Autism Blog - Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link

16 Sep 2010

Author: Sullivan
Comments: 7

Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link

One of the primary subjects for those promoting vaccines as a primary cause of autism is the Hepatitis B vaccine. This vaccine is given at birth and represents a child’s first exposure outside the womb to a vaccine and, in the old days, to thimerosal. David Kirby attempted to link the rise in autism prevalence to the introduction of the HepB vaccine. Others have claimed that the rates of special education placements are 9 times higher amongst children given the HepB vaccine at birth. Here is the abstract for (Hepatitis B triple series vaccine and developmental disability in US children aged 1–9 years rel=”nofollow”)

This study investigated the association between vaccination with the Hepatitis B triple series vaccine prior to 2000 and developmental disability in children aged 1– 9 years (n¼1824), proxied by parental report that their child receives early intervention or special education services (EIS). National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2000 data were analyzed and adjusted for survey design by Taylor Linearization using SAS version 9.1 software, with SAS callable SUDAAN version 9.0.1. The odds of receiving EIS were approximately nine times as great for vaccinated boys (n¼46) as for unvaccinated boys (n¼7), after adjustment for confounders. This study found statistically significant evidence to suggest that boys in United States who were vaccinated with the triple series Hepatitis B vaccine, during the time period in which vaccines were manufactured with thimerosal, were more susceptible to developmental disability than were unvaccinated boys.

The recent study on thimerosal and autism gives us a look at how the Hepatitis B vaccine might (or might not) be linked to autism. Exhibit 16.1 on page 82 of volume 2 of the technical report is a graph of HepB vaccine uptake amongst autistic children (AD) and non-autistic children (controls)

Here is that exhibit, showing the total number of vaccines (count) and amount of thimerosal (amt) for all vaccines and for HepB alone:

The top right graph shows the number of HepB vaccines for autistic kids (solid line) and non-autistic kids (dotted line). They are, to all intents and purposes, the same.

Take a look at the birth dose. Not every kid got it. Maybe about 1/2 got the birth dose at birth, and about 2/3 got it within the first few days.

If the birth dose of HepB caused autism to any significant degree, I would expect to see a higher percentage of autistic kids than non-autistic kids getting that shot. It just didn’t happen. Take a closer look at that graph:

The same percentage of got the HepB shots—all 3 of them—as non-autistic kids.

Still wondering about that birth dose? Let’s zoom in on the graph:

Those lines are right on top of each other.

The HepB hypothesis won’t go away. Just like the thimerosal hypothesis or the MMR hypothesis. Just today, Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted put out a very long post at the Age of Autism blog pushing the idea. They use the bad and worse studies from Thoughtful House on infant macaques to bolster their arguments.

The funny thing about evidence is, some people never accept it.

Link to this post?

If you want to reference this post in your site, use the code below to link to me from your website.

<a href="http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/09/autism-causation-and-the-hepatitis-b-vaccine-no-link/">Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link</a>

Comments

7 Responses to “Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link”

Orange Lantern
September 16th, 2010
02:08:12

Nice analysis. I have thought for a while that if any vaccine in the future gets the MMR scrutiny treatment, it’s probably going to be hep B. It hit right during a notable period of rise in ASD diagnoses, and people associate it only with naughty behaviors.

Regarding the Gallagher 2007 study concerning hep B and special services:

I’ve seen this study creep out once or twice, most notably in JB Handley’s “Unmitigated Disaster” rant. If I understand it correctly, it’s culled from NHANES survey data and thus is parent-reported.

Interestingly, the findings section briefly mentions:

Vaccination was a significant covariate for girls aged 1–9, with an inverse relationship to EIS. In contrast to boys, girls who were vaccinated had 73% lower odds for
EIS compared to unvaccinated girls. The ORs for age and health status for girls are similar to those for boys.

So, if we are to consider this data reliable (which we probably shouldn’t), we must urge girls to be vaccinated fully for hep B because it apparently makes them less disabled.

Funny how this aspect is completely neglected in the conclusions section. I get the sense that the authors just combed NHANES data until they finally found a vaccine with a bad association that was statistically significant (which, statistically speaking, is going to happen by chance once in a while).
Tweets that mention Autism Blog - Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link « Left Brain/Right Brain -- Topsy.com
September 16th, 2010
05:33:33

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lloyd Y. Asato, Alltop Autism. Alltop Autism said: Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link http://bit.ly/d34QOv [...]
Neuroskeptic
September 16th, 2010
17:08:43

“The odds of receiving EIS were approximately nine times as great for vaccinated boys (n¼46) as for unvaccinated boys (n¼7), after adjustment for confounders.”

This is one of those “too good to be true” results. If that were true, the # of kids needing special ed would have increased by a factor of 9 when the HepB vaccine was introduced. OK technically x7 because only 74% of kids got it according to that study. Given that this unprecedented epidemic of special needs obviously didn’t happen, we can conclude that this is wrong, even setting aside everything else…
Neuroskeptic
September 16th, 2010
17:10:27

Or in fact, as Orange Lantern points out, we would have had rates in boys going up by 7 and rates in girls slashed by more than half…
Billy Cresp
September 16th, 2010
21:04:05

I looked on page 81 of volume 2, and wonder why they included in the count of number of vaccines received, types of vaccines that ever contained thimerosal, while they counted each receipt of those types whether they contained thimerosal or not.
Science Mom
September 16th, 2010
22:20:52

@ Billy, We may (I’m just guessing really) see a future study that examines a potential dose-response and autism (i.e. ‘too many too soon’). Just as we did with the same dataset used for the previous VSD study of autism and neurodevelopmental outcomes. In any event, it is no easy task to mine the VSD so perhaps some kind of future study parameters were included.
Tweets that mention Autism Blog - Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link « Left Brain/Right Brain -- Topsy.com
September 19th, 2010
05:03:48

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lloyd Y. Asato, sheldon. sheldon said: Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link: “The odds of receiving EIS were approximately nine times as… http://bit.ly/91YTpQ [...]