Vaccines and Autism

[EringoBragh]

Autism seemed not to exist when vaccines did not exist. Then again.. there were many people shovelled into the lunatic asylums.. maybe a few autistics wound up there?

I think this is an issue worth exploring

[The Valkyrie]

The so-called rise in the number of autism cases is simply because a large number of mental illnesses have, and continue to be, reclassified as autism.

There is little to no scientific evidence that supports a correlation between vaccines and autism.

[TheRealJoeFish]

So I know this is beating a dead horse, but has anyone ever stopped to ask why anti-vaxers are treating autism (or disability in general) like some sort of life dooming thing? Doesn't anyone else think it's really weird that they'd rather their kid(s) have mumps, smallpox, polio, measles, etc than live with a disability?

Clearly, people do not grasp that vaccines prevent serious diseases. If they thought vaccines prevented diseases, they would vaccinate their kids.

As PZ Myers posted just this morning:

[Minimalist]

Autism seemed not to exist when vaccines did not exist.

Interesting.  I've often noted that when I was growing up in the 50's every other kid brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.  I never once saw someone collapse into a shivering pile of peanut-induced shit.  And yet,

http://acaai.org/allergies/types/food-al...ut-allergy

The most severe allergic reaction to peanuts is anaphylaxis — a life-threatening whole-body response to an allergen. Symptoms include impaired breathing, swelling in the throat, a sudden drop in blood pressure, pale skin or blue lips, fainting and dizziness. Unless treated immediately with epinephrine (adrenaline), typically administered in an auto-injector, anaphylaxis can be fatal.

noted scientific colleges swear to the accuracy of the impact of peanuts.    From the same source comes:

In recent years, awareness about peanut allergy in children has risen, as has the number of peanut allergy cases reported. In May 2010, a study noted that the rate of peanut allergies in children, as reported in a telephone survey, had more than tripled between 1997 and 2008.

I can't imagine what the hell happened between 1967 and 1997 but I doubt it has anything to do with vaccines ( we had them and no one ever got sick from them either ) or human evolution or even peanut evolution.  I do wonder what they might be spraying on the peanut crops and when such spraying was implemented.

[brewer]

It's more than likely that parents heard of this horrible "peanut allergy" and never exposed their infant children to peanut butter.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/136/3/600
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJ...d_home&

Edit: Sorry for the prior confusing post.

[Aractus]

So I know this is beating a dead horse, but has anyone ever stopped to ask why anti-vaxers are treating autism (or disability in general) like some sort of life dooming thing? Doesn't anyone else think it's really weird that they'd rather their kid(s) have mumps, smallpox, polio, measles, etc than live with a disability?

I've pointed this out before, but people seem to be disinterested. The hypothesis that vaccines (or rather the MMR vaccination) could trigger autism is perfectly valid since there is evidence that autism is an autoimmune disease. So researching the hypothesis should not be stigmatised in any way. With that said, it has been quite thoroughly researched now and no link between vaccination and autism has been found. It's still possible, but it's looking increasingly unlikely, and that the autoimmune trigger for autism has nothing to do with vaccines.

The 1998 Lancet paper (Wakefield et al) has been retracted. It should be noted the Lancet is a highly respected peer review journal, so to say the paper had no credibility for publication at all is not entirely accurate - at best we'd say the paper should have been rejected at the time so the authors could fix the problems and re-submit it. That's what happens for every peer review paper, so claiming now that it was "false" is not so much an attack of the authors or their research methods, but rather is an example of the failure of the Journal editors. Dr Wakefield maintains to this day that his research is valid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d40suCKnjbI

And it probably is, but his 1998 paper wasn't.


The problem isn't Wakefield or so-called "rogue researchers", it goes far deeper. We know that some autism cases are likely to be trigged by an autoimmune disease. We don't really understand what the trigger is at this time, meaning there's a huge unknown in this area of health. Wakefield and his colleagues were conducting research into one line of enquiry, and other researchers to this day are looking into other possible causes. The problem is that most people don't understand the difference between the levels of evidence in health. Even if the 1998 paper was not retracted, and was considered a good example of a peer-review study (which it isn't of course), but even if that was the case the evidence for a link between the MMR vaccination and autism is so weak as to be non-existent anyway.

But with this said, I still think the MMR vaccine is a problem for other reasons. If you look at the rate of vaccinations in children, for every other vaccination they are higher than the MMR vaccine. People don't like it, and healthcare consumers can't just told to accept healthcare products they feel are wrong. I'd like to see MMR continue to be offered as it is, but also offered as two separate vaccinations for parents who would feel safer with that option. I think if we did that, vaccinations for MMR would rise to the same level of other vaccinations.

[Minimalist]

And yet.... it worked.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/03...81922.html

Along with vaccines for polio and mumps, the measles vaccine was a triumph of investigative research and public health when it debuted in 1968. It quickly became part of the lineup of childhood injections that would inoculate the child and protect society from the scourge of the sometimes fatal and always painful disease. Widespread vaccinations eventually led to the elimination of measles in the U.S. in 2000 and the Americas (North, Central and South) in 2002.

But a series of stumbling blocks — notably, a fraudulent and discredited 1998 study linking vaccinations to the onset of autism — set vaccination rates back in certain communities in the U.S. The backsliding has resulted in several measles outbreaks in the past year in a country that had already declared measles defeated. Read on to see why the U.S. should be concerned about this unprecedented measles resurgence.

I guess a couple of hundred dead kids is the price to be paid so yuppie-scum parents can feel "empowered."

[bennyboy]

It's more than likely that parents heard of this horrible "peanut allergy" and never exposed their infant children to peanut butter.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/136/3/600
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJ...d_home&

Edit: Sorry for the prior confusing post.

How DARE you use actually studies and findings to argue against what we already know-- that a good Mom would NEVER allow peanuts anywhere near a child.  Cuz. . . you know. . . a mother's fears are always totally justified.

[rexbeccarox]

I'm allergic to nuts (not peanuts- they're not nuts), but it's rare I'm actually scared to be in a room because of it. It has happened (like at the tapas place that had "walnut dust" as an ingredient in a couple of their dishes), but most of the time I really just need to pay attention to what I ingest, and ask questions about things I'm not sure of. Anaphylaxis sucks a big one, but it's never happened because I was in the same room with nuts.

[bennyboy]

I'm allergic to nuts (not peanuts- they're not nuts), but it's rare I'm actually scared to be in a room because of it. It has happened (like at the tapas place that had "walnut dust" as an ingredient in a couple of their dishes), but most of the time I really just need to pay attention to what I ingest, and ask questions about things I'm not sure of. Anaphylaxis sucks a big one, but it's never happened because I was in the same room with nuts.

Let me clarify that I was talking about moms not exposing kids to nuts, and the resulting negative effects of an increased chance of allergy.  Obviously, if a kid does have a serious allergy, a mom would want to do her best to protect him.

I figure if say a kid in a class has a nut allergy, then it would be a common courtesy not to pack nuts in your kid's lunch if they're in the same class.  But you know some mom somewhere is going to try to ban the sale and consumption of nuts in all public places.  That's just crazy talk, amirite?