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27-July-2005, 02:13 PM
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Vaccinations and autism
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0616-31.htm
Does anyone think that there could be a connection? I saw Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on The Daily show recently and what he said was scarey if true... 
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27-July-2005, 03:15 PM
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A knee jerk reaction says no. The link between vaccines and autism is unproven and the epdemiological research on the subject shows this. For references check the American Council on Science and Health (search for "vaccines") or Quackwatch specifically their pages on immunizations.
And let's be honest, do we really want to go back to the days before vaccines when polio, mumps, measles, rubella took a far greater toll on children than the wildest speculations of the vaccine=autism claim exists? I personally don't think that's a terribly good idea. And, despite the famous name, since when is RFK Jr. a medical expert?
__________________
"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin "If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli
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27-July-2005, 03:43 PM
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A few vaccines do have potential side effects of their own, but in these cases the risks are quite low, and generally considered better than the risk of getting the disease itself; efforts to improve matters are always underway.
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27-July-2005, 05:41 PM
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I've been thru several iterations of this debate on GLP.
There is simply NO non-anecdotal evidence linking vaccines/mercury to autism. NONE. Mercury has been out of all pediatric vaccines for 3 years+ in the U.S., and much longer in Scandavia. Autism rates in Sandanavia have not changes. Ditto for the U.S., with one ballyhooed exception, which Mr. Kennedy has jumped on--the state of California. That is, most likely, a short-run statistical anomaly. The affair reinforces my already strong feeling that lawyers should not be making public health policy decisions. I reccomend the Quackwatch link as an excellent way to learn the facts about this issue.
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Standing on the shoulders of giants...
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27-July-2005, 05:58 PM
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Re: Vaccinations and autism
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 That would be scarey if it true...
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27-July-2005, 06:00 PM
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Now, whether there's actually a link with autism, I do think it would make sense not to include mercury, a known toxic substance, in something that's routinely given to young children.
Yet we see nothing wrong with feeding them a deadly poison like chlorine every day!. Of course, when it's all snuggled up with sodium in the form of table salt, maybe the chlorine isn't so bad. Similarly, the specific form in which the mercury appears probably makes a significant difference in its ability to be absorbed by the body - any chemists around who can talk to this? In any case, the link between thimerosal and autism appears to be speculative at best. The fact that autism rates in the British (IIRC) study didn't go down (allowing for a suitable lag) after thimerosal was removed from vaccines illustrates this point.
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27-July-2005, 07:10 PM
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Which is all I was saying, really. I'm really not trying to suggest that we should overreact to any possible indication of harm. But in this case, there are plenty of other preservatives available for those vaccines that need them, we know that a related form of mercury can be quite dangerous, and there hasn't been much study about the effects of this particular form of mercury (though what research there has been suggests that those effects are probably not as severe, which is good to know). I think the government and the manufacturers made a good choice in this case.
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27-July-2005, 09:01 PM
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I have no idea whether vaccines play a part in autism rates, but autoimmune diseases seem to be quite common in my family, so this is an interesting subject for me. There has been the suggestion that autism may sometimes be autoimmune related (this definitely is not confirmed). However, autoimmune disease rates have been on the rise. Nobody knows why, and there are many ideas. Resistance created through vaccination may have unobvious effects in a small part of the population - it could cause autoimmunity in some. Of course, even if this is true, we are much better off as a society with vaccines.
Anyway, with issues like these there are so many possibilities it is very difficult to pin the cause. Worse, with autoimmune diseases, it often looks like there are different populations with similar symptoms but suggestions of different underlying disease processes. There are almost certainly multiple causes.
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27-July-2005, 09:19 PM
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if there is a correlation, it must be a very small one; I've never met an autistic person, but just about everyone I've ever met has received the proper vaccinations. therefore, I'm willing to accept the risk when the time comes to vaccinate children I have that I don't give up for adoption. (I don't know if my daughter's adoptive parents had her vaccinated, but I certainly hope so.)
Bad Medicine has a pretty good discussion of this subject; unfortunately, they don't have a website, so you'll have to track down the book.
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28-July-2005, 01:51 AM
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We had a big scare in the UK a few years ago when it was claimed that there was a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. It seems to be one of those scares that just won't go away, and a lot of people would rather not have their child vaccinated than take what they see to be a risk. (No matter how many studies fail to demosntrate a link.) Unfortunately, as I understand it, autism is now typically diagnosed at an age not long after the child has had their jabs, and hence it is natural (though probably wrong) for people to connect the two.
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28-July-2005, 04:16 AM
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List aspartame among the "definite" causes of autism. My son has been diagnosed with autism, but oddly I had all of my vaccinations from sources back when mercury was used as a preservative, yet golly- no autism.
I pity a lot of these advocacy and support groups: looking for a "cause" so they have someone to sue, someone to blame... when there is no blame. From the research I've read, it's a factor in the brain: genetic and/or developmental with no significant correlation to any environmental factors. Kids have autism where there are no childhood vaccinations; autism existed long before vaccinations and aspartame. I've also been to support groups, and it is the frustration with a lack of defined cause and treatment that causes any improvement which leads to the frustration boiling over at any remotely plausable target. It's a classic "correlation equals causation" fallacy.
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28-July-2005, 07:28 AM
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"...Table 1. Thimerosal [approximately 50% mercury (Hg) by weight] Content of Vaccines Routinely Recommended for Children 6 Years of Age and Younger - (updated 7/18/2005)...Table 3: Thimerosal and Expanded List of Vaccines - (updated 7/5/2005)..."
http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm#t1
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28-July-2005, 05:48 PM
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.71 micrograms per gram is listed as a pathological dose in Brown Norway Rats inhaling mercury vapor. That would translate to a dose, in a typical newborn (for the sake of argument) at 6.6 lbs (roughly three kilos) of 2.1 milligrams. Fluvirin, assumedly a flu vaccine for an adult, is the highest with a composition of 25 micrograms of mercury-based preservative- equal to 12.5 micrograms of mercury. This is approximately 1/170 of the required dose for sickness in a newborn, if all of it makes it to the brain, and it is as toxic as mercury vapor. The other vaccines, typical infant vaccines, contain less than one microgram per dose - in some cases less than one-hundredth of a microgram. The best case to be made would be annual flu vaccines rather than the childhood set of vaccinations. Even that is an unsteady case, as children do not remain at the weight of three kilograms for long. [edited to add, edited to add link] Looking at FDA levels for mercury in fish, the typical allowed level is below 1 ppm (or, assumedly in translation, 1 microgram per gram). The typical level shown to produce illness in constantly eaten fish in a Japanese case of mercury poisoning in the 1960's was approxmately 40 micrograms/gram, well above the level in any vaccine, and causative in incidences where the mercury-laden fish was eaten over an extended period. In short, prenatal consumption of fish has a higher likelihood of contributing to adverse fetal development through mercury toxicity than vaccinations in early development, and considering my wife does not eat fish...
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28-July-2005, 05:53 PM
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From the link in Sarongsong's post above:
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Standing on the shoulders of giants...
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28-July-2005, 11:03 PM
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Perhaps because, unlike most other health care choices, vaccines are virtually mandatory. So it's a good choice for conspiracy-minded types and fear-mongerers.
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28-July-2005, 11:22 PM
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Everyone should also remember that autism itself has changed--not the disease itself, but the way the medical community sees it. Today's classification of "High Functioning Autism" used to be almost nonexistent. The diagnosis was usually reserved for children who showed the more severe maladaptive behaviors that come with autism: head banging, meltdowns, severe language delay, etc. And these kids were often institutionalized early.
I'm not sure exactly what happened to change all this. Part of it was probably the Asperger's syndrome classification. Part of it was a general shift in our attitude toward "special education." And part of it, I'm convinced, was Temple Grandin. Of course, I'm incredibly impressed by Temple Grandin, so perhaps I'm not the most objective of people. But I've heard her speak on autism, and I find it impossible to believe that she wouldn't rock the world of anyone who believes that autistics are necessarily nonverbal and/or disfunctional. Her whole life proves that it's possible to be autistic and a genius--and I know she got documented by some fairly high-powered psychologists. That has to have changed some things. Anyhow, we now have "Autism Spectrum Disorders" rather than just autism. Bright and functional (if "weird") kids do fall under the diagnosis. And the statistics skew further if you factor in Asperger's Syndrome (more or less a type of High Functioning Autism) or the absurdly named PDD/NOS. (Pervasive Developmental Disorder/Not Otherwise Specified. Have you ever in your life . . . I mean, even the abbreviation is too long! But I digress.) Izunya
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29-July-2005, 02:21 AM
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On the one hand, it's pretty much been proven that there is no connection.
On the other, using a mercury-based preservative in vaccinations is stupid in the extreme, to the point that it is asking for trouble.
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29-July-2005, 02:59 AM
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29-July-2005, 04:13 AM
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Perhaps not, but there are now.
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29-July-2005, 07:21 AM
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30-July-2005, 01:17 AM
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Silver presents the same problems as mercury - it's a toxic heavy metal. :roll:
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