Is it perhaps more possible that people have left something out when everything is done in uncontrolled environments by observers with an extreme emotional attachment to the outcome and extremely small sample sizes? Maybe something is missing when a parent conflates correlation with causation on their single child and does absolutely nothing to confirm or deny that result?
What you’re saying here seems to me to essentially be, “I don’t trust science, but I will trust a handful of anecdotes from parents who don’t know epidemiology from epidurals to accurately give me their stories and correctly interpret the data they have.” That’s phenomenally stupid. Many of these studies that examine the link between autism and vaccines are based on case studies. That is, actual evidence presented by doctors examining these children and giving their expert medical opinion. Doctors which, typically, are trained to avoid basic traps like immediately blaming something just because it happened immediately before some deleterious effect.
It would be. Weak, circumstantial, and highly questionable, but yes, it would be evidence. It’s then our job to go over that evidence and see whether or not there actually is any fire behind the smoke. The answer, as has been revealed in study after study after study, is that the correlation is coincidental.
Especially because the human mind tends to see patterns when none exist, and jump to conclusions. Of course there is a certain evolutionary advantage to that; if you see your friend die after being bitten by a snake, it’s better to think “snake bites are deadly, avoid all snakes!” than to say “I wonder if he really died from the snake bite?” But it can also be harmful - maybe the friend died from infection, but the snake itself was not only non-venomous but also edible and could have saved you from starvation.
That’s why we have statistics. To find out the patterns we see are real, or just false impressions.
Yes, and we needed to keep getting smallpox “boosters” because vaccination didn’t give lifelong immunity like surviving smallpox–or the more hazardous but valuable-in-the-18th-century inoculation/variolation. But we ended smallpox. (Didn’t you ever take a Biology class–even in high school?)
I had measles (both kinds!), mumps & chicken pox. Mumps hurt & chicken pox itched but measles was worse. Because I had to lie in a darkened room–no reading allowed–and my Mom checked on me even more often. I could tell she was worried. They took me for an eye exam when I recovered–no problems were detected. Even if you can ignore a few dead kids here & there, why should children have to suffer from preventable diseases? Why should parents have to worry & miss work?
And let me admit to a vaccine failing–the shingles vaccine is for old people, isn’t it? Oops. I got a mild case of shingles (because of the chicken pox) & have since rectified the situation.
Before the MMR vaccine, a first cousin was diagnosed with Autism. This was long ago–deafness & retardation were considered first. And I think these were the days when maternal “coldness” was considered a cause; but his four younger sibs are fine. He never became verbal & was institutionalized long ago. His younger brother says he visits occasionally but is really “happier” where he is.
Still, there are ways to help Austistic kids nowadays; perhaps he would have done a bit better with early intervention. Surely any modern parent of an Autistic child ought to focus on bettering that child’s life rather than screwing around with quackery.
Yes 5% off vaccinated individuals may still become sick of exposed. Let’s increase the number of people who get sick, have serious complications or even die by not vaccinating at all with the MMR!
If you go watch the movie they interview one woman who has twins. When they were getting the twins their MMR vaccinations the nurse had both kids in a room with several vials ready. She lost track of what she was doing and accidentally gave both injections of the MMR vaccine to the same kid (remember they were twins). That kid came home and had a horrible reaction to the double doses and now has severe autism while the other twin is fine.
Thin skin much? Nope, you don’t have any room to play martyr, my friend. Had you been willing to engage, honestly and openly, in the spirit of understanding the issues and fighting ignorance, from the beginning of the thread…well, dropzone will still have been snarky.
But in all respect and seriousness, you are not doing yourself or the anti-vaccination “movement” any favors here.
Weren’t the twins fraternal (meaning not genetically the same)? Is there independent verification of this elsewhere - I don’t trust the the documentary, as I know is misrepresents a great deal. And even if the events (MMR and symptoms) did happen at the same time and the one vaccinated had autism, it doesn’t mean the vaccination caused the other (numerous studies have repeatedly indicated that vaccines do not cause autism - an anecdote won’t change my mind - numerous peer-reviewed studies will).
No one should be making fun of your child, or the difficulty of raising an autistic child.
But encouraging people to avoid vaccines KILLS PEOPLE. What you’re going through deserves support. How you’re reacting to what you’re going through deserves ridicule.
Instead of looking at school records, why not look at the rates of child mortality back in the day before vaccination was common vs. after? Or even just visit a cemetary and wander through the older sections. Half of the graves are of children.
And there are people who didn’t survive them, or suffered from horrible health problems because of them. Actress Gene Tierney caught rubella from a fan when she was pregnant, and her daughter Daria ended up being born severely retarded. Author Roald Dahl’s daughter died from complications due to the measles. Mumps can cause sterility. You can even end up with problems from chicken pox – hello, shingles? (My dad’s had it twice)
I mentioned my two uncles. People survive whooping cough and tetanus (thanks for correcting me on that, Bricker!), but not always, and even when they do, both are agonizing to go through, and horrid for a parent to watch. Get this through your head: my great-grandmother lost not one, but two children to diseases that we can easily prevent today with vaccines. Do you honestly think the risk of autism is worse than a dead child?
I’m sorry about your son. But to put it bluntly, you didn’t have to see him cough himself to death, or watch him suffocate from lockjaw.
Full stop, I already pointed that a focus of the movie is from William Thompson’s accusations of fraud in the CDC. Those accusations are false or misleading, as you still have to deal with the citations I made early.
Here is more of the misleading information that William Thompson was making, before the Vaxxed movie and the makers of it repeated them:
Come on people you know we’ve all seen this a million times. They say there’s not enough independent studies, and they say you just need to talk to parents who have seen it with their own eyes, and they say vaccines don’t even work, we’ve just learned how to wash our hands, and they say hey why are you so worried if your kid is vaccinated, and they say hey I’m just asking questions, and they say I’m not anti-vaccine, I’m pro safe vaccine (or “vaccine cautious” in this case).
I mean seriously, Wakefield just gives them the talking points and they just spout them back…they don’t even make sense all put together into an argument. It’s not a conversation.
Unfortunately, every one of your responses has been either an unsubstantiated anecdote or a claim, by you, that you do not trust scientific research (while demonstrating a serious misunderstanding of how such research is carried out).
You really are not holding up your end of the “debate” and I am torn between moving this to a forum for mere opinions or to The BBQ Pit as a rant.
I’m curious, though I don’t expect the OP to answer, what is an acceptable death toll from preventable diseases to try to reduce autism? What about severe complications?
I have a good friend whose oldest daughter is autistic. She gets pissed when she hears anti vaxxers like McCarthy talk about the soul just going out from behind her son’s eyes. Her daughter may be different, but she’s not broken. And many antivaxxers refer to their children as zombies or broken or talk about the soul of their child just… going away.
Is there any independent confirmation of any of this? What’s the woman’s name? Is there a case study to back this up? Would you like to provide evidence for your claim that doesn’t come in the form of a documentary that has been established to be complete and utter shit? Let’s be clear here - if my source for a claim is the documentary “How Lizard People Took Over”, I DO NOT HAVE A SOURCE.