If you search around the web, you can find people suggesting other vaccine schedules than that used in the “overly aggressive” United States.
One you will find, promoted by the autism/vaccine advocacy group Generation Rescue doesn’t include any coverage whatsoever for Measles Mumps or Rubella. That is scary. Just plain scary.
They have others, though. One is “Go Danish”, with this little blurb:
Comment: Denmark is a first world country based in Western Europe. Their schedule appears far more reasonable than ours. They have also been reported to have a much lower rate of autism than the U.S. Do they know something we don’t?
They give the vaccine schedule as of December 2006. Hmmm, makes you wonder what it looks like now, doesn’t it? We’ll get to that.
Well, let’s look at the “recommended” “alternate” schedule based on the 2006 Danish schedule:
DTaP at 3, 5 and 12 months
Hib at 3, 5 and 12 months
IPV at 3, 5 and 12 months, plus 5 years
MMR at 15 months and 12 years
And, this supposedly leads to a lower autism prevalence. Take a look again–that means that giving 5 vaccines at once, three times in the first year of life doesn’t cause a high autism rate. It also means that MMR at 15 months does not cause a high autism rate.
With this on their website as a something to “consider”, shouldn’t they consider what this tells us? Again, assuming that the autism prevalence in Denmark is low, doesn’t this tell us that vaccinations given in combination, early in life, don’t cause autism “epidemics”? Isn’t it pretty clear that the MMR doesn’t cause “autism epidemics”?
The current Danish schedule is now somewhat modified from the 2006 one noted at the Generation Rescue website. They’ve added the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) at 3, 5 and 12 months. That’s 6 vaccines at once 3 times in the first year of life.
That sounds like a lot of jabs for those little Danish kids…except that they use combination vaccines. Not just DTaP, but DTaPHibIPV. Wow, a five part combination vaccine. I don’t think this is what Generation Rescue had in mind when they suggested “Go Danish”.
They have also added the HPV (Gardasil) vaccine at age 12, but I really think the discussions of that vaccine have nothing to do with autism and just paint factions of the autism community as anti-vaccine, so I prefer to stay out of that discussion.
The combination vaccine (which I assume is fairly new) and the addition of the PCV vaccine will give groups like Generation Rescue a talking point if/when the autism counts in Denmark increase to something similar to the rest of the world.
But, let’s leave where we started, with the words of Generation Rescue, speaking about Denmark:
They have also been reported to have a much lower rate of autism than the U.S. Do they know something we don’t?
Apparently, the Danish know that multiple vaccines don’t cause autism. If we believe Generation Rescue, it looks like Denmark has the data to show it.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Going back over my son’s vaccination records has been interesting. He received his MMR at 13 months (nearly 12 years ago), here in the U.S. I didn’t notice any change. What I do remember is asking the pediatrician why my son had this odd skull shape with a bump on the top.
What is David Kirby’s evidence of a low prevalence of autism in Denmark? One should note that all epidemiological studies there (AFAIK) are done by looking in their psychiatric registry. In other words, they are only counting children who have gotten an official psychiatric diagnosis of autism, not all autistic children.
The most recent epidemiology I can find is Lauritsen et al. (2004), and if you add up all PDDs there, prevalence is 34.4 in 10,000; not too different to prevalence in the Atlanta area as ascertained in the mid 1990s.
I don’t know why I said David Kirby, above. Knee-jerk reaction to nonsense claims, I guess. Either way, just replace David Kirby with whoever is making the claim.
Joseph,
natural mistake–it was Generation Rescue who made the unsupported assertion this time. They may have used David Kirby’s “research”, as in his debate with Arthur Allen, David Kirby listed the prevalence in Denmark as
“Denmark – 2004: 1 in 1,300 (8 per 10,000)”
The Swedish vaccination schedule is more or less identical to the Danish, except that they vaccinate against MMR later (18 months)
http://www.ssi.dk/graphics/euvac/vaccination/sweden.html
but their ASD incidence is 1 in 166:
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2006/06/welcome-to-sweden.html
Autism’s “cut-off’s” (can’t find the words I want) is different in other countries… anyone that’s read “unstrange minds” or realizes that not all countries are the same… knows that. Reading about France was a shock. Criteria is the same, but children like my eldest would probably not be on their lists. Personally, I still think our scale is WAY too big and am interested to see if they change it for 2010. Not that I’m planning on removing my eldest from the “list”… I’d lose OT and other services. Which is why…. they are putting everyone on the list that barely qualifies so they get services.
My family Dr’s comment is that “anyone can be dx’d with anything” using the current DSM. It’s too vague.
My dh’s cousin’s wife (we live in RURAL Ont) got sent home from work (daycare) this week. She’s 8 or so weeks pregnant and a child showed up with the mumps. I think, that’s going to become the norm…… and like the removal of thermisal autism rates aren’t going to decrease. But it’ll certainly waste more public health care dollars, and you’ll run the risk of harming others b/c you refuse to vaccinate.
S.
I got a kick out of the dopey assertion that Denmark is “based in Western Europe.”
I got a kick out of the dopey assertion that Denmark is “based in Western Europe.”
Normally that’s the sort of odd detail I pick up, but I missed it this time.
“Based”….