, there was no difference in the autism rates of children who received the MMR vaccine and those who did not.
The Danish findings, which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week, are persuasive for several reasons. Denmark’s socialized medical system has generated one of the most complete health records of any country. So the investigators were able to document accurately both sides of the equation: those who were (or were not) vaccinated and those who developed autism. Even when other factors, such as age at vaccination, were taken into account, there was no difference in autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. There was no clustering of autism diagnoses in the weeks and months after vaccination. There was no difference in the number of diagnoses of other developmental disorders related to autism in the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.
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British researchers caused a furor in 1998 when they published a controversial report suggesting a link between the growing number of autism cases and the standard childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). Although other physicians criticized the authors for jumping to conclusions, many worried parents stopped immunizing their children. Now 10 of the 13 original authors have decided to retract the paper, acknowledging that their data were not strong enough to support their incendiary conclusion.
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Nearly all of the leading health organizations including the CDC and the NIH say that there is no relationship between vaccines and autism. Yet many parents and smaller research groups are convinced there is more to the story, and the doubts about the safety of vaccines linger in the minds of many parents. How did this controversy get started — and why is it still such a concern?
Now, on to the concerns themselves. To begin with, it’s important to note that there are not one but two vaccine controversies, and both are hot topics right now.
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Issue number one relates to thimerosal. This is a mercury-based preservative which was used in many vaccines between the late 1980s to 2003. The type of mercury used in thimerosal is generally cleared from the body within six weeks, which in theory would render it harmless. But according to those researchers who believe that the preservative causes autism, babies born during that 20-year window were injected with many times the “safe” level as determined by the FDA — and some, they feel, were genetically incapable of clearing the doses of mercury from their bodies. Mercury is, in fact, a neurotoxin, and the theory is that the recent leap in autism diagnoses can be directly tied to thimerosal.
At present, the thimerosal controversy continues — with evidence on both sides mounting up. The positive side, for new parents, is that thimerosal has now been removed from most vaccines — and thimerosal-free vaccines are available across the board. The down side, of course, is that no one can say with absolute certainty that today’s autistic youngsters were NOT harmed by thimerosal-laced vaccines.
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Some scientists have tried to link an apparent rise in the incidence of autism to an increasing number of childhood vaccines that used to contain thimerosal. Thimerosal is an organic mercury compound (ethylmercury) that for a time was used as a preservative in vaccines against diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae, and hepatitis B.
In 1999, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a statement indicating that some infants who received multiple injections of vaccines containing thimerosal might have gotten enough ethylmercury to exceed recommended guidelines. Shortly thereafter, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Public Health Service jointly recommended reducing or eliminating thimerosal in all vaccines.
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While expounding the other day on the lost antiseptic mercurochrome (See The Straight Dope: What happened to Mercurochrome?), I mentioned that vaccines once contained an antibacterial and antifungal agent called thimerosal. Keeping vaccines safe is a good thing - nobody wants a repeat of the 1928 Australian case where a dozen kids died from staph-infected diphtheria vaccine drawn from a multidose vial. Unfortunately thimerosal, like mercurochrome, has the drawback of containing mercury, a toxin known to cause neurological disorders. Children are especially vulnerable. In 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Public Health Service determined that standard childhood vaccinations could lead to a dangerous accumulation of mercury. They called for thimerosal’s elimination from vaccines, and within a few years it was mostly gone.
Thimerosal hasn’t totally disappeared. It continues to show up in some contact lens solutions, and as of last fall was still being used in certain vaccines for diseases including tetanus, meningitis, and flu - often ones used in multidose applications, where contamination presumably remains a concern. But according to the FDA, apart from the occasional flu shot, no vaccine routinely recommended for U.S. kids now contains more than a trace amount of the stuff.
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It’s a legal fight with other Minnesota connections: Minneapolis lawyer Sheila Bjorklund, a partner at Lommen Abdo Cole King & Stageberg, who represents 33 Midwestern families, is one of 10 attorneys on the petitioners’ executive steering committee helping to oversee the massive litigation against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A tribunal of three special masters in the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., is conducting the no-fault proceeding where the petitioners need to prove causation by a preponderance of the evidence—but not scientific certainty—to win damages.
Hokkanen views the litigation before the so-called “Vaccine Court” as a kind of “court of last resort” for parents of autistic children. Should the petitioners prevail, they will be eligible for compensation for pain and suffering, past and future medical expenses and loss of earning capacity.
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The prevalence of autism has risen dramatically in the past two decades. Prevalence is an estimate of the number of affected persons at a point in time. The last issue of the NECC Research Newsletter discussed the first comprehensive prevalence studies conducted in the United States. These studies show that the prevalence of ASDs in 2003-2004 is somewhere between 1 in 139 and 1 in 181 children between the ages of 4 and 17. This implies that there are around 300,000 children diagnosed with an ASD. Most scientists feel the rise in prevalence is due to a combination of changes in the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and increased awareness of the disorder (e.g., Wing and Potter, 2002).
However, some have suggested that the increased prevalence of ASDs corresponds with an increase in the number of vaccinations recommended for children. Correlation of two events is not sufficient evidence to assert that one caused the other as the two events could be unrelated. For example, if a child is born during a full moon, the birth and the full moon coincide but the full moon did not cause the birth and the birth did not cause the full moon. Therefore, further study of such correlations is necessary to reveal evidence to either support or disconfirm a causal hypothesis. One specific hypothesis of vaccines being linked to autism suggests that thimerosal, a preservative previously used in childhood vaccines that was removed from vaccines manufactured in the US in 1999, can cause autism. Thimerosal is still present in some versions of the flu vaccine. Several versions of this theory target different mechanisms for how thimerosal damages the child and causes autism. They all, however, state that some damage occurs to the developing child after vaccination. Advocates of the “thimerosal causes ASDs” hypothesis have also suggested that the prevalence of ASDs will substantially decrease subsequent to thimerosal being removed from childhood vaccines.
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Perhaps parents’ biggest concern about vaccines is whether they can cause autism. So let’s be clear. Despite what you may have read online or heard on television talk shows, there’s no credible evidence linking the two. The main study that hinted at a connection involved just 12 children. And since its publication, most of the study authors have reversed their decisions, and the lead author is being disciplined for professional misconduct. Meanwhile, more than 20 other studies involving thousands of children have consistently demonstrated that neither vaccines nor the preservative thimerosal (a type of mercury that is no longer used, except in some flu shots) causes autism.
So if that’s the case, why did the Polings, of Athens, Georgia, who claimed that a five-shot vaccine series triggered their daughter Hannah’s autism, win a payout from the federal government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP)? Doesn’t that prove a connection? No, and this is why: the VICP maintains a list of vaccine-related injuries that are automatically compensated, with basically no questions asked. In the Poling case, Hannah’s rare enzyme deficiency caused her brain dysfunction. And it got worse when she developed a fever after her measles shot, so her family qualified for compensation.
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The debate over a link between childhood vaccinations and autism has reached fever pitch, as evidenced in a major court ruling March 2008. The federal government conceded that standard vaccination practices contributed to the development of autism in nine-year-old Hannah Poling. While failing to admit to a clear-cut link, the government has nevertheless offered the Poling family compensation, citing that a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder that predisposed the toddler to autism was “significantly aggravated” by the immunization shots she received at nineteen months. Dr. Isaac Eliaz offers his thoughts on this unprecedented ruling, noting that vaccines in general—and especially those containing thimerosal, a mercury-derived preservative—are not completely safe. Not only do they expose infants and toddlers to toxic loads of mercury, but when administered concurrently, they are also potentially dangerous—and often unnecessary, as in the case of the Hepatitis B vaccination. These risk factors amount to what should rightly be considered a true health crisis for our children.
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With record rates of immunizations in the U.S., the vaccines themselves are now under scrutiny by a small but vocal segment of the population. Concerned that the vaccines may pose greater risks than the diseases against which they protect, some parents are refusing them. So, in addition to developing new vaccines – Johns Hopkins researchers like Hopkins Children’s pediatrician Neal Halsey are employing Johns Hopkins rigidly scientific approach to studying vaccines and any adverse effects.
Halsey is director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which coordinated the scientific review of concerns, raised about a possible link between childhood diabetes and vaccines and found no evidence to support the hypothesis. When there was public concern in the late 1990s, however, that a preservative, thimerosal, that was used in some vaccines, could result in exposures that exceeded EPA guidelines for exposure to a related form of mercury, Halsey led a review for the Academy of Pediatrics in 1999 that recommended, as a precaution, thimerosol levels be reduced or removed from vaccines given to infants, and it was. Subsequent studies have not shown consistent evidence of harmful effects other than rare allergic reactions.
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Your health is one of those things you don’t think about too much unless something’s wrong. People who are sick think about their health a lot. People who have sick loved ones think about health a lot, too. And for the past several years, some people whose loved ones have autism have thought about vaccines a lot.
Vaccines aren’t exactly a modern invention. After realizing that people who survived smallpox never got it again, people started inoculating themselves around 200 B.C., hoping that a little bit of exposure in the present would save them from a devastating illness in the future [source: National Museum of American History]. Unfortunately, primitive methods, which used a live virus from infected material, could result in the patient getting a full-blown case of the disease.
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It is some people’s hands, I can undo it, so very intelligent people that change maybe a trigger to some kids who have autism. I can not see it, you can not see it but I do not see a great study that should be done. The study should be done, videotaped. Santa Clause in kids of four months, nine months, one year, eighteen months have revealed. You give the kid the vaccine. You said key chains, show me the kid in four months and make our track. Show me the kid in health, smiling, socialite. Show me that. I mean I review a couple of this and we did make an icon and last month when I look at the kid that is what I saw. Believe me it could be a re-essence that we could do something. We understand that without these vaccines, it will distribute terrible welfare for that which can not find any justification with to say that seems quite autism.
There is absolutely no indication that vaccines cause autism, more than that, they are now very well done prospective studies which they had shown that there are absolutely no link between autism and the immunization of our children. The studies have been published over the last two or three years. They were done both here and in Europe. They are done in a blinded fashion so that it compares children who were not vaccinated and children who were vaccinated and in a very definitive fashion. It was shown effects since did not increase the risks of those children having any neurologic out.
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The debate over the safety and efficacy of vaccines is not new. While vaccines seem to be very effective in eradicating many terrible diseases, they are closely tied to the development of other serious health and developmental problems, including autism. It would appear that by using vaccines we have not improved the overall health of our children, but simply traded infectious disease for chronic disease.
Vaccines contain many suspect ingredients known to cause serious health problems. At the top of that list is mercury, an extremely toxic substance. Mercury makes its way into vaccines through a preservative called thimerosal. Thimerosal is not a necessary ingredient in vaccines. It is used as a preservative so that vaccines can be packaged in multi-dose bottles and used on multiple children without becoming contaminated with bacteria. Single-use packaging eliminates the need for the toxic preservative.
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My son was normal until he received his vaccines. His first shots were 2/10/92. By 4/19/02 there were signs he was not developing correctly. By next set of shots, he forgot how to vocalize, and eventually crawl or sit up. Pedicatrician noted his conditioning was worsening with each and every shot. How can doctors say there is no correlation between shots and autism? Comments anyone?
Yes, I do think that vaccines cause autism. I just watched the segment on autism and I am appaled that the doctors would say that the thimerasol is out of the vaccines.. there is only one company that makes vaccines thimerasol free. and there is no one requiring doctors to use that vaccine. and the ones that say they are free of mercury…they are not, they put it in they try to take it out, you cannot completely get the mercury out. Please get the right information. I have an autistic child that when we cleansed him of his vaccines and the mercury, he started making eye contact and the meltdowns lessened. Please get that information out.
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Do vaccines cause autism? It is a truism that nothing can ever be disproven (in fact, one of the most solid philosophical proofs is that neither science — nor any other extant method of human discovery — can prove any empirical claims either).
My purpose here is not to debunk the vaccine myth. Others have done it better than I can. My purpose is to point out that, even if the myth were true, not vaccinating your children would be a poor solution.
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On June 4, 2008, actress Jenny McCarthy, mother of a 6-year-old son with autism and spokesperson for the organization Talk About Curing Autism, led a “Green Our Vaccines” march and rally in Washington, D.C., with her boyfriend, actor-comedian Jim Carrey. McCarthy and many of the 8,500 people joining her were gathering to call for safer vaccines–demanding, for instance, legislation to eliminate toxins, such as mercury and aluminum, from kids’ shots (mercury is part of the vaccine preservative thimerosal; aluminum makes vaccines more effective by stimulating the body’s immune response) and requesting that Congress take a closer look at the mandatory immunization schedule. McCarthy is among those who believe that vaccines have played a role in the autism epidemic. Her new book, Mother Warriors, tells the stories of parents whose children have recovered from autism, and she has served as a voice for many mothers and fathers who are concerned about vaccines.
If there is a connection between vaccines and autism, top health experts, including those from the CDC and the independent nonprofit Institute of Medicine, say they haven’t found it. Their stance is based on at least 10 large-scale scientific studies. “Parents need to know that the world’s brightest scientists have concluded that there is no association between vaccines and autism,” says CDC director Julie Gerberding, M.D.
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A hypothesis linking childhood vaccines with autism has been the subject of an intense debate for almost a decade. On one side are the parents and families of autistic children, many of whom are convinced that the link between autism and vaccines is real. On the other side are researchers who have conducted numerous medical studies, some involving thousands of children, that have found no evidence that autism is linked to vaccines.
As the debate rages on, parents of autistic children are accused of looking for someone to blame, and possibly to sue. Other people believe that the medical community and pharmaceutical companies know there’s a connection between autism and vaccines and are conspiring to keep this information from the public.
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I believe there is a link to autism being caused by certain vaccines, mainly the MMR vaccine. But they all are dangerous. The MMR vaccine is almost the only vaccine that people seem to have a problem with. Scientist’s say they continue to do research, but I honestly believe that they may already have the answer, and are just keeping it from the Public. If it turned out that vaccines were linked to autism, many people would be suing these companies. My two year old brother, cannot speak. He does not have autism, but merely autism spectrum disorders (ASD). When he was one year old, he said his first word, Cocoa. He ran around all week, saying cocoa over and over again. Then he went to get his MMR shot. The next day, he didn’t say cocoa anymore. And he has never said it since. autism spectrum disorder is a mild form of autism. I believe Vaccines link to autism, and that they need to change, if not stop, the way they are being given or created.
Andrew Wakefield, the researcher who controlled the well-known study that claimed a link between autism and vaccinations had falsified the results to show that vaccinations caused autism. In fact, several of his subjects showed signs of autism before the vaccinations. The medical records of the children were obtained recently, and those show very different results from the ones that Andrew Wakefield claimed. He is defending himself against charges of professional misconduct for his ethical conduct regarding the study. In addition to falsifying the results, he also had accepted funding prior to begining the study to prove that the MMR vaccine was harmful, so it was a conflict of interest when he did this study.
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Ask a parent who lost their 18 year old college student to meningococcal meningitis the same question. I lost my sister to meningitis. It could have been prevented. She never got vaccinated.
McCain was opposing the war until he found out that supporting it could get him a vote for president. I won’t be voting for him. Any ally of Bush is an enemy of mine.
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When Jenny McCarthy became a spokeswoman for autism, the model-actress stirred debate when she blamed immunizations as the cause of her son’s condition. Dr. Cecelia M. McCarton answers some questions about whether vaccines are one of the causes of autism.
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Today’s edition of the Washington Post features an article entitled Fathering Autism which is about a father’s experience caring for a daughter with autism. The father in the article is GWUMC’s Dr. Peter Hotez who is the Walter G. Ross Professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, and the principal scientist for the Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative.
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Some of the birth trauma attorneys handling these cases say that only the thimerosal in the vaccines caused the neurological disorders. Others argue that the injections also contained a form of mercury that overexcited certain brain cells. To settle this discrepancy, the Office of Special Masters of the claims court has instructed plaintiffs to carry out three tests for each of the theories.
Thimerosal has been removed from standard children’s vaccines, but remains in flu vaccines that are packaged as multiple doses. Unfortunately, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says single dose flu vaccines are available only in limited numbers for the time being. Until more are produced for and distributed to the children in need of them, the threat of adverse thimerosal side effects remains.
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Usually I make it a point not to write about the possible causes of autism, for a number of reasons. First, it’s such an inflammatory topic, and my goal is to share what we’ve learned with a community of parents, not to speculate or fan the flames on issues about which I have no direct evidence. Of course I follow the studies, and I have my opinions, but I’m not sure that sharing them in such a public venue is really of use to anyone, especially my son.
Second, I have to be honest: we are very, very lucky. Isaac is on the mild to moderate end of the spectrum, and he doesn’t have any serious medical issues like intestinal disorders or seizures. So for us, the challenges tend to be more social than medical, and it’s sometimes very difficult to know what’s an expression of his personality versus any real pathology.
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I saw Nancy Snyderman on Scarbourough’s show yesterday morning. At the time I didn’t know that it was her (I’d never seen her before) so I almost choked on my coffee when I heard her snotty reply including something along the lines of: it’s the loud mouth Hollywood stars who spread the lie that vaccines cause autism.
I watch this show every day and know how Joe and Mika interact with each other. What I thought was interesting was Joe giving Mika B a look & nod that seemed to say “don’t start anything…” I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall afterward to hear what those two had to say off camera afterward.
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There is no research that proves autism spectrum disorder is caused by vaccinating children. There have always been theories, but no scientific proof. No studies show that the delay or omission of vaccines affect autism.
ASD is diagnosed at a time when children are receiving vaccines. Parents of autistic children are often looking for what caused autism, and relate it to vaccines because they are happening at the same time. Much media attention is given to adverse effects of vaccines and little attention is given to success stories of vaccines, such as no one gets measles anymore.
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Due to the comments I have recieved I must not have made it clear that I do 100% believe in getting your child vaccinated. My confusion is when is the best time to do it.
Whilst waiting in line at Target today I was flipping through a magazine when I came across an article about Jenny McCarthy and how she helped her son beat autism. It was a very interesting article about the things she did (such as drastically changing his diet) to help him overcome his autism. And it got me to thinking… do vaccines really cause autism, or do they not? The whole thing is very confusing to me, and I often don’t know what to believe. I have done a lot of reading on the subject and what I have found is that almost all mothers ( I have read about) with autistic children have said that yes, after their child recieved their vaccination is when the signs of autism began to show. But most doctors (including my pediatrican) say that no, there has been no link found between vaccines and autism. I have also read that although vaccines dont cause autism, they can make it manifest itself in children that are genetically susceptible. I am no scientist, but just by looking at the numbers it is very convincing that vaccines do have something to do with it, being that 15 yrs ago it was like 1 in 10000 children will be diagnosed with autism, and now its around 1 in 150.
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Four years ago David Kirby, a science contributor to the New York Times, spotted a breaking story when he began researching a possible link between mercury used in a vaccine preservative and autism, a disorder that affects the development of social and communication skills. The result unfolds as this book.
For the past eight years Kirby interviewed dozens of parents to find out how their children had developed autism. He pored over medical journals, clinical studies and government documents. The families he met and the things he learned shook him.
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The United States Court of Federal Claims created a National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1988 to give no-fault compensation to people who were injured or died due to vaccination. Over the years, families have never been awarded compensation for children who have autism due to vaccination.
Hannah Poling is a 9 year old girl whose case was reviewed by the vaccine court as a possible test case. After the court reviewed the child’s medical history, it was determined that her situation was NOT appropriate to be a test case by which to judge one of the theories of causation for vaccines causing autism.
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These shocking results come from a Generation Rescue study released in June 2007. The research, privately funded without ties to the pharmaceutical industry or the medical community, included an extensive interview of 17,674 vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
- Vaccinated older boys, in the age range of 11 to 17, were found to be even more susceptible to autism. They are 158 percent more likely to have a neurological disorder, 317 percent more likely to have ADHD, and 112 percent more likely to have autism.
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The debate over a link between childhood vaccinations and autism has reached fever pitch, as evidenced in a major court ruling March 2008. The federal government conceded that standard vaccination practices contributed to the development of autism in nine-year-old Hannah Poling. While failing to admit to a clear-cut link…
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Parents in these groups have reported a sudden and dramatic social disconnect—including loss of language—in children who previously seemed to be developing normally. The change occurred soon after the children were given the first dose of the MMR vaccine (to prevent against measles, mumps and rubella), typically at around 12-15 months. These parents adamantly believe that their children’s autism was caused by something in the MMR vaccine or in combination with other vaccines containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. They insist that the timing of the onset of autistic symptoms is not a coincidence.
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For many years a debate has raged on about whether there is a link between autism, the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine, and thimerosal, the mercury-derived preservative that was long used to keep vaccines from spoiling. Over the weekend, Pediatrics published a study showing no link between the MMR vaccine, thimerosal, and autism.
Perhaps you’ve not heard of this issue. We hadn’t, until around the time Eli was getting the bulk of his vaccines. Autism rates in developed nations have been rising sharply over the past few decades, and no good cause has been found. In 1998 Dr. Wakefield thought he’d found one: the MMR vaccine. He and 12 co-authors published an article in the Lancet suggesting a possible link between autism, the MMR vaccine, and a supposedly new type of bowel disease. While the paper didn’t outright claim a causal link among the three, Dr. Wakefield did. In a press conference, he called for the combined MMR vaccine to be withdrawn. This was highly publicized in the UK, and led to a drop in MMR vaccinations. Since then 10 of the 12 co-authors have published a retraction, and the London Sunday Times has revealed that Dr. Wakefield had been paid in part by lawyers working on lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.
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Two particular vaccine-autism connections have been proposed within the past 15 years. At the outset, both were biologically plausible to any of us in medicine and biology. One suggested an association with the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, and the other questioned whether thimerosal, a mercury-containing antibacterial compound used in some vaccines to prevent bacterial contamination, might be related to autism. Over the past decade, these hypotheses have been rigorously tested in numerous studies. Every methodologically sound study demonstrates no connection.
Two of the most intuitive arguments follow. The MMR vaccine is given after 12 months of age. In a study by Scientific Institute at the University of Pisa, home videos of children younger than 2 who were later diagnosed with autism were compared with videos of developmentally typical children at the same ages. Behaviors were scored by observers who were blinded to the subsequent development of the children. Differences were clearly present, even at 6 months of age - before the MMR vaccine could have been given.
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One of the main concerns of parents regarding vaccination of their infants is that vaccines are safe. A frequent “scare” about vaccines is whether they cause disorders of the brain or nervous system. The most common scare mentioned by the news media and anti-vaccination groups is that vaccines cause pervasive developmental delay in children, more commonly called autism. Numerous large research studies have shown that this is not the case. However, it is easy to see how this misunderstanding arose.
There is considerable evidence that genes have a strong influence on the development of autism. The best evidence comes from studies of autism in twins. Investigators have shown that when one identical twin has autism, there is at least a 90 percent chance that the other twin (who has exactly the same genes) also will have autism. However, a fraternal twin, who does not share the same genes with the other twin, but who presumably shares other potential risk factors for autism both before and after birth, has only a 10 percent chance of developing autism if the other twin is affected.
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To respond to these concerns about vaccine safety, the National Network for Immunization Information (NNii) writing team of Martin G. Myers, MD, and Diego Pineda have written a book titled, Do Vaccines Cause That?! A Guide for Evaluating Vaccine Safety Concerns.
This 272-page book is divided in two sections. The first section tells readers how best to weigh and evaluate what they read or hear about vaccine safety, emphasizing how scientists determine whether a vaccine actually causes a specific effect. The second section deals specifically with vaccine safety concerns such as asthma, autism, and autoimmune diseases, among others. The overall theme is to help readers arrive at conclusions based on science.
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The title character, a lawyer, switches sides in a major lawsuit thanks to a vision of George Michael singing “Faith”. The defendant, Stone’s former client, is a vaccine manufacturer called Beutel. The plaintiff is Beth Keller, the attractive, smart, determined mother of a child with autism. Keller believes that a vaccine containing a preservative called mercuritol caused her son’s illness. A few visions later, Stone wins the case and a cool $5.2 million settlement.
Gripping TV, perhaps, but as so often with television, the science is, well, questionable. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) went so far as to call for the premiere to be cancelled. “A television show that perpetuates the myth that vaccines cause autism is the height of reckless irresponsibility,” said the organization’s president, Dr. Renee Jenkins.
Link to full report about this movie
Concerns that vaccines may cause autism have been worrying parents since some research first introduced the theory in the late 1990s — even amid mounting evidence that continues to prove otherwise. In light of more new studies disputing the autism-vaccines link, here are some relieving answers to your most pressing questions.
In the late 1990s, some researchers started raising concerns over the amount of thimerosal — a mercury-containing preservative — found in many children’s vaccines. Although thimerosal had been used as an anti-contamination agent for decades, until 1991 the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP) vaccination was the only thimerosal-containing shot recommended for infants and children. The hypothesis: As more thimerosal-containing vaccines like hepatitis B and Hib were added to the recommended schedule, researchers worried that babies were receiving too much of the chemical in too short a timeframe, which could potentially impact brain development.
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Almost 70% of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children do so because they believe vaccines may cause harm. Indeed vaccines have been blamed for causing asthma, autism, diabetes, and many other conditions–most of which have causes that are incompletely understood. Some parents believe that vaccines can “overwhelm the immune system.
To respond to these concerns about vaccine safety, the National Network for Immunization Information (NNii) writing team of Martin G. Myers, MD, and Diego Pineda have written a book titled, Do Vaccines Cause That?! A Guide for Evaluating Vaccine Safety Concerns.
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In terms of vaccines causing autism, the big issue is with the MMR vaccine. The MMR vaccine was the only vaccine ever uttered in the same sentence as autism. This all came about from one article in 1998 by this guy, Dr. Wakefield, who is from England. He did a study on a dozen children, and he basically said that in these children it was possible that the autism was caused by the MMR vaccine. After that study, it took off in the media. Around the world vaccine rates for the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine decreased. There were rises in measles cases and measles-related deaths afterwards, despite hundreds of studies since then showing no absolute cause and effect between the MMR vaccine and autism. What’s very interesting about this one study that really gained all the popularity with this debate between MMR and autism, is that several years ago it was actually retracted as solely a hypothesis and not true. 10 of Dr. Wakefield’s investigators said it did not show that MMR caused autism. This would make a great Law and Order episode, but what happened was that Dr. Wakefield was funded by a law firm that was representing children and families suing vaccine companies for adverse effects, and he was receiving money from this company, which is obviously a conflict of interest. Thus, there has been, to date, no medical evidence showing a cause and effect relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. The hard thing is we just don’t know what causes autism. Why the MMR vaccine also came up is there was a timal relationship. Autism is usually diagnosed at around 15 to 18 months of age, and we give the MMR vaccine at a year. However, even though there was a timal relationship, there’s never been any proof of a cause and effect relationship. We feel not only MMR, but all vaccines, are safe.
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At one time, there was a debate that Thiomersal (a mercury-based additive used as a preserative) was linked to childhood autism. However, almost all doctors and scientists studing this issue, as well as all major health agencies (CDC, World Health Organization, etc.) have found no link between vaccines and autism. In fact, many are concerned that this misconception will result in children going unvaccinated and causing an rise in preventable diseases (like measles).
So where did this rumor come from? For autism to be diagnosed, the symptoms have to start?around three years of age. If childhood vaccines are given frequently during this time, it is not unlikely that a significant number of people will notice an association between a vaccine panel and the first onset of the symptoms of autism simply by chance.
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…Almost 70% of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children do so bec…To respond to these concerns about vaccine safety the National Networ… The authors of this volume have recognized the absolute need to provi…This 272-page book is divided in two sections. The first section tells…
To respond to these concerns about vaccine safety, the National Network for Immunization Information (NNii) writing team of Martin G. Myers, MD, and Diego Pineda have written a book titled, Do Vaccines Cause That?! A Guide for Evaluating Vaccine Safety Concerns.
Link to full report
In 1998, the hepatitis B vaccine was initiated in a new program to vaccine newborns. This ill-conceived plan is often pointed to by researchers as a possible cause in the occurrence of autism. There are other researchers that point to the MMR vaccine as a cause of autism. It is possible, however, that both of these may be causes of autism for different reasons.
Today, there really are no reasons for giving a child the hepatitis B vaccine, and this is backed up by many vaccine experts. Experts state that a newborns immune is undeveloped, and the immune system is unable to respond to vaccines. With this understanding it is obvious that vaccines, which are designed for the stimulation of the immune system, find nothing to stimulate. In short, if a new Morton’s immune system lacks response than a vaccination, which means to generate a response is useless; however, it is believed that there is a connection between vaccines and autism.
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Mercuric compounds are nephrotoxic and neurotoxic at high doses. Thimerosal, a preservative used widely in vaccine formulations, contains ethylmercury. Thus it has been suggested that childhood vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccine could be causally related to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.
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Thousands of families claim that routine vaccines caused autism in their children. Now they’re taking the government to federal court.
American journalist David Kirby, author of controversial book Evidence of Harm, talks to Polly Tommey from magazine The Autism File about the on-going debate that refuses to go away. Can vaccines…
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