OK, NOW I'm REALLY annoyed with the Anti-vaccination crowd

[dropzone]

@psychobunny

…This is all just to say that I do understand why doctors still overprescribe antibiotics and to say that some of us are still out here fighting, but it’s not easy.[/rant]

My wife worked at a clinic in an upscale town where patients would DEMAND! antibiotics before they left for Cancun to protect them from the DANGEROUS! water in Mexico. :rolleyes:

She suggested they prescribe something that increased photosensitivity. “The good news, Mrs Warbucks, is that this will kill just about anything you’ll come across. The bad news is that you can’t go to the beach unless you wear a burkha. But you won’t want to be more than ten feet from a toilet, anyway, 'cuz this stuff will mess up your innards.”

She wonders if some of “Montezuma’s Revenge” occurs because of prophylactic antibiotic use and if some is simply because the bowels of people from an area with naturally soft water, like New York and New England, react to the hard water of Mexico.

[irishgirl]

There is significant proportion of the adult population that missed our on their measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations, either through parental choice, beaurocratic oversight, being sick on the day of school when everyone was vaccinated and missing the shots, having an allergy to one of the components or simply being the wrong age (i.e. too old). Some of them will never have aquired natural immunity.

These adults are the ones who will get mumps and rubella if herd immunity falls and will end up with infertility and babies with birth defects.

I know of at least one child with recurrent leukaemia who has had to be home-schooled since she began her latest round of treatment because most of her schoolmates weren’t given their vaccinations. Herd immunity is necessary not just for the kids of the “won’t vaccinate” it is needed for the “can’t vaccinate” too.

The vaccination rate for MMR in the Dublin area fell to below the levels required for herd immunity. There was a measles outbreak and a child died. Suddenly the rate began to increase again.

A theoretical risk of autism beats an actual risk of death and most people thankfully are smart enough to realise it.

[LavenderBlue]

I have debated the anti-vax contingent on several message boards. I am firmly in the “they’re morons” camp. Over and over again I have seen have little they know about the subject. Not only ignorance but in your face dangerous ignorance. For example one person has repeatedly insisted that she wants her children to get measles. Yeah lady let’s give a child an illness that might land him in the hospital with potentially serious complications because his mommy is an idiot. :rolleyes:

On some level I wouldn’t care if this were just parents we were writing about. If you could have a “stupid parent” disease that only anti-vaxxers could get that would be just fine and dandy. But their kids don’t deserve to get hurt because their parents have no brains. My community certainly doesn’t.

This whole thread reminds me of how much I love the SDMB. Anti-vaccine nonsense is routinely dismissed here with vast contempt.

[Anne_Neville]

@dropzone

My wife worked at a clinic in an upscale town where patients would DEMAND! antibiotics before they left for Cancun to protect them from the DANGEROUS! water in Mexico. :rolleyes:

She suggested they prescribe something that increased photosensitivity. “The good news, Mrs Warbucks, is that this will kill just about anything you’ll come across. The bad news is that you can’t go to the beach unless you wear a burkha. But you won’t want to be more than ten feet from a toilet, anyway, 'cuz this stuff will mess up your innards.”

Given the yeast infections I’ve gotten from antibiotics, I’m amazed that any woman tries to get antibiotics more than once unless a doctor says they’re absolutely necessary…

@Shodan

But if a kid cried after getting his shots, that was a bad reaction to vaccination (“I never heard her scream like that! Do you think she might have brain damage?”

Oh dear, I’ve had a bad reaction to lots of vaccinations (I have a phobia of needles, and tend to shake and cry any time I have to get a shot). Guess I’ll have to call a homeopath…

[Max_Torque]

@Pullet

<obligatory story>
my classmate’s elbow got infected (pain, heat, swelling, redness. Classic bacterial infection). Went to the doc. Doc gave him antibiotics. Two weeks later, goes for a recheck. Things are better, but not cured. Doc says he wants to stop the antibiotics. Classmate asks why since things are better. Doc says “well, I don’t know. Tradition, I guess. Would you like to be on antibiotics longer?” After much wrangling, classmate convinces doc to not only extend the antibiotic treatment but actually gasp sample and culture the infection. Yup, it’s bacterial. And, fortunately, it’s susceptible to the antibiotics he is on. We’re going on week 5 and the elbow is better, but not fixed.

</hyjack>

I ran into something similar back in college. I had a recurring ear infection. It went on for months. I’d go to the quack shack to get a prescription, and they’d give me two weeks worth of amoxicillin, which was enough to get it to lay low for a while, but not clear it up entirely; a few weeks later, I was hurtin’ again. Finally, I got a doctor whose philosophy was “you’re living with this, so you know what it’s like better than I do,” and he agreed to write me an amoxicillin prescription with – oh dear god no – a refill. Even the pharmacist got at baffled and huffy about it. Imagine, a refill for antibiotics! But three continuous weeks of taking the stuff knocked it out for good, and I kept on the stuff for one more week just to be sure.

On the subject of vaccinations: I am very much in favor of vaccinations. However, my brother’s first son is autistic, and what happened to him is exactly what so many people here seem to be dismissing: he knew colors, and shapes, and he could count to ten. Then, because he was behind on his vaccines and it was almost time for the next series, they gave him two rounds worth at once. And within a week or so, the light went out, and he disconnected. He hasn’t spoken a word since then.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t vaccinate, by any means. But I told our pediatrician, on our first visit with my daughter, that despite there being no demonstrated connection between autism and vaccines, because of my family’s history I would like them to be properly spaced out, no “doubling up”. And if that means that I have to make a few extra office visits, I am totally fine with that. The MMR, the so-called “autism shot”, doesn’t appear to have dire consequences if it’s delayed, and we’re considering that.

[Unauthorized_Cinnamon]

@Max Torque

On the subject of vaccinations: I am very much in favor of vaccinations. However, my brother’s first son is autistic, and what happened to him is exactly what so many people here seem to be dismissing: he knew colors, and shapes, and he could count to ten. Then, because he was behind on his vaccines and it was almost time for the next series, they gave him two rounds worth at once. And within a week or so, the light went out, and he disconnected. He hasn’t spoken a word since then.

As much as the connection is viscerally appealing, you do realize this is the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, right? It’s been noted that autism tends to manifest around the age that vaccines are given, so parents (especially once they’ve been primed for the connection) are prone to assume the two are linked. But that’s no more scientifically compelling than stating that going to kindergarten causes children’s teeth to start falling out.

I really do wonder if the rise in autism isn’t, as someone mentioned above, a function of medical science saving more babies. Is it possible that children who are destined for autism might have been lost to miscarriage, premature birth, and neonatal death in earlier times?

The other thing I’d be interested to see research on is suspected hormone disruptors. I once heard a researcher describe their hypothesis about autism being “hyper-maleness,” and given that there are lots of environmental chemicals floating around that may mimic human hormones, I wonder if there could be any connection. N.B. - I have no data on these issues, this is pure musing and wishing for actual scientific research.

As for the loony woo-woo people, there’s a special place of hatred in my heart for the “yeast elimination” set, who pretend to know so much (more than doctors and scientists, at the least!), but can’t tell the difference between Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida albicans, because they are both colloquially called “yeast.” :smack:

[saoirse]

@MsRobyn

Isosleepy, I wasn’t referring to the vaccination debate. I was referring to the person in the GD thread who posted the claim that mercury in amalgam fillings leaches into the bloodstream, where it accumulates in the fetus, causing autism.

Both things I said in my original post are true. I have had a lot of dental work, so I have a lot of fillings, many of them amalgam. I was also induced with Pitocin, which some claim is linked to autism, as well, although I can’t find any scientific studies that confirm any link. If I chose to believe the cranks, my son should have autism. But he doesn’t.

Whoever you were responding to, you’re just wrong. Your experience doesn’t prove anything, because it is at best one single datapoint. Just because something presents a significant risk, doesn’t mean it always happens. The nutjob was right on that.

@SnakesCatLady

Is this because of better diagnositics? Expanding the definition of what constitutes autism? I just don’t know - and I wonder.

A little of both, probably. Many autistic children were misdiagnosed as mentally retarded, years ago. Also, the understanding of autism as a spectral disorder means that some of them weren’t diagnosed at all, and just considered a little off.

[Isosleepy]

MsRobyn, Maggenpye
If you had fillings, were induced etc, and your kid isn’t autistic, that doesn’t prove that it doesn’t cause it, or isn’t a contributing factor. Again - I smoked, but don’t have lung cancer - that doesn’t mean that smoking isn’t a contributing factor.

Again, I’m not at all convinced vaccines cause, or contribute to causing autism.
But I do call into question the automatic going along with conventional wisdom that it for sure doesn’t, and thus that questioning it is ignorance or even asinine. That doesn’t mean I’m buying into the crap that a lot of anti-vaccine sites spew - far from it, and please keep in mind the difference between that straw man and my position.

As to peer-reviewed science: the study I cited “Mercury containing Vaccine Vindicated” has real problems, despite it’s peer review and supposedly solid science. As I stated earlier: the study assessed only those children who were exposed to mercury during the first 28 days to 7 months of life. So it doesn’t adress the main argument of the “other side” that autism is caused by a build up of mercury in the system as a result of multiple vaccinations over the first two years of life. So even if there were no further issues, the study doesn’t actually answer that question. Further: Only 30% of the selected families participated - the researchers say that that should make a Thimerosal-Autism link more apparent if there was one, as parents of kids damaged by Thimerosal would be more inclined to participate. That, however, is not scientific fact, it is an opinion. I have an opinion too: maybe the parents of autistic kids are too damn busy with therapy etc to participate. So, there is participation bias, but we don’t know which way it goes. How scientific is this now?
Also, these kids were not assesed on wether or not they had ASD, they performed tests. I can assure you that after all the therapy my son has had, there are a bunch of tests he can ace with ease. He’s still Autistic though. So what does the answer in this test really tell us?

And Hentor , I’m not going to dig very deep into the three studies you mention, but off the top of my head I remember that there are in fact questions to the methodology of the Danish study, but there are even more important issues with that one: The vaccination schedule is different in Denmark vs the US, (resulting in less exposure to Thimerosal and spread out over a longer period of time), Vaccination compliance in Demnark is lower than in the US, and Thimerosal was phased out almost a decade earlier than it was here. Autism rates in Denmark are also significantly lower than in the US. So what questions does that study answer? How relevant to the Timerosal exposure issue in the US is it? How relevant would a study of Norwegian inner city youth’s exposure to gang violence be to what’s going on in Compton?
On a brief read through, the Canadian study says PDD occurances went up after phase out of Thimerosal. So then, Thimerosal *prevents * Autism? Or does this maybe hit on something more relevant, that the control group (post Thimerosal-phaseout kids) isn’t really that controlled at all, could be exposed to all kind of other Hg sources?
The problem with statistical analysis is that you have to have a clear understanding of the question you are trying to answer, a solid methodology as to how to go about answering the question, and the ability to filter out all those other factors that might affect your test subjects. It is easy to statistically prove that a large number of people carrying umbrellas causes it to rain.

Again, I don’t neccesarily believe Thimerosal in Vaccines = Autism. I’m also not Jenny McCarthy, and I don’t write for anti vaccine blogs, and I thank you to keep that in mind. I merely question the “shut up, it’s peer reviewed capital S Science” reason for not questioning the research, and I dispute anyone calling that asinine.

[Dangerosa]

@saoirse

A little of both, probably. Many autistic children were misdiagnosed as mentally retarded, years ago. Also, the understanding of autism as a spectral disorder means that some of them weren’t diagnosed at all, and just considered a little off.

And that’s recent. We used to just call people “slow witted” or “simple” and move on. Higher on the spectrum they were “odd” and they (and their communities) would cope. A little lower and we’d give them simple jobs if we could, at the other end we’d institutionalize them away. There was no reason to need to know why they were slow (my grandmother insisted that my great uncle had been dropped on his head when he was - surprise - about the age we’d vaccinate now. There were always hay lofts to fall out of, kicking cows, and childhood illnesses to blame back then).

[saoirse]

@Dangerosa

And that’s recent. We used to just call people “slow witted” or “simple” and move on. Higher on the spectrum they were “odd” and they (and their communities) would cope. A little lower and we’d give them simple jobs if we could, at the other end we’d institutionalize them away. There was no reason to need to know why they were slow (my grandmother insisted that my great uncle had been dropped on his head when he was - surprise - about the age we’d vaccinate now. There were always hay lofts to fall out of, kicking cows, and childhood illnesses to blame back then).

I actually meant to say “recent.” Really, I did.

[Harmonious_Discord]

@Dangerosa

And that’s recent. We used to just call people “slow witted” or “simple” and move on. Higher on the spectrum they were “odd” and they (and their communities) would cope. A little lower and we’d give them simple jobs if we could, at the other end we’d institutionalize them away. There was no reason to need to know why they were slow (my grandmother insisted that my great uncle had been dropped on his head when he was - surprise - about the age we’d vaccinate now. There were always hay lofts to fall out of, kicking cows, and childhood illnesses to blame back then).

Don’t discount stories of farm accidents as not actually being true. I had a cousin fall out of a hay loft and impale his leg on a pitchfork. His uncle ripped off part of his manly equipment on a tractor’s power takeoff. We almost got gored to death by a bull in a field he shouldn’t have been in. Three relatives died by bull goring when they let there guard down for a minute doing farm chores around them.

[Dangerosa]

@Harmonious Discord

Don’t discount stories of farm accidents as not actually being true. I had a cousin fall out of a hay loft and impale his leg on a pitchfork. His uncle ripped off part of his manly equipment on a tractor’s power takeoff. We almost got gored to death by a bull in a field he shouldn’t have been in. Three relatives died by bull goring when they let there guard down for a minute doing farm chores around them.

Oh, I’m not saying they weren’t TRUE…he fell out of a hayloft. But the cause and effect is about as tenuous as the vaccination claims.

My aunt always had a large birthmark…it was because when grandma was pregant she walked downstairs and was scared out of her wits by a big ol’ spider. You know that’s what causes birthmarks don’t you?

[ralph124c]

I wonder if certain childhood diseases actually contribute to a condition like autism. Could it be that the body (in attempting to fight off the infections) actually attacks itself (as in auto-immune diseases). That might explain why autism occurs in childhood, not in adolescence

[aruvqan]

@erie774

Sure that works really good for pertussis (Whooping cough). :rolleyes:
My son caught pertussis when he was 7 weeks old, one fucking week before he was supposed to get the DPT shot. He was already weak because he had been born 8 weeks early and was jaundiced. Then he gets pertussis which makes him cough so hard he can’t catch his breath and he turns blue.

He was hospitalized for two weeks, hooked up to apnea monitors. He couldn’t keep anything down so he was on an IV. He lost 2 pounds which is a hell of a lot on a 9 pound baby. We had to keep him on the apnea monitor for a month afterwards and he had to sleep sitting up in his car seat. He developed asthma because of this and would have bouts of bronchitis during the winter.

Ha! I caught whooping cough when I was just 2 years old. I spent many of my winters getting pneumonia from a minor cold that settled into my damaged lungs. I also have asthma, though it is very minor and well controlled.

But then again, I also had chicken pox, measles and didnt know I had never had the mumps until I was baby sitting a friends kid with the mumps and was chatting with my mom on the phone when she basically u-ooh’d at me and let me know I had never caught it because I was in hospital with pneumonia when my brother had mumps. The chipmonk cheeks are impressively huge in an adult :smack:

[maggenpye]

@Isosleepy

MsRobyn, Maggenpye
If you had fillings, were induced etc, and your kid isn’t autistic, that doesn’t prove that it doesn’t cause it, or isn’t a contributing factor. Again - I smoked, but don’t have lung cancer - that doesn’t mean that smoking isn’t a contributing factor.

I wasn’t calling you asinine - I made the point in my own post that I know unvaccinated children that are perfectly fine, just as my child (with all my risk factors) is also fine. MsRobyn is not a single data point, she and I are part of the majority of parents in the western world. We have been exposed to many supposed risk factors with no ill effects. Just as many unvaccinated children of unscanned, uninduced mothers with perfect teeth are also fine.

I was making the point that the OP and some other anti vax parents I’ve met (not you, as I’ve never met you) do seem to want things both ways - their child free from the risk of both vaccines and other unvaccinated children. There are risks with every decision we make - I’m not dismissing the risks you’re prepared to take with your child’s health, please don’t dismiss mine.

My point was and is - I have no patience with those parents who make a choice and then complain about the consequences of that risk. The parent who didn’t want her children immunised for whooping cough has no right to complain about having to cope with the effects of that decision. The parent in the OP who won’t immunise, but then wants every other child in the preschool immunised - so she feels safer about her choice.

It was not an attack on you.

[MissGypsy]

@MsRobyn

Right now, I’m very amused by two things. The first is that mercury is leached from amalgam dental fillings into the bloodstream, where it enters fetal circulation and causes autism. The second is that pitocin is linked to autism. These are the current anti-vax theories du jour on the SDMB.

Given that I have a million fillings and was induced, my son should be autistic. But he’s not. So forgive me if I pee my pants laughing.

Robin

I have an autistic son, yet I have no fillings, and was not induced for his birth. (I was induced for the next two births, yet neither one show any sign of ASD.) And the first kid didn’t get his vaccinations on time, yet the last two did.

Sure, it’s anecdotal, but it does lead one to question the validity of some theories. I personally think there may be some genetic component, but MsRobyn has a good point. Paranoia is not helpful.

[Mr.Miskatonic]

@Sarahfeena

The more I think about this, the more angry I get. This woman describes how she was glad when she asked if she could get an exemption form that the clerk didn’t know what one was. (Yay! No one else has asked for one! My darling baby will be SAFE!) Then got scared when a second clerk knew exactly where the forms were (Oh no! What if someone who isn’t vaccinated brings a DISEASE into this daycare and infects my darling baby!) She says that she hates to think of relying on other kids being vaccinated to keep her child safe, but that it’s just reality.
.

“welcome to the ‘being out outside the herd immunity’ club. Your membership card will be thrown at you from a very great distance, or preferably shot out of a cannon in your direction.”

[Harmonious_Discord]

@ralph124c

I wonder if certain childhood diseases actually contribute to a condition like autism. Could it be that the body (in attempting to fight off the infections) actually attacks itself (as in auto-immune diseases). That might explain why autism occurs in childhood, not in adolescence

Yes.

I had Sydenhams Chorea in first grade, and I never recovered in a year like most childern. Many of the problems I had are the same as autistic children. Think of the worst Tourette kids you’ve ever seen. The symptoms started because my body’s immune system attacked parts of the brain due to a staph infection. I had some terrible problems for a number of years starting in 1999, and it seems my immune response was way out of control. My vocal ticks and the like are under control since I’ve been controlling the immune response in my body the last couple years. For thirty years I had little control over many things that have now stopped bothering me, if I can keep my immune response from going wacko. The end of the 30 years of hell was just something that happened when controlling my immune response for the latest problem. Many of the compulsions are now reduced to minimal. This last illness was terrible, but I’m glad I got sick, because the outcome for the control of the other problems is a relief I would rather die than loose. An antibiotic at the right time would have prevented the whole thing. I still find it hard to believe that I can actually be awake and not having to fight huffing, sniffing, jerking around, and compulsive behavior. I can’t help but think that I was having the trouble for 30 years because of my immune response. I can get the problems back but it takes a lot more to cause it become really bad, and it isn’t a constant everyday occurrence. I still am sensitive to sound and light. My ears hurt in a room of people talking.

I hope you don’t consider this a big hijack. I can never get involved in a thread on this subject, without making a statement like the above. I always think of the kid that a vaccine or antibiotic could have saved from a permanent problem.

[DrDeth]

@zoid

Can kids even be enrolled in school without vaccination records?

.

In some areas, you can claim a religous or moral exemption from the requirements. :rolleyes: More or less as alphaboi867 said, but the hoops you have to jump through vary as to juristiction.

Personally, I don’t think there should be any exemption. Kids don’t have shots?* Kids can’t come to school.*

[lavenderviolet]

@psychobunny

[rant]* The patient responds with “but my last doctor always gave me X antibiotic and the symptoms went right away”. *[/rant]

I know exactly what you mean. It is hard to get past that psychological association some patients have that antibiotics are a sign that the doc has “done something” about it. One of the docs I’ve worked with uses the approach of telling patients, “Antibiotics won’t help BUT we can treat you symptomatically, so what symptom is botherign you the most?” and that seemed to help a bit.