Do immunizations cause autism?

Factual Questions
41

I Added the Bold

You may be referring to things such as ADD or something because there is no mistaking any autistic child in my experience for anything other than PDD or PDD-NOS related. As for drugs, no therapist, no doctor has recommended any drugs so in my experience that has nothing to do with Autism. I will reiterate, the multiple children, including my daughter, who have autism are not in any way hard to miss. The increase in rates is real, and should concern not just those of us directly affected but everyone as the rates seemingly increase, the cost of care is also going to increase, and that’s for life. Finding the cause/causes is of utmost importance, it’s to late for my daughter but if it is something as simple as ultrasounds/TV viewing/vaccines/etc. then we as a society need to be concerned about finding out what it is.

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More over, the spike in Autism in the US corresponds to the redefinition of the Autism diagnosis criteria. This is in no way to suggest that Autism is not a very serious and debilitating condition.

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For decades people who were likely autistic (by current DSM-!V standard) were regarded as being “retarded”, “mute”, “psychotic” and so forth, often locked away in hostpitals and given little in the way of treatment or training. Revisions in the standard combined with a greater awareness and social impetus to not simply lock inconvenient people away has certainly contributed to the increase in ASD/AS diagnoses. Whether there is an increase in the actual incidence of ADS and Asperger’s is uncertain.

There is certainly a broader spectrum of autistic-like dysfunction than was previously acknowledged (and I suspect this is where numbers in the range of 1 in 150 come from); however, if someone is beyond being merely “high functional” and can actually perform the normal activites of daily life without significant impairment or requiring extensive training, they really don’t fall under the definition of having a disorder. Temple Grandin (as an example) is high functioning, but required considerable training and conditioning to get to a point of self-sufficiency and is still significantly impaired in many social ways despite her career success. Most people who can truely be described as having Asperger’s Syndrome or and Autistic Spetrum Disorder will require lifelong care to a greater or lesser extent.

Stranger

44

I’ll jump in. I do not believe the my son Dweezil’s autism was caused by vaccinations. We did not see any slippage around vaccination times, and looking back we can remember austism hints from the day we got him home from the hospital.

But I cannot reject the autism-vaccination link out of hand. I think the medical community is not helping itself by rejecting it without being a bit more thorough. (I know they studies involved covered a lot of people - I’m expand on my meaning below.)

I have heard too many stories of kids falling back from developmental milestones after their vaccinations, even before I read this thread. I know “the plural of anecdote is not data” - but when there are enough anecdotes it’s worth looking at again. I’m not even looking for those stories - I’m not an anti-vaccinaiton advocate - but I keep hearing about them anyway.

Vaccine reactions can be under-reported. Friends of mine lost a baby to SIDS a few days after a vaccination - and the baby reacted badly to the vaccination. The parents had to work to get their doctor to report this as a vaccination reaction. I don’t know if their report ever made it into “the system” - and I am not in a position to check.

As mentioned above, the current infant vaccination schedule is based on convenience, as well as on science. Docs want to get the kids vaccinated “on schedule”, and parents don’t want to drag the kids to the doctor again and again. But I think the protocols for vaccination should be reviewed to try to prevent problems. Giving kids a shot when they already have a fever is a bad idea. Heck, giving a kid ASPIRIN when they have a fever is a bad idea. What would the medical community have said in 1962 to a parent who’s child just died of Reye’s? “I don’t know why your baby is dead, but aspirin is the most widely used and safest drug on the market, so that can’t have anything to do with it.”

Studies of broad populations show that for the average person, there are no problems with vaccinations. For the average person, a peanut butter sandwich is a fine meal. For my son and others with peanut allergies, PB&J is a death sentence.

I suspect that there is a sub-set of the population who are sensitive to vaccinations. There should be a way to determine who is in that population, and to modify vaccination protocols appropriately. Studies of broad populations are not going to ferret out this problem. “Meta-analysis” of old studies of broad populations are not going to ferret out this problem. The medical community has, so far, studied the general population, or gathered multiple previous studies of the general populationn, to conclude there is no link between vaccinations and autism. I think they’ve missed the mark. If they want the idea of a vaccine-autism link to go away, the medical community is going to have to do better. It will be a LOT of work - I shudder to think of the experiemental design of a prospective study of vaccine reactions in a variety of children monitored from birth for developmental disorders (and controlled for vaccination schedule) - but lives can be saved and improved.

I do not think the medical community or “Big Pharma” is motivated by greed in the case of a potential vaccine link to autism. I think they genuinely have the health of the public in mind. (And are they making that much money from vaccines? Compared to what they make from ED meds??) Vaccines are generally a public health boon. But everyone is not an average person - in fact no-one is an average person.

OTOH, I do think that RFK Jr. is either a charlatan or a fool. Even considering he’s a lawyer presenting himself as a medical authority. I saw his schtick on the Daily Show. He claimed that all of the medical studies show a link between not just vaccines and autism, but the mercury in vaccines and autism. Uh, no. The published studies all show the EXACT OPPOSITE. John Stewart let it go by, and he should not have. I know it’s a fake news show, and RFKJr was talking about something outside of the book he was pimping, and RFKJr’s father was assassinated, but what RFKJr said was 180 degrees from reality, and presented as if it was as sure as 1+1=2.

I may think the studies that show no link between vaccines and autism missed a point, but to deny they show no link in the general population is dishonest. To claim they did show a link is doubly dishonest. To claim they showed a link, AND defined a cause is UTTERLY dishonest. Suffice to say RFKJr had no credibility with me after I saw him on that show (the first time I saw him!). I see on preview that he has a credibility problem with others here as well.

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And the medical folks can be very, very insistent about keeping to this schedule, even in the face of compelling reasons to delay. I’ll give an example:

My twins were born 6 weeks early; one of them was born with a series of major congenital defects, including heart, stomach, pancreas. When she was born, we only knew about the heart defect, and there was no way to avoid reconstructive surgery. So our whole focus with her was to get her to grow large enough to survive the surgery, and as with all babies with congestive heart failure and stiff lungs, she grew slowly and poorly.

Then she got to be 60 days old - but still struggling for every gram of weight gain - we weren’t measuring in ounces - and the harrassment began: “She’s 60 days old, do you want to begin her vaccine series now?” “No. I dont want to do ANYTHING that might compromise or set her back her at this time, we can wait.” A few days later: “We want to begin her vaccine series. She’s 60 days old.” “No. I told you before. I told you my reasons. We’re going to wait.” A few days later…repeat. Finally, the FIFTH time, the nurse called me at HOME to make sure that no really meant no, and we ended up arguing on the phone. After that, I hunted down the pediatric cardiologist who was overseeing our case and begged her to intercede, to tell the damned nurse to leave me alone, that the vaccines were not vital at this time. The harrassment stopped.

I understand that the nurse was “just doing her job” but no meant no the first time, and it surely meant it the fifth time when she called my home.

The idea that a child must have vaccines “on schedule” regardless of mitigating circumstances is baffling to me. At the time, it made me very angry. Oh, and my kid? Heart surgery was successful, as were her subsequent stomach surgeries. When she was finished with all her surgeries - around the age of 2 - we began her vaccine series on a modified schedule, and she’s 'all caught up now".

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That reminds me of a situation with my daughter. She had been to the doctor several times with breathing troubles, had pneumonia once or twice, and was taking daily breathing treatments. She was having more trouble and we took her to the doctor right around the time she was supposed to have some vaccinations. The doctor said he was not going to give her the vaccinations at that time, because she was sick, and he also referred us to a specialist, who we went to see about 3 weeks later. The specialist asked me if my daughter was current on all her vaccines, and I said no. He flipped out and started lecturing me about how important it is blah blah blah… I told him that her pediatrician would not give her the shots because she was sick and that made no difference, he told me it was my responsibility to make sure she got her shots. I guess when I go to get my son vaccinated I’ll take my gun with me, so I can force them to vaccinate him at gunpoint if necessary.

Oh yeah, he also asked me what antibiotic the pediatrician had given me, and then yelled at me because it was the “wrong” one.

Topic change:

I think everyone agrees that people react more strongly to anecdotal stories than to statistics; this was discussed earlier in the thread. Some people get an email saying some outrageous thing, and you cannot convince them otherwise no matter how much evidence you show them. As long as the medical field tries to counter the conspiracy-theory-wielding mercury-causes-autism-so-don’t-vaccinate-your-child crowd with fancy schmancy “facts” and “statistics” and “scientific studies” it is going to lose. So maybe the medical field should fight fire with fire. Start rumors about how they know this guy, who didn’t get his kids vaccinated, and then his kid got polio, and died a horrible death screaming for his daddy to help him, but he couldn’t, he just had to watch him die. Throw in some vague reference to the tri-lateral commission, and their attempt to keep vaccines out of the hands of poor people, and you’ll have the nay-sayers lining up around the block to get their kids vaccinated.

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snort

Ah, the power of glurge …

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** WishIHadACoolName**, I am sorry for the pain you’ve had to go through. And I certainly don’t agree with FRDE’s take on the matter.

But what you reported is the exact opposite of what the UK anti-vaccination lobby has been screaming. They claim the MMR in combination causes autism. Parents have therefore been opting for single vaccinations to avoid the “chance” of autism.

Background: the reason there’s been such a storm is that, in the UK, we expect our medical treatment to be free. MMR was provided for free. The 1998 study came out, people freaked out, and some people paid £80 a shot for single vaccinations for their kids to avoid the chance of autism. But they weren’t happy, because it’s meant to be free here, hence the media storm.

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Is the rise in autism cases just that, or perhaps better and more refined reporting methods? A combination of the two?

In addition could the rise of autism, or other negative medical issues for that matter, be attributed to better living conditions and better medical practices? Life expectancy certainly has jumped during the last one hundred years as a result of better hygiene, living conditions, better food, etc. Is it possible that individuals who at one point in our history once labeled “sickly” died young before they reproduced, now live into their reproductive years and reproduce blood lines that continue to carry a “sickly” lineage, and possibly increase the numbers of medical issues?

We consciously breed animals to produce better yields, faster horses, prettier dogs, etc. Some now advocate more extensive in vitro testing so as to possibly create “designer” children. Have we unconsciously opened the door where individuals who might have died earlier naturally a few generations ago are now living full lives and not only passing along traits, genes, illness that should have killed them, but now becoming dominant? I know this sounds cruel and approaching eugenics, but that’s certainly not my point.

From an anecdotal perspective, growing up I don’t recall kids being allergic to peanuts. I do remember the kids allergic to bee and wasp stings. Is the reporting better now? Are people more aware of the allergies? We have warning labels on confectionery products (among others) warning people that the product was produced on machines where peanuts were processed. All well and good, and I’m all for it. But that does not stop me from thinking are more and more peanut-allergic people now reproducing and increasing the rate of the allergy that a generation or two ago natural selection kept such allergies in check?

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Well now, for another bit of anecdote: I asked my grandmother about this. She grew up in Arkansas, dirt poor, eating things like boiled peanuts in the Depression. She said they didn’t have peanut allergies then, and it’s only the last…well, I suppose 20 years that we’ve seen this kind of thing. I don’t remember kids with asthma, diabetes, or severe allergies then, either. Possibly they existed (or possibly they died), but it simply wasn’t the kind of public problem it is today. Grandma even went as far as to say that people didn’t get seasonal allergies. I don’t know if that’s true, but I can’t imagine living with the kinds of seasonal allergies Isuffer, without medicine to knock them down. I’m half-incapacitated every spring.

The best theory I’ve heard for some of these things is that the more we try to eliminate disease and sources of disease from our civilized lives (via vaccination and sanitation), the more our bodies - which are geared by hundreds of thousands of generations of evolution to expect pathogens to fight off - find something to fight anyway: itself.

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40 years ago I was a kid with food allergies, so we DID exist, but I think you’re right, it’s more common now.

Given the number of times I wound up with angry adults almost force-feeding me things I was allergic to, in order to “prove” I didn’t have a problem beyond attitude, I suspect quite a few of those kids died back then.

Partly, we’re more aware of these things - food allergies aren’t always life-threatening, sometimes they just make you miserable. So a kid with eczema 50 years ago might have just lived with the rashes, now they might find a food is triggering it, so there you have another allergic kid. Partly, it’s better medical treatment so kids are less likely to die of their severe allergies. But in the case of allergies the rate IS rising and seems to correlate with eliminating intestinal parasites.

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Back in the 40’s, my cousin had some kind of allergy. They took him to all kinds of drs. and subjected him to many tests. He was young, maybe 3-4-5, somewhere around there. He’d get these pustules all over. They used to put cardboard “sleeves” on his arms to prevent him from scratching. He was on all kinds of special diets and my uncle even got a goat and milked it to feed the kid. I don’t think they ever did figure out the cause and he finally “outgrew” it. He grew up to be a quite handsome man, despite a few pock scars. He had a career as a piilot of executive jets. His older brother never had any similar problems.
My closest childhood friend developed rheumatic fever at around age 11. He had to stay indoors, mostly in bed, when he wasn’t in the hospital. I never saw him again after that. A few years later my sister was also diagnosed w/ rheumatic fever, but she wasn’t as bad as my friend. I think my sister’s problem was later diagnosed as something else, much less serious.
In the mid 70’s, there was a rash of children being diagnosed w/ dyslexia in our area. My stepson was one of these children, and shortly after his younger sister was also indentified as a sufferer. A local “specialist” opened several clinics to treat these kids. I think it was more scam, than legitimate. My son’s problems were psychological, stemming from previous treatment by his father. I don’t believe that my daughter ever had a problem, but the “specialist” convinced my wife that both kids needed his therapy.
In earlier times, people just accepted that kids were different and dealt w/ it the best they could, often quite effectively.
I’m not saying that there aren’t some very serious physiological problems, but I do think that the recent increase in many of these conditions is a combination of better diagnosis, overdiagnosis, misdiagnosis and possibly even some children being convinced they must have a problem because of parental concern and the medial attention they’re getting.
I think this is especially true of things like ADD and dyslexia.
I know very little about autism, but I’m suspicious of the drastic jump in diagnosed cases over such a short period of time. It certainly needs to be investigated, but I think we must not jump to conclusions until medical science has had time to evaluate the evidence.

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Stupid question:

Is there really an increase in the rate of autism, or are we now better at diagnosing it?

I would imagine that 40 years ago, an autistic child would have been simply classified as “retarded”, and shuffled off to the mental institution.

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Of course they do. HOWEVER, there are still some things we can’t explain yet. Also, to automatically assume that it was caused by vaccination isn’t a good idea. Causation, correlation, like I said.

Again, I suspect it’s because the age autism usually shows up is around the same age (roughly) that certain vaccinations are usually given. Coincidence, that sort of thing.

Also, as much as it pains me, it’s a HELL of a lot better to have a LIVING autistic child than one dead from one of the many diseases vaccinations prevent. I went to college with a guy from Africa who had a twisted leg from polio-and he was the same age as me. Amazing, in this day and age, but there you go. And one of my professors had to use a walker after catching polio as an adult. The same year Salk came out with the vaccine, it was only being used on children at first, and so she caught it. A local news anchor, Stacy Smith, is almost NEVER seen walking on camera because he suffered from polio as a child.

Is the alternative to NOT being vaccinated much better? High fevers as children can also result in retardation, can’t it? Measles in pregnant women can harm a fetus.

ETA: I am sorry for those who suffer and for those whose children suffer from autism. I can’t imagine the pain one goes through. BUT, again, until we have some clear, decisive, REPUTABLE studies on this, I cannot endorse the “no vaccinations” camp.
And Trudeau is full of shit-the guy promotes Dianetics, for crissakes.

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What about the theory that television causes autism? Does it hold any water?

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Television causes autism? You’re kidding, right?

Seriously…

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Television definitely does not cause autism, or any other non-fatal illnesses. With television, it’s pretty much all or nothing.

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Sadly, no, he’s not. Never mind the lack of an explicable causal link for alleged television-induced autism; let’s grab the results of a non-peer reviewed study with no critical analysis of statistical validity or skepticism and inflate it for headlines. Boy, you can sure scare people when you talk about how the ubiquitous televisor might be the proximate cause for downfall of Western Civilization. “Next on Live at Five: watching t.v. weather reports might cause your genitals to catch fire! Stick around for the full story after Fred gives us the Storm Watch Update!”

Stranger

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Thanks for the links Stranger. So from scanning the time article, it looks like the answer to my question (does it hold water?) is "who knows?” Is anybody doing any peer reviewed research on this or was it just the Cornell economists/statisticians causing trouble?

Ps. If my location was otherwise I would search myself (lame, I know)…

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More like, “no.”