Vaccines and Autism.

Great Debates
21

My point was that many MANY parents do believe there is a correlation/link between Thimerosal (even in trace amts) in vaccinations and autism. And TX is one of 19 states to allow philosophical objections to vaccinations, there are other exemptions.

Dawn Richardson, is the President of Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education, or PROVE. PROVE, co-founded by Richardson and Rebecca Rex, is a group of about 3,500 Texas families who’ve worked for several years to broaden the Texas exemption law. More ifo visit:
www.vaccineinfo.net

Personally speaking, I won’t “object” to the vaccinations, as long as I can space them out and no more than two at a time.

22

That’s nice, but as Uncle Cecil has said: “this is the Straight Dope- we don’t vote on the truth.” If even 100% of parents *beleived *in it- it wouldn’t make it so.

Where do I get a chance to voice my philosphical objection to having my kids endangered by their un-vaccinated kids? There are a lot of nut groups- this is just another. Fortunately, the USA seems to have an unlimited supplyof Tinfoil for their headgear. :rolleyes:

23

Are there really that MANY parents who believe in such a correlation? The vast majority of parents have continued to vaccinate their children. It seems to me that there’s a very small and unfortunately very, very, very vocal community of people who believe this theory. But you can hardly classify such parents as constituting more than a very small minority.

Oh and you still haven’t provided anything to back up the alleged autism=vaccine connection. The site you linked to is little more than a sloppy pastiche of anti-vaccination cliques and dubious claims not rooted in fact.

The site littered with crappy allegations by loons looking to make lots of money from gullible parents and juries who don’t know science.

For instance, have you honestly examined what the authors of this website apparently consider reliable sources?

Do you want to join in the nutters who are arguing against germ theory at whale.to? Do you want to buy some of Doctor Mercola’s Miracle Chlorella or High Quality Virgin Coconut Oil?

I know! Let’s go to thinktwice.com where we can learn (among other insane assertions) that:

http://thinktwice.com/faq.htm

This is of course not true. A vaccine can be 99% effective. But there’s still one child in a hundred who will be at risk because the vaccine did not work for her. And since unvaccinated children are far more likely as a group to get a disease, the non-vaccinated children will definitely put that poor child at risk.

The website goes on and on and on in that vein, rarely stumbling over a fact in the process.

Personally speaking, I won’t “object” to the anti-vax movement when they admit they’re wrong and stop endangering the lives of children everywhere. The sole reason polio exists right now is because of anti-vaccine idiocy.

If you want better information, the following link provides lots of places where you can find it:

http://www.ratbags.com/greenlight/vaccines1.htm

His opening statement is particularly apt:

24

We seem to think that we are entitiled to good health in the US, just because we are here. Somehow we think that “X” will not happen to us. Our baby will be normal and healthy, our kids will not get sick and die. True, the likelihood is much greater that both of those will occur, but there are no guarantees. I think that has been forgotten societally.

I was born after the polio epidemic of the '50’s–but I see patients that suffered from it fairly often. Their arms are twisted or their legs don’t function. handicapped and have been since a young age because there was no vaccine available.

The risks of polio and all the diseases vaccinated against are real. Despite what people hear or believe about docs and nurses just doing things because they want to “pad the bill” or “it’ll look bad if we don’t do something”–vaccination is not one of those murky treatment areas. Believe me, it is a huge hassle at any ped’s office to keep the documentation and schedules in line with guidelines. It would be much easier to not have to deal with it all–but it would be tragic indeed for all the kids. It’s called preventative medicine and it’s an alien(and unpopular) concept in this country.

Why anyone would NOT vaccinate their children and put them at risk for chicken pox (not an innocous inconvenience to some), rubella (it still can be deadly), polio, Hib, mumps (can cause sterility in males) etc is beyond me.

I don’t buy the religious or “philosophical” argument. What religion asks that the greater good be ignored? The link between autism and vaccines has been debunked. I have no idea what has caused the sudden steep rise in autism lately-but it isn’t vaccines. I hope researchers do find the casuative agent(s) soon.

I have alot of respect for RFK Jr–in regards to environmental stuff. With this, he loses credibility for me. Dia knows we have few enough voices on the side of reason–he needs to stop indulging in crackpot reactions to science and act as an advocate for valid causes.

IL state law requires that children have up to date vaccines prior to entering kindergarten–and thank goodness.

25

It may just be the improved diagnosis.

26

I don’t know if I’d call it an improved diagnosis. According to this New York Times article, 1 in 166 kids have autism. That sounds kind of crazy to me, and makes me wonder if the fundamental medical definition of autism changed.

I think autism, and I think someone who can only function in the real world with supervision, or with thousands of hours of training. It seems to me that kids are now being diagnosed as autistic because they like to stay inside, don’t talk much and keep to themselves.

27

Understandable, considering how, if some parents weren’t morons, pertussis should be virtually extinct in the US. Then again, its cough is damned distinctive. I was in a McDonalds with my kids once and heard a whooping cough across the room. I swore under my breath as I tried to remember if my kids’ vaccinations were up to date.

28

We’re riding the autism (Aspergers) bandwagon at my house. My son was diagnosed at 6 and is nearing 8 now so I’ve been looking into the issue for a while now although I also followed the issue before his diagnosis because of some other health issues he has had put him ‘at risk’ and the nature of my work (nursing).

I agree with the studies that show that autism is not caused by vaccinations and disagree with the parent groups who say it is. The anti-vac groups paranoia, poor scientific support, and the downright dishonesty they display in a couple of areas (quote mining and alternative treatment) simply won’t allow me to place any faith in their assertions.

My experience is also in agreement with ‘earlier and better’ dianoses. In the past, only profoundly affected kids received the diagnosis. These days, it seems any kid with uneven or unususal development is tagged as autistic or PDD-NOS or some-such.

On another board that I belong to, vaccination and autism comes up pretty regularly. The woman who keeps the topic alive is a ‘believer’. She firmly believes in the medico-legal-pharmaceutical-industrial-governmental (or whatever) conspiracy that everyone is is cahoots to make our kids ill so ‘they’ can make the big bucks!

She also regularly neglects to mention that she works for an alt-med outfit in Florida that ‘cures’ autism. Their treatment consists of diagnosis (hair and blood tests, etc), dietary restriction and/or supplementation (conveniently sold in-clinic), and chelation that costs about $10,000 per course with at least a couple of courses needed to become ‘cured’.

When I point out that she seems to be profiting pretty heartily herself, she tends to just log off for a while.

I continue to have these ‘discussions’ with her not because I think I can convince her of anything, but to provide information to ‘the audience’ that will view or even post in her threads. It’s very easy to become afraid of vaccinations (or sugar or pedophiles or aluminum or aliens or whatever) if all one reads are scare story headlines.

Finally, I don’t think my son is autistic.

He was born extremely prematurely (and had heart surgery) and was followed by an army of Doctors and therapists at birth and for several years thereafter for growth and development, including annual visits to a pediatric neurodevelopmentalist- a specialty where autism, etc., is frequently diagnosed.

I never heard the word ‘autism’ in relation to my son until kindergarten, when and where he received his diagnosis (and I must stress I was on hyper-alert for such a thing due to his early health problems). I was quite surprised especially considering that I’m a registered nurse whose whole work history has been in the fields of womens’ and children’s health.

I have no doubt that the diagnosis benefits the school in governmental funding. I’m happy to keep the diagnosis there because my son gets extra attention and services which he enjoys. I benefit by having extra entree into his classroom and regularly scheduled meetings with teachers and school personnel which I enjoy. Everyone wins!

29

Ca3799,

I am very sorry to hear about your son’s diagnosis.

If you want to feel better, google Steven Spielberg and Asperger’s. According to several internet sources he is supposed to have it.

Good for you for fighting the good fight on vaccinations! :slight_smile:

I have been following this debate for many years and have found the anti-vaxxers disingenuous at best and actively dangerous at worst. The website pace posted does a very effective job at illustrating the problem. All the links there are filled with nonsensical claims and lousy info.

30

Amen to that.

And to that, too. I’m always happy to my tax dollars benefitting me and mine. (FTR, my daughter is epileptic, not autistic, but has some associated learning disabilities that are helped by her being in Special Ed.)

31

Ca3799, I’m impressed that you’ve maintained a level head in what must be a difficult personal situation. Thanks for fighting ignorance on that other board.

Best wishes to you and your son.

32

I don’t know if you get around much on parenting boards, but I want to mention that the polio vaccine is a biggie for the anti-vax folks. Whenever the topic of vax comes up, you’ll hear that the polio vaccine did nothing. There are two main things they’ll argue, as I “understand” it: 1) polio was naturally declining and that the current status of polio in the world is due to Mama Nature or 2) polio still exists in the US, they just diagnose it as viral meningitis or chronic fatigue syndrome or something else…

(Sorry for the hijack, but I just read eleanor’s post on the very same day I ran into the polio arguments I described and it kind of steamed out.)

P.S. to lavenderlemon: I recently did a search and was surprised to note that Mercola has never been pitted. I thought about it doing it myself, but realized that my ability to convey venom in print was inadequate.

33

Ca3799, my best wishes to your family. Thanks for standing up to this woman and here spreading of ignorance.

But here’s the sticky part: Are the “Big Pharma” really making money hand over fist with vaccines? They never struck me as being a big profit source, even with near-mandatory vaccination.

Then there’s this…

It makes me sick. A baby killer turned into a hero. And he’s free!

34

Not trying to pad my post count here, but I did honestly somehow chop off my appreciation for Ca3799 in my above post. As I was in the middle of saying above, I run into this stuff all the time on parenting boards, but I’m too jaded? wimpy? angry? to take up arms against it. I’m glad that some people like you aren’t.

35

Hrmph. 1) It just suddenly dropped after vaccinations started, and was effectively destroyed. Yeah, right.

  1. Polio is now chronic fatigue? There are still folks out there who were crippled by Polio as children. I’d like to see these folks say that to one of them.

The one in particular would be the guy crippled by Polio featured in the movie Murderball. I’d like to see them say it in front of him while he’s in his armored wheelchair.

36

I did Dr. Wakefield over a year ago, not the same, but does it count for something? :smiley:

37

Have you ever visited the mothering.com vaccine forum, LilyoftheValley? That forum is the world headquarters of stupidity and tinfoilhattery on this issue. There are people there who write they want their child to get measles. :rolleyes:

The bad information the anti-vax loonies post there then gets passed around every single parenting message board I’ve ever visited. The truly sad part is that I’ve seen mothers who state they have decided against vaccinating because of the garbage someone sent them from that site.

What’s particularly disgusting is that we have the perfect example of the anti-vaxxers getting their wish on polio. The sole reason the damned disease exists in the world right now is because of an inexcusable campaign against the vaccine in Nigeria a few years ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3342159.stm

I agree with you totally about Mercola. If there’s anyone who deserves to be pitted like a ripe peach it’s certainly him.