Do immunizations cause autism?

Factual Questions
61

Then what about ultrasounds, since that’s the last of the “new” causes of autism.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14231914/

And to answer the question that has been asked more than once, is it being reported (noticed) more now and not really an increase or what. IMHO I just find it hard to believe someone would look at my daughter and think mentally retarded (picture for understanding) she is most certainly unique, and most certainly is autistic. But yet she can think, she does many things showing she has a pretty good noggin on her. But she flaps her arms, bangs her head, bites, jumps up and down, acts like we don’t exist etc. Yet when confronted with tasks such as coloring in-lines, complex puzzles and other therapy activities she surpasses her age group. So all IMO it would be surprised to find it just being better reported. Though I would not discount that some of it is just that, not enough to discount the increase in the problem though.

62

Oh, she’s a pretty little thing, RyJae. Good luck.

63

In the not-so-distant past a lot of people (children and adults) were classified as “retarded” as a means of shuffling them off to institutions even though they were capable of near-normal to superior feats of intelligence. Permanently institutionalizing children who were “difficult” wasn’t just allowed but encouraged by both the social sentiment and the psychiatric community, feeling that if they couldn’t successfully treat them then they were best moved from view and out of the hair of agonized, unprepared parents. Today there are vastly better support systems and nontechnical information about diagnosing and coping with disorders like autism and Asperger’s, and the notion of institutionalizing “problem” children has dramatically fallen out of favor to the point that it is sometimes difficult to justify indefinite hospitalization for patients who require regular care.

On the diagnosis side, there were certainly fewer specialists familiar with the behaviors of autism and thus more likely to misdiagnose or provide a nonspecific diagnosis to an autistic patient. In addition, there are almost certainly many more cases of “borderline” (i.e. high functional) cases of legitmate ASD and Asperger’s Syndrome being recognized now than in the past, in additional to self-diagnosed claimants.

This isn’t to say that the incidence of autistic spectrum disorders and Asperger’s isn’t actually increasing, but it is unclear that this is the case; lacking both a qualified estimate of how many undiagnosed or misdiagnosed cases occured in the past, and a plausible causal mechanism for autism/Asperger’s that isn’t sheer unsupported conjecture, it’s hard to evaluate the extent to which greater diagnosis today breaks down between better evaluation methods and actual increases in autistic-type disorders.

I hadn’t heard about an alleged link to ultrasound (though I’ve seen other, unsupported conjectures about damage via ultrasound) but the linked article is so nonspecific–essentially clustering every major class of brain dysfunction together as possibly being caused by ultrasound–that it’s difficult to give the claim any credence, and it certainly doesn’t measure up to the grade of being even a reasonable hypothesis. Again, this doesn’t make it untrue, but lacking in the ability of the claim to statically or causally falsified, it doesn’t hold much water.

As a parent (which I’m not) I’m sure it’s very hard to accept that things sometimes “just happen” for no good reason; some, I’m sure, feel an underlying guilt for not somehow preventing the problem, and as a response seek a target onto which to award their anguish. I’ve seen this behavior (much too often) in parents whose children are permanently maimed or die of trauma or suffer physical syndromes like muscular dystrophy or cancer. Somebody has to be responsible, and they must pay! But the sad reality is that sometimes life is just terribly unfair, and it’s nobody’s culpability.

Your daughter looks like a sweetie, by the way. Good luck to you.

Stranger

64

Maus, that’s not a stupid question, that’s the 64 zillion dollar question! My guess - free and worth exactly what you paid for it - is that we have a combination of factors all playing at once: Better diagnostic techniques, more widespread diagnosticians, evolving and improving diagnostic criteria, loss of shame in kids being “crazy”, incentives for parents and schools to diagnose the kids (they get some of the help they need, as opposed to the bad old days where they just got a label to go with a life sentence in Bedlam), immune factors, environmental chemicals, associative mating, less tendency to write kids off as “losers”, less tendency to let kids grow up to be hermits, and for all I know the composition of the kitchen sink. This stuff is very hard to sort out!

What causes autism? Hell, what causes cancer?! We think we know, sometimes and for many types of cancers, but then someone who never smoked dies of lung cancer. Cancer can be a combination of genetics, environment, life style, diet, viral exposure, and possibly the heavy metals that made the kitchen sink. Plus other stuff I’m sure I’ve missed.

Sadly, yes. Institutionalization was the standard treatment for autism. RyJae, don’t underestimate the patronizing certainty of some of the psychiatrists of decades ago. They knew what was wrong, they knew how to treat it, and you were just the patient’s parent. You must be too close to the situation - your child may appear intelligent to you, but if he can’t speak, he must be retarded, and institutionalized. And how dare you ask about my track record!

Not enough :smack: s in the world for some of those bozos! The thought of autistic kids being in a 1960s or 1950s asylum makes my blood run cold.

On preview - thanks, Stranger, for covering this more accurately and more dispassionately than I did.

On the other hand, as a millennial parent with a mildly affected kid with autism, there were some times I’d have handed him over just to get a few minutes break. I’m glad I wasn’t given the chance, and I’m doubly glad I’ve had the chance to experience all of the better times with Dweezil. But if it was 1960, and the supposedly best guy in the field said to lock him up … I’m afraid of what I might have done.

65

That was very good Stranger, now another question, didn’t they record behavior of the institutionalized child? If so wouldn’t current researchers be able to get all the records for say from 1945 through 1950 for one facility and get an estimate on how many of those children, based on autistic behavior, where possibly autism patients? I know it wouldn’t be exact but it could help with “the question”.
On another note, I don’t want to blame anything, I used to, but not anymore. I would like to find the cause so it can be prevented. But not for finger pointing purposes.

66

Has there been a change in the the number of children labeled “retarded” and if it has gone down has that matched the rise of autism diagnoses?

67

I find it extremely doubtful that detailed records of patient behavior, not just day by day but hour by hour (which would be required for this kind of diagnostic analysis), were ever taken. The staffs of these institutions were essentially caretakers, and often barely even that; patients were lucky to get bathed regularly, let alone having a qualified observer constantly taking notes on their activities.

But even presupposing that these mountains of rigorous data exist, who would pay for the research to computerize them, sift through them, collate them, and in general do the thousands of hours of work necessary to draw such conclusions? It’s not like the universities and medical schools have armies of researchers sitting around waiting to be dispatched on a research task. Someone would need to make a proposal to do the historical analysis, justify the idea based on data availability and probable benefit, estimate the attendant costs, and then write and secure a grant. Seriously, the experts have their hands full with what’s going on now.

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. In fact, it would probably be extremely enlightening. I just don’t believe it’s realistic to expect it to happen, is all.

68

I used to post on an anti-vaccination board (until I got banned).

They posted a lot of links, most poorly understood or merely misrepresented. However -

This one - (PDF) looks at least superficially plausible. Would one of our more knowledgeable Dopers care to have a look and comment? I don’t know enough about it to do so (apart from seeing the disclaimers on the first page).

IANAAnti-vaxer. Void where taxed or prohibited.

Regards,
Shodan

69

Not necessarily. As much as the lack of mental health professionals is widely bemoaned today, there are more people in the field now than ever. In the past, and particularly in state mental hospitals, there were very few trained professionals and many marginally trained (and sometimes unlicensed) nurses, with the bulk of the work being done by unlicensed orderlies. This was basic caretaker stuff–keep 'em out of sight and sedated. If you do any reading on the history of the mental health establishment pre-'Seventies you’ll find that some pretty horrifying stuff was going on just out of sight, including (in some facilities) routine surgical and chemical lobotomy, unprescribed electroshock therapy, rampant use of additive opiates and other narcotics to keep patients sedate, et cetera. Although scaling back the state-supported health care systems in the early 'Eighties and dumping all non-threatening patients on the street (yet another benefit of Reaganomics) created some significant problems, it also did create further awareness and reform of mental health systems. Now, it’s no longer socially accpetible, and for most people not possible, to just stuff awkward relatives away in a “facility”.

Still, there’s a strong desire to be able to point at something as a cause, if for no other reason than to have power over it. Having something like this happen “just 'cause” with no explanation has to be frustrating and marginalizing.

It sounds a lot more valuable than many of the so-called studies so often cited in the press as The Next Big Threat. Actually formulating a baseline from which to measure deviation is generally the first step in any experiement or observational measurement.

Stranger

70

Banned? A sweet, gentle soul like you? :wink:

71

And all my posts deleted (he said, radiating innocence). Standards of evidence differ there as compared to the Dope.

Really, I would appreciate whatever feedback I can get on the study. Is this even a peer-reviewed journal? Is this study an outlier?

Regards,
Shodan

72

There was an NPR interview today, w/ the author of a new book on autism. I thought it might be of interest to some. Here’s a link to the audio:

The author has an autistic child. The interview was quite interesting and it sounded like the book might be informative and up to date.

73

I am sure they never will. But that doesn’t make it any more likely that the vaccine caused the Autism. A sick person, especially a child, is a terrible thing. It is comforting to be able to attach a cause. If it makes the parents feel better, it is worth it-as long as their reactions don’t interfere with children getting vaccinated.

74

perhaps you are correct. as to what happened in the good old days, Grandma might not remember all the kids who didn’t suffer from peanut allergies after eating their first and last peanut. As for allergies in general, it didn’t have a name in the general public, medicine had nothing to offer, why talk about it? People sneezed and sniffled. Nothing to talk about, no one is going to remember what is a routine event. Now, as soon as medicine could ID the problem, then allergies took off. Of course. That was when people talked about it.

The theory that dirt = immunity may have a clod of truth, but probably from the fact that disease preferentially removes the physically weaker people who in cleaner societies survive and pump up the numbers of allergy sufferers.

75

So what about the claim that 1 in 150 children is autistic? As one poster has pointed out, this stat has been in the news lately. Is it true or not? It seems really high.

76

Wakefield’s funding sources also make interesting reading. For instance, he received over 400K pounds from a legal group interested in suing vaccine manufacturers. His ethics have been under heavy challenge.

I was disappointed to see major media outlets this month covering the continued rise in reported autism cases and still mentioning the alleged vaccine-autism link. Since thimerosal was removed from early childhood vaccines years ago, you’d expect autism rates to be falling sharply, not increasing. The new report of strong genetic factors suspected in the vast majority of autism cases should also help refute a vaccine-autism link.

But I doubt Robert Kennedy and the others will be recanting any time soon. Juicy Big Pharma conspiracy theories die hard.

If I was the parent of an autistic child, I can’t say I wouldn’t be looking for someone or something to blame. But targeting vaccination just puts more kids at risk.

77

Let me just say that this parent of a (high-functioning) autistic child prefers to spend his time enjoying the gifts I do have, like a wonderful family and two precious children, and if I’m going to worry it’s about things that I can control, like making sure that each of my children are as happy and accomplished as they can be. :slight_smile:

I guess I can’t speak for all parents, but I suspect that most of us aren’t on a perpetual witch-hunt, but are all about making the best of whatever situation we find ourselves in. Pretty normal stuff, most times. (Here, “normal” means overworked, stressed, too little free time - what parent says that they aren’t sometimes these things.)

78

It seems high because that is not the statistic. The statistic is 1 in 150 children who have an autistic spectrum disorder, meaning autism, Rett’s, Asperger’s, childhood disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorders not otherwise specified. Those last two cause the trouble, because the boundaries are more elastic than for Asperger’s and autistic disorder. Depending upon how loosely you wish to interpret the qualifying criteria, you can gather up quite a lot of people into the net.

79

The CDC feels this is a possibility, but realize more research is needed. Latest press release relating to autism from the CDC:

80

When my sister (an anti-vaccine person) was trying to convince me not to vaccinate my daughter, I actually found anecdotal evidence of such a study. Unfortunately, it was an account of said study in a news article, and even more unfortunately, I don’t time right now to find it. But per my memory, some researcher once upon a time gathered up old behavioral workups from several decades ago and presented them to psychiatrists for a diagnosis. They also did a control group with present day children. The result was that the number of cases labelled “autistic” was the same for the old records and the control group, even though at the time only a fraction of the old records were classified as autistic.

I wouldn’t take my memory’s word on any of it, but I believe that study should be available somewhere if someone looks hard enough.

Also, don’t forget that there are many less extreme cases than your daughter’s sounds. I have an austistic cousin, who (in 2007, at least) everyone who meets seems to know within 10 minutes that he’s autistic. However, he doesn’t do any of the head banging or arm flapping. As such, when he was 3 or 4 he was diagnosed as autistic, and then undiagnosed because he didn’t exhibit a lot of the behaviors you mentioned, then re-diagnosed recently because of his massive social problems. He’s definitely autistic; he has zero capacity for gauging human reaction to his actions. But it’s mild enough that even as recently as the mid 90s, doctor’s couldn’t agree on a diagnosis.