Andrew Wakefield is back in the news. Sadly this is because the predicted outbreaks of measles are again occurring in the U.K.. As Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick points out, Andrew Wakefield is not the only one who helped spread unfounded fear of the MMR, but he is the man most responsible for promoting the idea that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Without Mr. Wakefield, the scare would not have happened.
Now, 15 years after Mr. Wakefield’s heyday, an outbreak of measles has hit south Wales. And the press are reminding us all that Mr. Wakefield’s research reports were wrong and that he acted unethically in the process of creating those reports. And Mr. Wakefield is responding with the blame shifting and goalpost moving that has become his standard. To their shame, a UK newspaper hosted Mr. Wakefield’s response. And he has gone direct to YouTube with a video where he lays out his explanation. And calls for a debate. Yes, a debate. Televised. Because that’s how science is decided, right? TV debates? If there weren’t children suffering and in danger, this would be a bad joke.
Dr. Fitzpatrick also points out that he has offered to debate Mr. Wakefield in the past and Mr. Wakefield refused. Dr. Fitzpatrick has offered to take Mr. Wakefield up on his debate request. So far I don’t see any signs from Mr. Wakefield that he’s going to take Dr. Fitzpatrick up on his offer. Mike Fitzpatrick has been countering Andrew Wakefield’s misinformation since the early days of the MMR scare.
Let’s step back a moment and ask how did we get to this situation where low vaccine uptake has resulted in a major outbreak? Well, 15 years ago Mr. Wakefield’s team at the Royal Free Hospital released a paper which suggested a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Mr. Wakefield did much more than suggest a link. At the press conference for the paper’s release (note that very few papers have press conferences) Mr. Wakefield called for the suspension of the MMR vaccine in favor of single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. He didn’t really explain why the single vaccine would be more safe in his mind, making it very difficult for parents to accept how the single vaccines were, in his faulty opinion, safe.
Mr. Wakefield’s current logic has it that it is the government’s fault for not allowing the importation of single vaccines. Ignore the unfounded fear that Mr. Wakefield created about measles vaccines, he asks. Blame the government. Sure the government can take some blame (anyone recall when the prime minister refused to answer whether his family used the MMR?). As does the press. But without Andrew Wakefield and his faulty assertions, there would have been no scare.
Mr. Wakefield repeats his claim that his opinions on the MMR were based on a 200 page report on measles vaccines. He didn’t even mention his 200 page report at the time of the Lancet paper and press release. Ignore the research he did (we should have. It was faulty and unethically performed). Instead, let’s look to his report. A report which only now he will release to the public, according to his YouTube video. Yes, no one has seen his report. We were all supposed to take his opinion for the past decade and a half. He didn’t even tell us about his report. We were just supposed to have such confidence in him that we were supposed to have assumed he had some reason.
Now he will finally release his report, he says. That is, if his attorneys give him permission. Yes, he will spend the money to have attorneys read his 200 pages and only then, possibly, make some edits and then let us see how he came to this faulty conclusion.
Keep in mind, in 1998 Andrew Wakefield’s statements were made in the context of an active researcher who claimed he had evidence to support a reason to instill fear about the MMR vaccine (and, let’s face it, fear of the single vaccine. One of the lancet 12 got the single vaccine.) What did he say at the time?
In a video released with the press conference, he is shown stating:
I think if you asked members of the team that have investigated this they would give you different answers. And I have to say that there is sufficient anxiety in my own mind of the safety, the long term safety of the polyvalent, that is the MMR vaccination in combination, that I think that it should be suspended in favour of the single vaccines, that is continued use of the individual measles, mumps and rubella components.
No mention of his report. He gave this in the context of a man who led the team that had just released the 1998 Lancet study.
He further asks us to accept a new revised history, and this is the statement that forced me to write again about this man. In his video he claims, “all I could do as a parent is state what would I do for my child.” He didn’t present his views as “what would I do as a parent”. He presented his mistaken views as a researcher who was actively exploring the question. Don’t take my word for it. Take his. From his testimony before the GMC:
At that stage, having done a good deal of research, I wanted to make it clear to my colleagues, including Professor Zuckerman, that since a press briefing had been recommended and was being organised, that if I were asked, if the question were put to me, then I would have to act in due conscience based upon my researches and I would not be able to continue to recommend the combined measles/mumps/rubella vaccine.
emphasis added. Not his position as a parent. As a researcher.
Many of the children in Wales who are at risk for measles infection are older than those who typically get the MMR. Their parents decided years ago, during the height of the scare, to forgo the MMR vaccine. Even if Mr. Wakefield’s ideas were correct (and multiple studies have shown they are not), these children are not at risk of developing autism by his mechanism. And yet he doesn’t call for parents to vaccinate their children. Instead, he spends his time telling us all about how it isn’t his fault that children are getting infected.
It’s not about the children or their safety. It’s about him.
The idea that Mr. Wakefield’s claims could cause a scare and lead to outbreaks of measles is not new. His own research colleagues warned him of the possibility before their press conference. They asked that they show a public face that was “agnostic” towards the safety of the MMR. Mr. Wakefield refused. And now he asks us to ignore that it was his own actions that have put children at risk.
Mr. Wakefield’s colleague and co-author on the Lancet paper, Dr. Simon Murch, made this statement long ago:
This link is unproven and measles is a killing infection. If this precipitates a scare and immunisation rates go down, as sure as night follows day, measles will return and children will die
Night has followed day. Measles has returned. And we now wait and pray that none die.
—
By Matt Carey
Left Brain Right Brain 
There’s an update to that platform provided to Wakefield, by that U.K. newspaper. The “New Statesman” blog went up after that newspaper removed all the comments. Trust me, the comments on the “New Statesman” overwhelming condemn Wakefield’s fraudulent research and his new video:
http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/04/giving-space-andrew-wakefield-mmr-isnt-balance-its-lunacy
The *usual suspects* from AoA and Child Health Safety showed up and were met with derision for their efforts to do damage control. AoA, Child Health Safety and JABS all had that original video up on their websites.
Now there is a new video up on AoA, with Andy whining about the cancellation of all the interviews that he had scheduled with U.K. media outlets to discuss the huge measles outbreak in Wales.
Poor Andy and his dwindling group of supporters…they made a major P.R. mistake and have to live with their publicity stunt, gone bad.
I haven’t been able to see those comments. Good to hear the public is not buying their story.
A question, I suspect, that people such as Dr Salisbury will be asking is: “Who is this person to speak about vaccine safety? Does he have any professional qualifications in the matter, or training? Is he a paediatrician, or even, these days, a doctor?”
This is a man who has been found guilty by a five-member GMC panel, including two lay members, of countless instances of serious professional misconduct, including four counts of dishonesty, over his research.
This individual’s only credential to speak about vaccines is that, in February 1996, he was hired by a firm of lawyers, at £150 an hour, to attack MMR. According to court records, he subsequently amassed £435,643, plus his expenses, for this attack, and he had asked for a great deal more.
The summary of what he then did for this money is set out at the overview of my investigation: http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm
Interviewing Wakefield on Vaccine Safety is like interviewing an Arsonist on how to prevent fires…….
“This individual’s only credential to speak about vaccines is that…”
As you unearthed, he also had a patent for a single measles vaccine. It wouldn’t have worked, but he seemed to think it would. As disclosed at the GMC hearings and reported by you at the BMJ, he had business plans which included developing this invention precisely as a vaccine.
He gave that substance as a supposed theraputic to a disabled child. No safety studies, no monitoring of the results. I don’t see where he has the standing to criticize others for what he sees as a lack of safety studies.
Instead of a debate why not solve this democratically. We could vote, like on American Idol. That could become the new way scientific facts are determined. Voting!
Sounds better than a debate. Mr. Wakefield has been debated. In the scientific literature. He lost. Resoundly.
I believe that Wakefield is so unqualified as a vaccine researcher he did not even check to see if an MMR vaccine had been used outside of the UK before 1988. An MMR vaccine was approved for use in the USA in 1971, and there had been others used around the planet since then.
What boggles my mind is that if the three MMR vaccines approved for use in the UK caused a spike of autism between 1988 and 1998, why was there not a similar rise in autism in the USA. Surely from the Measles Elimination Program started in 1978 where the use of the MMR vaccine with the Jeryl Lynn mumps component was encourgaged, there would have been at least ten years worth of data from the USA. Where is it?
Researchers don’t check with their attorney’s before releasing something they wrote 15 years ago.
@ Matt Carey: The entire New Statesman blog is up on the internet…including all the comments:
http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/04/giving-space-andrew-wakefield-mmr-isnt-balance-its-lunacy
When I stated on the New Statesman blog, that JABS referred parents to the attorney who was setting up the case against the MMR vaccine manufacturer, Jackie Fletcher posted at me..denying that fact. I in turn used Brian Deer’s website to locate this article:
http://briandeer.com/wakefield/wakefield-deal.htm
“…The letter offers Else a sweetener for any inconvenience: where Wakefield speaks of “300 children who merit investigation under this protocol, most of these as ECRs (or commissioned referrals for the future).” The promise of a surge in income from autistic children may have been welcome to the hospital’s management, but as of July 1997 it’s clear that many of these children may have been identified through the client lists of Richard Barr, and from two organisations run by MMR litigants: Jackie Fletcher’s organisation JABS, and Rosemary Kessick’s Allergy-Induced Autism. Fletcher told Brian Deer in a September 2003 telephone interview that all 12 of the children in the Lancet study “were investigated through the JABS group”. She was exaggerating somewhat…”
Wait. It gets ever better…
Yesterday on the New Statesman blog, someone posted Isabella Thomas’ new statement in support of Wakefield. (Her children are child # 6 and child #7 who were part of Wakefield’s “study”). I located this legal document, filed by Brian Deer last year as part of the vexatious lawsuit instituted by Wakefield against Deer, Godlee and the BMJ:
SUPPLEMENT TO THE AMENDED DECLARATION OF BRIAN DEER, REPLYING TO PLAINTIFF’S RESPONSE TO DEFENDANTS’ ANTI-SLAPP MOTION TO DISMISS
Click to access slapp-declaration-supplement.pdf
That’s a twofer, because Brian Deer, swears to the truthfulness of his court statement about Jackie Fletcher’s and Isabella Thomas’ statements.
I can’t see the comments, but as to JABS being involved: here is a portion of a letter from Richard Barr (the attorney who hired Andrew Wakefield) from day 11 of the GMC hearings:
Emphasis mine.
The letter is from October 1996, long before the Lancet paper was published. This was, as I recall, during the time that the research was being undertaken.
A letter from a child’s physician to Prof. Walker Smith, dated 15 November 1996: (day 19 of the GMC hearings)
emphasis mine.
Not only was JABS involved with this child seeking out Mr. Wakefield, but Mr. Wakefield was sending the family information about the laswsuit.
As you *should know* Matt, I am a total naif when it comes to computer technology 🙂
Twice, I linked to the New Statesman blog through my *bookmarks*, but I just did a “google” search and was able to find and open up the New Statesman blog…along with the 254 comments.
Is anyone else, (Brian, Lawrence, Chris) having trouble opening my link to the New Statesman blog?
lilady,
your link is fine. I just can’t get Disqus to work anymore. On any website.
Disqus is a crappy platform. I had trouble posting comments about two months ago, but I reset my password. I think I just used my ‘nym (lilady) and I received an email within a few minutes to reset my password.
https://disqus.com/forgot/
BTW Matt, one of the commenters of The New Spectator blog *claimed* that Wakefield “never really ‘claimed’ that the MMR vaccine caused autism”.
My reply…”he lies” and I linked to your post here:
https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2012/05/08/andrew-wakefields-many-statements-that-mmr-causes-autism/
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0058058
New Published Study Verifies Andrew Wakefield’s Research on Autism – Again
Again, not an independent replication. To be independent the authors should not have a relationship with Wakefield, and yet ” Walker SJ, Fortunato J, Gonzalez LG, Krigsman A” are all friends of his.
Now, if you want to be really supportive of Wakefield you would come up with the papers dated before 1990 that show an increase in autism after the 1971 introduction of the MMR vaccine in the USA.
More importantly, Krigsman has scoped, I would estimate, perhaps 3,000 children with ASDs. How many has he picked for this “study”, how were they selected, and how were the “control group” selected for comparison?
As the authors noted (I suspect possibly after intervention by the peer reviewers), they may well simply be reporting children with precursors to IBD, which, of course, one would find if you scoped any random collection of 3,000 children, whether they had ASDs or not.
So, selection for this paper is everything. Well, almost everything.
As I recall, the press conference for the Hornig paper on the lack of association between measles virus and autism included discussion that it was difficult to get enough kids for the study. This because they only worked with those who truly had a clinical need for endoscopy. I.e. the need for endoscopy is not common among autistics. People have discussed online about how in the Thoughtful House days, they would scope just about everyone. Paremts told of how they were asked to subject their children to this procedure, even though the parents didn’t feel their kids had severe GI problems.
So, selection could be very interesting in this one. Also replication. We have all been shown now how tricky PCR is in the wrong hands. All this on top of the fact that many, many studies in autism don’t replicate.
All this said, the study doesn’t really touch on Wakefield’s real hypothesis. The first author is the gentleman whose IMFAR study claimed to replicate the measles virus in the gut part of Wakefield’s work, but that never saw the light of day.
I think Krigsman is probably more careful than in his pre-Thoughtfulhouse days when he got into trouble for doing research on disabled children without ethical approval.
More studies that support Andrew Wakefield’s research:
The Journal of Pediatrics November 1999; 135(5):559-63
The Journal of Pediatrics 2000; 138(3): 366-372
Journal of Clinical Immunology November 2003; 23(6): 504-517
Journal of Neuroimmunology 2005
Brain, Behavior and Immunity 1993; 7: 97-103
Pediatric Neurology 2003; 28(4): 1-3
Neuropsychobiology 2005; 51:77-85
The Journal of Pediatrics May 2005;146(5):605-10
Autism Insights 2009; 1: 1-11
Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology February 2009; 23(2): 95-98
Annals of Clinical Psychiatry 2009:21(3): 148-161
Journal of Child Neurology June 29, 2009; 000:1-6
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders March 2009;39(3):405-13
Medical Hypotheses August 1998;51:133-144.
Journal of Child Neurology July 2000; ;15(7):429-35
Lancet. 1972;2:883–884.
Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia January-March 1971;1:48-62
Journal of Pediatrics March 2001;138:366-372.
Molecular Psychiatry 2002;7:375-382.
American Journal of Gastroenterolgy April 2004;598-605.
Journal of Clinical Immunology November 2003;23:504-517.
Neuroimmunology April 2006;173(1-2):126-34.
Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol Biol. Psychiatry December 30 2006;30:1472-1477.
Clinical Infectious Diseases September 1 2002;35(Suppl 1):S6-S16
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2004;70(11):6459-6465
Journal of Medical Microbiology October 2005;54:987-991
Archivos venezolanos de puericultura y pediatría 2006; Vol 69 (1): 19-25.
Gastroenterology. 2005:128 (Suppl 2);Abstract-303
It is so amusing when this thing is cut and pasted without any thought, including this: “Journal of Neuroimmunology 2005”
So Goldy, is the entire year of 2005 dedicated to studies independently verifying Wakefield?
By the way, if you had read the first link to Dr. Fitzpatrick’s article you would have seen these sentences: “A novel feature of his recent statement was that it abandoned his familiar practice of citing a list of scientific papers which were claimed to provide independent confirmation of his theory. (On closer inspection, these were revealed to have been produced by past or present colleagues and could be found only in vanity-published journals, if at all.) ”
This is one of those closer inspections: http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2011/05/still-no-independent-confirmation-of.html
Mr. Wakefield and his supporters often argue that any paper on the digestive tract of autistics is a “replication” of Andrew Wakefield’s work.
Where’s the work that supports the idea that the MMR increases risk of autism? That there is a persistent measles infection in the gut? That the intestines of autistics are “leaky”?
Which studies was he relying upon *In 1998* to claim that the MMR should be suspended in favor of a single measles vaccine because it would lower the risk of his supposed “new syndrome”? What justification did he have to create the scare then? He had none. His own colleagues said so and asked him to remain “agnostic” on the MMR at the press conference. What work has since justified his press conference statements? None.
It is a diversion to state that there is research on GI issues in autistics has anything to do with the current measles outbreak in Wales.
Why isn’t Andrew Wakefield joining the call for the older kids to be vaccinated? They clearly are not going to develop autism (which has onset of symptoms by age 3). They won’t develop his supposed “new syndrome” but they are at risk of death or harm from measles infection. If Mr. Wakefield wishes to show he is acting responsibly that would be a good first step.
“Wakefield’s team at the Royal Free Hospital released a paper which suggested a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Mr. Wakefield did much more than suggest a link. At the press conference for the paper’s release (note that very few papers have press conferences) Mr. Wakefield called for the suspension of the MMR vaccine in favor of single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. He didn’t really explain why the single vaccine would be more safe in his mind, making it very difficult for parents to accept how the single vaccines were, in his faulty opinion, safe.”
From the evidence that exists it appears that Wakefield is guilty of fraudulent medical ethics, scientific methods, and shameless self-promotion in cautioning the rest of the world to go to a one shot MMR method until further research could be done to explore a POSSIBLE environmental trigger associated with developmental Regressive autism, from observing medical related events over time. However, the 15 year old research paper never suggested a link between Autism and the MMR vaccine. That is a myth that continues to be propagated by reputable media sources, to date, 15 years later.
For those that may assert “it is not a big deal, what is the difference between suggesting a possible environmental trigger associated with Regressive Autism, from observing medical related events in time, and the need for further research to determine if there is an environmental trigger, vs. a suggested link between MMR and Autism, it is a substantial problem because it is part of major fuel that has contributed to the conspiracy theories that Big pharma and Government are working together to discredit Wakefield and trying to cover something up.
Vaccination decisions have been made, in part, as a result of this 15 year continuing “exaggerated” media provided research result information.
It appears obvious to me that the media has exaggerated the results of the 1998 Wakefield research for similar reasons he cautioned the rest of the world to go to one shot. Nothing more than to make an extra dollar.
Yes, shame on you Wakefield for your evidenced fraudulent medical ethics, scientific methods, and shameless self-promotion.
However, shame on you media, for effectively increasing global hysteria among the masses, in exaggerating results of that 15 year old research paper that never happened, that have made this myth more fully what it is.
I am not attempting to shame you Matt Carey, because I respect you very much.
However, the observation that you at your level of scientific understanding associated with this issue, seem to be influenced by the media in your statement here, is clear evidence, at least to me, of how responsible the media is in its role in this Vaccine Myth Hysteria, for the last 15 years.
There was no need for the extent of this vaccine hysteria or effective result for it to continue to be propagated in this exaggerated way, if the media kept the original 1998 research results at what the research actually said.
Unfortunately, there was no Emily Willingham then.
As you know, per the last IACC meeting, Science is taking the Autism and GI illness association very seriously now. It appears that Vaccines may not have been a significant contributing factor of association, however, it was very important that the general association of GI Illness and Autism was brought to the attention of research that continues to pursue answers. Those initial parent voices that appear to have been evidenced as manipulated by Wakefield, are now fully being heard, finally, to get the answers they were looking for, in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield#Journal_retractions
“The Lancet later published a retraction of an interpretation:[58] The section of the paper retracted read as follows:
“Interpretation. We identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers.”
The retraction stated:[58]
“We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between (the) vaccine and autism, as the data were insufficient. However the possibility of such a link was raised, and consequent events have had major implications for public health. In view of this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract the interpretation placed upon these findings in the paper, according to precedent.”[59] ”
There is a big difference in science in suggesting a link vs suggesting a possible link.
One requires replication of research whereas one requires further research, and is the type of question that makes science what it is.
To date, there has never been a suggestion of a link between MMR and Autism, in any peer reviewed and published research.
The reason people believe this link has been suggested is because of the Media, not Wakefield and associates actual 1998 research paper.
There should be nothing to fear from a question or hypothesis in science, where a suggestion of a link as an actual research result is not been provided.
Temple Grandin was recently raked over the coals by some individuals for doing nothing more than asking a similar question, per potential environmental trigger, MMR, and Regressive Autism that was not specific to Gastrointestinal Disease.
Science continues to proudly exist among some who are not afraid to ask questions.
If his study showed no link, why did he “At a press conference, Wakefield suggested that MMR was dangerous and recommended the single vaccine,although with no real evidence to back this hunch. The panic began.”
Look at the date of that link.
If Lancet paper did not support his press conference, why does he continue to suggest that children get single vaccines?
Yes, the media went in a frenzy, but Wakefield is continuing to fuel the false notion that the MMR vaccine is associated with autism.
Except that question has been answered multiple times in the past fifteen years. Would you like me to list some of more than a dozen studies? How about the ones done by the Royal Free after he left, the ones they offered to help him do:
BMJ 2002; 324(7334):393-6
Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Bowel Problems or Developmental Regression in Children with Autism: Population Study.
Lancet 1999;353 (9169):2026-9
Autism and Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccine: No Epidemiological Evidence for a Causal Association.
Or perhaps the one that tried to independently replicate the case series, only with actual ethical approval:
PLoS ONE 2008; 3(9): e3140 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003140
Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study.
There are several more. The best thing Wakefield can do is to fade into history, and never mention vaccines or autism every again.
Chris, I am not absolving Wakefield in the role he played in this vaccine hysteria among the masses in Europe. However, the 1998 research paper clearly did not either suggest or assert a link between autism and the MMR vaccine.
As specifically stated from the 1998 research paper, I quoted in my last post, the paper “identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers”.
That is not even a suggestion of a possible link of environmental triggers with Autism, It is specifically a suggestion of a possible environmental trigger associated with developmental regression, which is not a developmental problem specific to the diagnosed condition of Autism alone. Developmental regression is not even identified in the majority of cases of Autism in the US.
The most recent BBC article associated with this issue and Wakefield made the incorrect assertion that there was a suggestion of a link between Autism and MMR in the actual 1998 research paper continuing n with that 15 year old myth.
The most recent Guardian article, associated with Wakefield’s retracted 1998 research clarified there was a suggestion of a POSSIBLE link in the paper, no suggestion of a link.
I am just another “nobody” on the internet, however the very respected Doctor, and science “myth buster”, Ben Goldacre, provided an expert review on this issue, shortly after the 1998 paper was retracted, in 2010, that came to the same conclusion I am coming to here based on my short analysis of a Wiki clip from the research paper. That link is provided here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jan/28/mmr-vaccine-ben-goldacre
Per your statement on the spin that Wakefield and many others who have been provided the spotlight to spin the vaccine hysteria, in the media, with no real peer reviewed published research findings backing up there statements, this is the problem I am identifying, as the real problem, not the specific results of the since redacted 1998 paper, that only provided a very general finding of correlation of GI Illness in time with the timing of MMR Vaccination, in an extremely small subgroup of individuals, exhibiting developmental regression.
This is also what Ben Goldacre identifies in the link above in his analysis. This is an issue of responsibility shared by many individuals in the media, in the last 15 years, including some research scientists beyond Wakefield.
As far as I can see, the Daily Mail, is one of the largest contributors to the hysteria as that publication has continued to publish Walker’s preliminary findings as if they happened yesterday for several years now, omitting the original date of 2006, when the preliminary findings were originally reported.
The US has not lost herd immunity during this whole controversy, however the media here has not provided Wakefield and others the spot light that media publications continue to provide in Europe, as a kind of “self-fufilling” prophecy that was continued and exacerbated in the media as vaccination rates fell below herd immunity.
Alex Jones, is the only real substantial source of recognition in the media across the masses in the US that provides Wakefield a continued voice.
The fact that Wakefield would even goes on the Alex Jones show questions my analysis of his reputability as a scientist, however it is extremely hard to question Wakefield’s analysis of his own 1998 research on the Alex Jones show as not suggesting an actual link of Autism and MMR, when the organization that retracted his paper has made a public statement that there was no such actual link between Autism and MMR suggested in that paper. Something that anyone who knows about Wiki and Google can find out for themselves to verify that.
Statements provided in the “reputable” media, like the BBC most recently has, that have falsely suggested that the 1998 research paper provided a suggestion of an actual link between Autism and MMR, give Wakefield credence and Alex Jones government Vaccine Conspiracy theories a back bone that they would not otherwise have.
A suggestion of a possibility of a link, also describes and suggests literally hundreds of other POSSIBLE environmental links of association from research that many people understand is not a LITERAL suggestion in research that those factors are causal links associated with Autism. Otherwise, people would be running from the rain. 🙂
Katie Mia:
An MMR vaccine was introduced in the USA in 1971. It was the favored vaccine for the 1978 Measles Elimination initiative. That is at least a decade of use before three different MMR vaccines were used in the UK. That is more than enough time for some “environmental” trigger to be cocked. Do tell us the title, journal and dates of the PubMed papers dated before 1990 that the 1971 introduction of an MMR vaccine caused regressive autism.
In this country (USA), Alex Jones is considered a loony joke. He is not source of any kind of reality based news. Using him as a source of information does invoke Scopie’s Law. There is a reason he is the only reason Wakefield has a “continued voice”, he is an idiot. Anyone who defends Wakefield is an idiot.
Again, that was fueled by Wakefield’s 1998 video conference announcing the now retracted Lancet study where he suggested parents get single vaccines. What evidence did he have for that? What is that based on? Was it based on the use of an MMR vaccine with the Jeryl Lynn mumps strain in the USA for about twenty years? If so, where are those papers?
The “false” claim is that Wakefield did not make the claim. He did claim that even though it was not in the paper. He made it in the press conference. He made it when he refused the Royal Free Hospital’s offer to conduct bigger studies (which if you look at my HTML botched comment, was done with opposite conclusions by Dr. Taylor). And he still makes the claim with his recent YouTube video. How did you miss that?
The news media is waking up and not giving Wakefield carte blance anymore. Why are you? Wakefield is a fraud and should have faded in the woodwork years ago.
Comment with botched HTML in moderation. But you can answer one question:
If the 1998 case series by Wakefield showed now connection between any version of MMR vaccine was associated with autism, why does Wakefield continue to insist that single vaccines be used? Especially in the press release announcing the paper in 1998:
I am not shamed. I find it odd that you suggest that. I state clearly that the paper suggested a link.
The blame goes to Andrew Wakefield for going well beyond the facts he had (and in fact in contrast to the facts that he was not disclosing, namely the negative PCR results from his own laboratory)
I would contend that had Mr. Wakefield done what his team urged him to do, stay with the autism/GI disease story, he could have actually made a difference for the better in determining whether there is a real, unique, GI disease in autistics. However, he went forward with his own agenda and in so doing probably delayed research into this area.
“There is a big difference in science in suggesting a link vs suggesting a possible link”
I disagree. If one suggests a link it is by definition only a possible link.
“Interpretation. We identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers.””
“To date, there has never been a suggestion of a link between MMR and Autism, in any peer reviewed and published research.”
Uhlmann, et al. “Potential viral pathogenic mechanism for new variant inflammatory bowel disease.” Where they claimed to find measles virus in intestinal tissues of autistic children (the paper is signifantly flawed and likely to be retracted). The assertion by the team in other statements was that this was vaccine strain measles virus.
“Temple Grandin was recently raked over the coals by some individuals for doing nothing more than asking a similar question, per potential environmental trigger, MMR, and Regressive Autism that was not specific to Gastrointestinal Disease.”
Temple Grandin made a very odd statement. She seems unaware that there is, indeed, a study on regressive autism and measles virus/MMR (Hornig et al., PLoS One). She also claimed that the versions of MMR have different numbers of antigens (as live virus vaccines, this can’t be the case. They have the same viruses, only the stabilizer is changed. Hence the antigens remain the same).
You appear to be keeping to the framework Mr. Wakefield often uses to defend himself. “My paper didn’t say that MMR causes autism”. First, he has multiple papers, some of which do suggest MMR. Second, his public statements are the main issue. Even his colleagues on the Lancet paper point to the public statements, starting with the press briefing, as being outside the realm of responsible behavior.
“The reason people believe this link has been suggested is because of the Media, not Wakefield and associates actual 1998 research paper. ”
The media got their information from Mr. Wakefield’s statements. The fact is that he went well beyond the data he had to make those statements. For example, from the promotional video the hospital had for the press briefing:
He says clearly that his belief is that there is a risk, related to the MMR vaccine.
Yes, the press has a lot of cuplability. But Mr. Wakefield has even more.
My comment on shaming was a rhetorical statement. I feel no need to shame anyone over this issue. I would rather find solutions to provide education to others to minimize the potential of making an unwise decision in not vaccinating their children.
I clarified it was not directed at you as a individual, in making the statement in your Op here, to clarify my intention in communication. I certainly had no idea how you would or might not react to it. Never the less, better safe than sorry in Autism Community discussion as I have learned in my journeys there. 🙂
The truth about Wakefield’s actual controversial research is much easier to swallow than a myth of a general link of Autism and Vaccines that no one has actually suggested to date in research.
The actual research you provided a quote to per findings, does not provide that suggestion.
This is the problem I identified in my post above, in response to Chris. It is the scientists and media providing spin in other media avenues that does not equal what is written in peer reviewed and published research that is the problem.
I should not have provided a Universal statement there is no research, as I have likely not seen it all, however, no one has yet to provide me with an Actual Peer Reviewed Published study that “Suggests a link between Autism and MMR”.
If Wakefield’s 1998 research had made that actual statement in the research, it would have never passed peer review. There are not many 12th grade science students that likely would attempt that with their science teacher in studying frogs.
If they did the teacher would probably explain to them the importance of specificity in writing technical research reports.
The general public does not know any better, because they do not, for the most part, live or have lived in a “STEM” world. This amplifies the need of efforts by people like Emily Willingham and Ben Goldacre. I also look to you as well, in many issues, but it appears that you may be somewhat emotionally invested in this one, and the historical Autism Speaks issues, which is something that none of us are “immune” to. 🙂
Temple Grandin, point in case, as people have read all kinds of things into her statements from the New York Times interview that she did not make.
The newer version of the “older vaccine” version of MMR, that she referred seems obviously to me as the “safer” single vial form of MMR, which, overall, obviously does not have the same number of antigens, per all three diseases protected against, at one time.
That is a reasonable inference as the MMRV was not approved by the FDA, because it has an assessed side effect of high fevers and seizures that is close to double of that is measured with MMR. It is a tiny element of potential safer effect, but never the less, an element that might also be measured if assessed equally per single vial.
Perhaps, she provided all that extra info. and details, in the original unedited version of the interview, however as they say space is limited, and she and “some” others are not short on words or information.
She did not provide any information specific to GI disease in the interview; apparently some may have assumed that because “Wakefield” is fresh on their mind.
Per quote in the NY Times article, linked below, Grandin asked an expert if the reported high fevers and screaming wails to her from parents, specific to children with regressive Autism, had been studied separately and her voice was met with silence.
I have yet to see such a study either, which focused on the rare side effect of high fevers that is reported by the CDC as a 1 in 3000 general population prevalence, that is also associated with Seizures. Her question was a valid one as stated, and remains so for me, until someone can prove she said something she did not say in that interview.
The interview cannot be properly understand or assessed without taking the questions in full context of what she is speaking about. That part of the story will come soon enough once her book is published, on April 30th.
That is a book worth purchasing, in my opinion. In reading the reviews of those reading “pre-release” copies, there is not even a mention of vaccines, so she probably posed no more that a general question, which was focused intently on by the NY Times, to provide a headline. There are many people that want to see additional research to understand why some children get sick after vaccines, and that is completely understandable. It is a good thing the issues are becoming more appropriately addressed now.
In my personal opinion, giving Wakefield additional focus, is helping to insure that he will continue to be a controversial enough public figure to make a living from it, for some time to come. Not only that, it is keeping the vaccine myths going, which exist in substantial numbers in the US,mostly among Alex Jones followers.
Seems to me, it would be easy just to lay out the facts from the paper that he did not even suggest an actual link between Autism and MMR, from the “Get go”, in the “Infamous” now mythic resulted paper, nor has anyone else, as to this point it has been expert reviewed and assessed as a media generated hysteria.
However, yes I know, not everyone thinks like me, or Ben Goldacre, and some others. As Goldacre states more eloquently in his Expert review of the issue, the media is assurance, in itself, that there will likely be another MMR scare, under a different name. Not likely Goldacre’s voice of reason and a relative few others, will be enough to stop it. 😦
In the meantime, research can effectively pursue the real associations of GI illness and ASD,
Additionally, research can more effectively pursue why some individuals on and off the spectrum may be more vulnerable than others to the severe side effects of vaccines, identify them, and take appropriate action to protect them where there are identified real areas of concern. 😉
Katie Mia:
There is no such thing as a “single vial form of MMR.” The vaccine comes as dried powder that is mixed with sterile water before it is given. You must have it confused with vaccines like DTaP and influenza which have multi-dose forms with thimerosal. The “single-vial” forms of those are expensive thimerosal free versions, and the MMR vaccine has never had thimerosal. So that is one very big error to think it came in “vials.”
Actually it didn’t. Horton just decided to ignore the peer review and publish it just to generate controversy. He has been in hot water ever since that decision. Also, he had no idea that Wakefield literally lied. It is hard to protect against liars, just ask anyone who invested with Bernie Madoff.
Face it: Wakefield is a fraud. He lied. He changed the data and he lied to his fellow authors, which is why ten of them retracted the paper almost ten years ago and John Walker-Smith claimed he was deceived by him at the GMC (essentially throwing Wakefield under the bus).
So any luck finding those PubMed indexed papers showing the use of the MMR starting in 1971 in the USA caused a marked increase in autism. Come on! It was the favored vaccine for the 1978 Measles Elimination Program, so there was at least a decade of use before three versions hit the UK in 1988.
I think the most important point Chris is that more and more studies are being done which verify Wakefield’s original research. You guys are just getting backed into a hole as more comes out.
The latest research (Plos study) which uses most up to date lab techniques to look at the molecular changes occurring in inflammatory bowel conditions of children with autistic spectrum disorders reveals that inflammatory bowel disease in Autistic kids is different from other inflammatory bowel conditions.
The research keeps on coming and getting more and more sophisticated. It is only a matter of time before Andy Wakefield’s original research will be fully vindicated.
“The latest research (Plos study) …” Had nothing to do with MMR or measles virus. That hypothesis has been tested and it failed. That makes it difficult for his “original research” to be “fully vindicated”.
Plus, as I mentioned, none of those are independent. Do we need to define that term for you in regards to scientific research?
Matt Carey, that is also part of the issue with the “original, since redacted,1998 research paper”. The vaccine timing issue and GI illness was listed as a possible factor of environmental trigger.
The specific link of association suggested was a new GI Disease related syndrome as a new form of Autism.
Whether or not that research has been redacted that part of the interpretation is gaining ground in new research, and is the flagship of Wakefield’s overall evidenced efforts in research, from the past decade and a half..
It seems not nearly as “Sexy” to the news media, at least in the UK, as a false portrayal of a controversial study about vaccines.
Another point in fact, is that regressive autism never got much attention, until more than a few people “stuck” the vaccine word in for those more subject to the power of government conspiracy theories.
Rarely did anyone in the media, over the course of 15 years, ever make the clarification of a possible environmental trigger for developmental regression.
There seems to be a reason for that too, and that is that “Autism” is more of “Sexy” word that everyone now can identify with, in part, ironically, because “Anti-Vaccine conspiracy theories” have a huge “Sex” appeal for some. It brings in the advertising dollars.
Disclaimer: I heard Emily Willingham use that “S” word metaphor, on Forbes, in regard to the “new kid in town”, “Epigenetics”, and thought it was interesting, so I use it here myself.and hope it fits whatever social rules of acceptance may exist on your blog.:)
@Chris, sorry, I miss-spoke, my intention was single antigen not single “vial” (associated with the mercury preservative), which in the case of single antigen and MMR has been discontinued since 2011 in the US. As far as I know there is no other change in the MMR vaccine that Temple Grandin could be referring to.
However, I think it may be more likely that the recent CDC research on clearing Vaccines as associated with Autism, which described fewer antigens associated with the Pertussis vaccine, than in the past, may be where she was confused.
I think there were quite a few people that assumed that there were also fewer antigens in the MMR vaccine as a result of that study. I reserve final judgement until I see the grandin book or full interview, which ever one comes first.
I left out the link to the NY Times/Grandin article in my last post. Here it is:
I am not sure why you continue to communicate like I am defending Wakefield. I am certainly not suggesting that there is any valid link between Autism and Vaccines per the research that I have seen to date. I do not personally see a need to go looking back at additional research from the 70’s, but this seems to be a new development that I have not heard about before.
It is already a proven fact that some children are more vulnerable to severe side effects of vaccines than others. That continues to be an issue worth pursuing in causal factors, identification, and protection of those more vulnerable to serious side effects such as high fevers and seizures, regardless of subgroup or other diagnosis of disorder or disease.
I am only clarifying what was or what was not written in the 1998 research, and the resulting myths that have occurred, at least in part, because people have not properly and effectively described those very limited findings of an association in timing of the event of vaccinations and GI Illness.
And yes, that does seem to include some of Wakefield’s claims and concerns associated with vaccines after the research was completed.
Wakefield and associates suggested a link between GI illness and developmental regression as a potential new Autistic Syndrome. That part of his suggestion is gaining ground in science, and even remarked as a potential associated GI illness syndrome worthy of consideration by Tom Insel, in the last IACC meeting.
While Alex Jones may not appeal to you or I, he has a much wider audience of dedicated followers than Jenny McCarthy or Wakefield could ever fathom.
The New England Journal of Medicine provides a clear association on this relationship specific to those individuals more likely to be of anti-vaccine, anti-government conspiracy theorist “nature”, which is a phenomenon measured since the 19th Century.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1010594
Wakefield by himself or his retracted 1998 research of little real importance, by itself, has had very little influence on the US, in regard to herd immunity.
However, Alex Jones and other government conspiracy theorists play to the type of inherent propensity of belief system, among those who are the targets of money making enterprises, such as the one Jones capitalizes on. This has been going on long before Wakefield and a new source of anti-vaccine conspiracy has been created by various sources of misinformation.
There is no doubt in my mind that this Wakefield Controversy and all the associated media hype in the UK, has a direct association with loss of herd immunity in the UK and other countries in Europe.
I’m not sure any medical story in the US could make front page news like that, consistently for years, unless it was associated with a “reality show”.
However, in that regard, I guess Wakefield may have his foot in the door, but he faces a great deal of competition, to even get noticed other than places like this, among the broader autism phenotype and special interests that are shared, and Alex Jones radio shows.where any government conspiracy story is one that everyone will usually agree on that follows Jones, of the government conspiracy/anti-vaccine element, described in the New England Journal of Medicine.
I do not personally yield easy to the power of suggestion from anyone. However, I often see it among a few people online suggesting they are autistic, who obviously will easily follow a “herd mentality”, without questioning what people say. They often refer to others as sheeple, which is amusing to me.
My first car was a maverick, and a sign I suppose, if I was substantially subject to the power of unwarranted cause and effect. 🙂
Citation needed. Do tell us how the MMR vaccine components have changed in the last two years.
Citation needed. Also show that these children would fare better with the actual disease. Do provide the citation that children who get seizures from the vaccine would not get them from an actual disease, especially since my son’s last seizures were from a now vaccine preventable disease.
So what? That is an argument from popularity. It does not mean I should care about what he says, since he is an idiot. I am sure a great deal of audience is actually laughing at him.
Here you go Chris, from the CDC as linked below. The MCV2 introduction in 5/2010, provided an introduction of a single antigen measles vaccine in 17 states to increase vaccine coverage. My understanding is that during the course of the last decade single antigen vaccines were also made available and discontinued at points in time. As stated before, I do not know for sure if this is what Grandin was referring to in the interview i linked..
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6038a4.htm
“MCV2 introduction”
Based on NTAGI recommendations, 17 states† with MCV1 coverage ≥80% (according to DLHS-3 data) had introduced single antigen measles vaccine as MCV2 through routine vaccination services during May 2010–August 2011. Four states§ with MCV1 coverage ≥80% had introduced measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine as MCV2 before 2008.
Fourteen states¶ with <80% MCV1 coverage have started introducing MCV2 through mass vaccination campaigns using single antigen measles vaccine and targeting children aged 9 months–10 years (Figure 2)."
Here is the link from the CDC that describes in detail the serious side effects of the MMR vaccine and discusses known health factors of vulnerability associated with the side effects.
Click to access vis-mmr.pdf
As I notice now you provided Ben Goldacre's information, from his website "Bad Science" as evidence that there was no proven "Autism Vaccine Link". So it appears that you too, understand Ben Goldacre as a reputable source of information on these issues.
Gold Acre, in the link I provided, referred to Andrew Wakefield as a "Bloke with a Hunch", that turned out to be wrong. This statement sums up the current Scientific understanding of Wakefield's recommendation of caution to go to "single jabs" instead of "triple jabs".
It was a recommendation of caution until further research could be done, at the time, based on a later determined methodologically and ethically flawed 1998 study that some have suggested was fraudulent in criminal intent, from the evidence they have gathered, The fact remains though that Wakefield has not been Arrested or charged for Fraud or faced criminal trial for Fraud
Now that same individual Wakefield, asserts that there was additional information that he used in making that determination for recommendation of caution per single does vs. mult-dose MMR vacccine. It will be interesting to see that information.
It appears that Wakefield is a budding capitalist regardless of where his heart lies in the whole of actual concern over the welfare of others. There are people that are capable of both. At this point I do not enough information to make a subjective judgement on this man's soul.
In regard to Wakefield's statement quoted in the Op per his empathy as a Parent in making his decision of caution based on concern of the welfare of children, vs. his reading of the research, I cannot reasonably "convict" the man at this point in time for making a human statement of empathy as a Parent at one point in time as well as making a Research Scientist Statement.of Research Analysis at another point in time.
It is the UK media and thousands of others that have taken a "commercialized" interest in this controversy that has made Wakefield in to a "Poster Boy" of fear for some and admiration for others.
Who would have thought a GI Doctor could have gained fame in the UK over a 12 subject study, driven by Parental Concern for Children.
Anything is possible with Broad Band Internet Avenues of Communication, other Global sources of media, and a Global Audience.
As per the New England Journal of Medicine, I linked earlier, this is a new internet driven phenomenon, which was made possible by that new technological device of human communication and concern binding rare concerns into vocal ones that now can be amplified to the point of being heard by substantial numbers of other people on a global basis.
The good news is among a relatively rare group of children who are suffering from Gastrointestinal disease who cannot adequately communicate their concerns of discomfort, some are now being appropriately treated, for those real issues of concern associated with medical disease.
The bad news is media of all types has created a fear that was never warranted, specific to what is a real warranted concern among this relatively rare group of children.
The reality is no one controls global media communication.
There is no "vaccine" for miscommunication and misinformation, particularly when it is driven by the desire to make money, emotions and other factors of basic human animal nature among Billions of people.
As far as Wakefield goes, he might have been grinning ear to ear, when Tom Insel, the Chair of the IACC and Director of the NIMH, himself, recognizsed a potential of a new Syndrome associated with GI illness reported among children currently diagnosed on the Syndrome, at the last IACC meeting. Along with an acknowledgement by Insel that there needs to be an organized government focused effort to get these children that cannot adequately communicate their discomfort the medical support they need.
This potential new syndrome is something Wakefield identified the potential for 15 years ago.
His flagship effort per a new syndrome associated with GI illness, has now been vindicated, in a sense, in the public eye, as not only are government officials and results from research taking his original hypothesis seriously about the potential of a new GI disease related syndrome, those parents and children have finally effectively been provided a voice and a real potential of support and answers.
There were likely many more people feeling vindicated in hearing those world of "Yes I do Hear and Recognize what is a Real Concern", by Tom Insel, who not only heads a large government agency, but has a stellar reputation as an accomplished Research Scientist.
Part of that "hunch" in the 1998 redacted paper specific to vaccines has not been proven and does appear to have been appropriately retracted per medical ethics, and research methodology, however, the other part of the "hunch" about the association of a Gastro Intestinal illness and Autism and a potential new recognized syndrome, is gaining additional credence as we speak.
Tom Insel is among the highest of respected US Government Health Officials/Research Scientists in the United States.
Personally, I am glad that it looks like more children are going to get the help they need, so they will no longer be as likely subject to "suffer in silence", with painful discomfort associated with GI illness.
While one can reasonably question if these children might have been more likely to receive that help if Wakefield had not pursued this issue like he has over the last decade and a half, I am not so sure that answer is yes..
Relatively speaking, this is a very rare group of children in the general population, who had little to no voice in this matter, before Wakefield and the Global Media response came along.
Wakefield and the media drew global attention to "the real suffering associated with GI disease" for these children.
They also worked together to create an unwarranted concern that did not exist, that led to the loss of herd immunity in European Countries.
That part is not the fault of those children. Their real voices of concern did deserve and still do deserve to be heard.
And yes, that does include their parents and families too. That is likely why Wakefield receives the admiration he does, if nothing else it seemed he was listening to the concerns of the families and children that had real and now warranted concerns.
Maybe it was just for a buck.
However, at this point no one has convinced me that was100% of his motivation. There are too many details to take into account other than the real catastrophe of loss of herd immunity in Europe that has resulted, which is solidly evidenced as far from the making of this now "infamous man" alone.
Temple grandin doesn’t mention a move to a single vaccine. She talks about the MMR. and the US had a single vaccine option before. There was a gap of a few years but for much of recent history a single vaccine was an option. One few people took.
And, as already noted, there has been a study on the MMR and regressive autism.
The “there is no study looking at regressive autism” sounds like a variation of Bernadine Healy’s statement that there is no study looking at the group that ” got sick”. Which is also wrong.
Temple Grandin’s statement makes no sense. Unless someone contacts her for clarification, this is a useless exercise.
The title of the CDC document: “Progress in Implementing Measles Mortality Reduction Strategies — India, 2010–2011”
In India! What does that have to do with the use of an MMR vaccine in the UK and the USA?
The “Vaccine Information Statement”, seriously? It is required by federal law to give these with each vaccine. The reactions from the vaccine are far less than any disease.
And a reminder that Temple Grandin is an engineer and animal psychologist. Her statements on vaccines have as much weight as any layperson. I would take her comments on vaccines with the same amount of credulity as statements from the clerk at the neighborhood grocery store.
Dr. Goldacre does have a better statistical background. But I would still get my information from folks who actually work in the field like Marcuse, Offit, Foege and others including Racaniello (you could learn lots by listening to This Week in Virology).
Andrew Wakefield should be ignored, so stop trying to find excuses for him. If he had evidence he would have produced it already, and not consult any lawyer. It is simply silly to think that any MMR use in the UK produced a huge increase in autism in less than ten years, but not in more than twenty years since 1971 in the USA, a much larger country. When you say:
You will not see that information, because it does not exist. Wakefield made it all up. He lied. He is a fraud. He is not a licensed and registered medical doctor.
Again, you are just making very little sense.
Thanks Chris. I should have checked the link. 17 states in India…
I suspect Temple Grandin wasn’t talking about India.
You’re welcome. Using a vaccine in India as an example in the UK, USA or even Japan is ludicrous. It is right up with those who compare vaccine studies done one of the poorest countries in Africa (Guinea-Bissau) with the American vaccine schedule.
The death from measles in Wales has been confirmed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22215185
The blame lies squarely with Mr. Wakefield, his defenders and the media outlets that gave him a soapbox a decade ago. There is no way to excuse him or those fawning journalists. There is a blog post at http://jabsloonies.blogspot.com/ that explains it clearly, but the language is too strong for the moderation software, but part of it says:
“Look, Andrew Wakefield, John “Cock” Stone, Jackie Fletcher, JB Handley, Anne Dachel, Meryl Dorey, that stupid woman behind “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” and the rest of you shouty anti-vaccine TWATS.”
Well I was right about the language in Becky’s website being too strong!
Yep. Got caught by the moderation software. Such language gives people a handle to avoid the point of the discussion, in my view.
True. I even avoided linking to it, much like I make it a point to not use profanity. But in this case it really reflects the mess that Wakefield and friends have created.
Truthfully, when the first studies came out showing that Wakefield was wrong (like the ones by Brent Taylor), he should have just faded away. He should not have been given any kind of band wagon, and absolutely not had a video press conference in 1998. But he tooted his own horn, and the muckraking UK press was more than willing to give him a soap box.
Plus there was that awful movie that was mentioned by Dr. Fitzpatrick. He taught me a new word: “hagiographical.” It very accurately described that TV movie (I tried to watch a bit on Youtube, but my gag reflex was too strong).
By the way, on another thread (the Newstatesman article?), someone mentioned that the symptoms Ms. Fletcher described for her twenty-something old son were very similar to Dravet’s Syndrome.
@ Chris: It was the “New Statesman” blog where someone opined about Ms. Fletcher’s son possibly having Dravet Syndrome.
Meanwhile, Erwin Alber has started to post on the New Statesman blog…with his usual fact-free, citation-less inanities. I posted back at him…you’re gonna like my references about VINE. 🙂
http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/04/giving-space-andrew-wakefield-mmr-isnt-balance-its-lunacy
@Chris, as already stated I was not making an assertion that Temple Grandin was speaking about the single antigen measles vaccine.
I made an assertion that the single antigen vaccine was no longer available in the US, as of 2011. My mistake for misreading the reference, however Matt Carey validates for me, my point that the single antigen vaccine has been available in the last decade at points in time in the US.
Temple Grandin, has yet to verify that exact point, but she has clarified her viewpoints on vaccines and Autism since the 2010 redaction of the 1998 Wakefield paper, starting in the Wall Street Journal Interview, as linked here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703525704575061123564007514.html?mod=WSJ_article_comments#articleTabs%3Darticle
With a quick check on her website, linked below, a fuller statement from a quote in her book similar to the one in the interview has been listed there for public view for months.
She makes no assertion that there is a link between gastrointestinal illness and MMR in any of her statements. She makes a suggestion of a possible environmental trigger for regression specific to loss of language, among individuals who already have the genetic propensity for an ASD, specific to MMR.
http://templegrandin.com/
Her remarks have been specific to high fevers and wailing, not GI illness.
There has been no link established, not even a rare side effect per health factor of GI illness and MMR vaccine.
There is though an established link of side effect of severe fevers and seizures in 1 in 3000 individuals administered the MMR vaccine, as I provided in the link from the CDC, and cautions for those individuals with immune system problems, and other health related factors of vulnerability.
There is also close to double the risk of that side effect identified with the MMRV vaccine. So it is obvious that an added factor of antigen can make a difference in the risk of that rare side effect.
Temple Grandin, makes a specific recommendation in her book, as quoted on her website, to vaccinate children per MMR at 5 years old, who have vulnerabilities from a list of potential health/neurological vulnerabilities she provides.
Previously, in the Wall Street Journal in 2010, as linked above, her recommendation was to space all vaccinations apart in time, which would have included a recommendation to space single antigen vaccines in lieu of MMR, at that point in time wherever they were available.
The difference in what Temple Grandin is now recommending to the General Public and what Andrew Wakefield was recommending to the general public, in 1998, is she is not suggesting any specific biological mechanism, per GI Illness, as what could possibly be an epigenetic influence per MMR vaccination, in children with factors of vulnerability with the genetic propensity toward ASD.
While discrediting Andrew Wakefield is not hard to do, as his 1998 research was retracted, it is not going to work in addressing Temple Grandin’s valid points of concern in her book, that have not been “disproven” by science.
This is not about GI illness it is about a possible epigenetic influence/environmental trigger. In addition, it is about research specific to a relatively uncommon subgroup of children in the general population, with regressive Autism who lose the ability to speak, at somewhere close to 1 in 400 of the approximately 75M children in the US.
She is not suggesting that there is a causal factor of MMR and Autism, only the possibility of a potential unknown epigenetic influence/environmental trigger, among that subgroup of individuals and potentially associated specific to the MMR vaccine.
I do not agree with her recommendation of caution to vaccinate with MMR at 5 years of age, per the list of vulnerabilities she provides that go well beyond what are established CDC reported factors of health vulnerabilities associated with MMR Her actual recommendation is more unsettling to me than Wakefield’s recommendation of caution to move back to single antigen components of MMR, in 1998.
However, if everyone blows off the other parts of her statement that are valid areas of concerns as “not making sense”, those folks in the general population that read her book, and KNOW she is not a “snake oil salesman”, as has been provided the picture of Wakefield, are going to take her recommendation even more seriously.
Now might be a good time to start emphasizing why one cannot “safely” wait to vaccinate their children with MMR until 5 years of age, without clear medical reasons of risk. Wakefield’s retracted 1998 research is in the past. There is a new voice that is going to speak on April 30th, in books stores, and it is a voice that people trust, and they are going to listen to.
And now might be the time, to emphasize how small the actual known risk of high fevers and seizures are in the general population at 1 in 3000, per MMR. Some children on the spectrum, per epigenetic effect/environmental trigger, may be more vulnerable, but it remains an extremely rare side effect in the general population.
Her recommendation in her book is aimed at the general population who have items of her assessed risk in the list of vulnerabilities she provides.
I am not going to quote it here, but you can see it in the link on her website that has been there for months, that tens of thousands of people have already been looking at as opposed to a limited audience that saw her article in the NYT, and WSJ at points in time in the past.
I am not going to oppose Temple Grandhin on her reasonable points of view, and I will give her social communication the benefit of a doubt, until I see clarification from her, when there are fuzzy areas, but there is no fuzzy area in her recommendation of caution, per delaying MMR to age 5, in that quote in her book or on her website. She provides details in both places.
The potential benefit of that recommendation does not outweigh the potential cost, in any reasonable perspective that I can find.
It is interesting to me that no one currently criticizing her has noticed it sitting there on her website for months now, as some of the people criticizing her about the recent statement in the New York Times, are actually listed as her friends on her facebook page.
As far as Wakefield’s initial “hunch” about a potential new GI illness related Autism Syndrome, the association of GI illness and ASD, in general, has been identified recently in a huge study of thousands of people assessed with ASD at close to 25%. There is no identified suggestion of a link to timing of MMR vaccination or regressive autism as a specific subgroup affected.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=22850932
If one has any hope to stop the gossip, one has to provide the facts. Telling people to shut up they are imagining associations that are only correlations, does not do the trick. And yes, there is evidence from the New England Journal that I linked earlier that supports that assertion. 🙂
So what? Dr. Grandin is not qualified to speak on vaccines, immunology, epidemiology, or a lots of other things pertaining to human physiology and neurology. Your last link has nothing to do with vaccine.
Do you have a point? If so, please present it. Because you are making no sense going on about Dr. Grandin, Alex Jones and a vaccine used only in India.
Chris, when it comes to a decision on vaccination, for most of the individuals who choose not to vaccinate, as evidenced in the New England Journal of Medicine I provided, qualifications among those with influence has little to do with the factors that usually result in an ultimate decision not to vaccinate children in the US.
The largest factor of decision, currently, for a waiver, comes from the “Pulpit” or “Personal Philosophy”.
Andrew Wakefield had little to no influence, in the general public, until media amplified his voice and many others who had no qualifications to speak on the issue, into a global voice of influence.
That influence continues. It existed before Andrew Wakefield or Alex Jones came along and is going to be here until the end of the human species..
Regardless, if one is impressed with the qualifications of Alex Jones or Temple Grandin, as those qualifications relate specific to all the facts and figures associated with vaccines and epidemiology, they have the proven track record to greatly influence the decisions of others, in real life.
Alex Jones cannot be easily influenced by facts and figures, as that relates to his personal motivations to influence others, however Temple Grandin can.
Given enough data without all the emotional input, she is subject to change her mind and influence people differently.
It is one of those things in life where one picks and chooses their battles and attempt to change what they can and forget about what is in the past that one can not change or influence for the future.
If one cannot understand that point, there is little potential to influence positive change as it relates to who is actually vaccinated or not, in the future.
If one doesn’t care about that, I am not sure what one’s point of concern is, if any at all, as it relates to who is or who is not vaccinated in the future, for the overall good of the public’s health, as that relates to herd immunity.
” Andrew Wakefield had little to no influence, in the general public, until media amplified his voice and many others who had no qualifications to speak on the issue, into a global voice of influence.”
Yes. He is not alone in the blame. He actively used the press. The way you phrase it ignores that important point. How many doctors have a press agent? Very few. Mr. Wakefield is the only one I’ve heard of.
We are going in circles here. This has been discussed already a few times here.
Ms. Mia:
Let me finish this sentence properly for you: … “you should ignore pundits like Alex Jones, Temple Grandin, Andrew Wakefield and friends, but go with the real science. If you have any questions visit the website of your local public health department, peruse the information at http://www.historyofvaccines.org/, or just talk to a qualified medical health provider.”
Chris and Matt, as identified on this website, linked below, the type of study that Temple Grandhin is looking for specific to Regression/loss of language/high fevers/MMR has been identified as close to impossible, specific to the type of “Autism-like” features that were identified in Hannah Polling, in the piece linked below.
This was a rare incidence, but never the less, a validated incidence by Paul Offit, as having a real link with vaccines.
It is worth noting though, that the phrase “Austic-Like” behaviors, at this point as a disorder that is assessed by behavior alone, per coming DSM5 guidelines, is close to what one might describe as an Oxymoron.
Hannah Polling’s “Autistic-Like” Behaviors were attributed to a neurological pathology that could be identified, rather than a disorder that had no clear neurological origin.
As an analogy Temple Grandhin’s recent shared Brain scan in Discover magazine showed a clear pathology in her brain, that has been assessed as a potential causal factor of her “Autistic” symptoms.
There is no name for the pathology in her brain, It is an anomaly. However, if there was a defined label for a pathology associated with that brain anomaly in her childhood, that was observed at that point in time, her behavioral differences could very well have been attributed to a defined neurological pathology, instead of the disorder of Autism, as well.
It is part of a potential problem of getting caught up in labels, and ignoring the real problems people have in life.
The internet and global communication provides the potential of the rarest of conditions to be shared vocally among the greater masses.
The problem that is identified by some may be at the level of global incidence of what was observed as a real problem for Hannah Polling.
These are the kind of details that might help some people understand that the actual warranted concerns are real but small in statistical reality in the evidence as it currently exists.
It certainly does not warrant a widespread caution not to vaccinate with MMR until age 5, because there is a family history of Autism, Epilepsy, Learning disorders, and the other factors that Temple Grandin could think of that have been assessed as neurological co-morbids/associations with Autism.
Wakefield’s avenue for patients with GI problems and Regressive Autism timed with Vaccination and MMR, was apparently an orchestrated effort by a legal firm of referral for a rare segment of the population looking for help.
The internet and websites are the new legal firms that do that referral for free, as they provide the voice and the avenue for communicating rare issues of difficulty in the general population, together at one time and place, as a much louder voice of concern.
A likely reason that the expert remained silent when Temple Grandhin was met with silence,with her question, was that not only had the research not been done, specific to Grandin’s concern about fevers and wailing studied separately in children with regressive autism specific to loss of language, the research she is asking for is effectively close to impossible as identified in the link below, from this website.
The numbers of concern of individuals actually reported as impacted are effectively too small to study in the general population.
What remains is a bottom up approach in research to study one factor of associated health concern of vulnerability at a time. This makes the recent research of the finding of the general association of GI illness and ASD, a very important one in further dispelling a myth that the new potential GI related syndrome is one specific only to Regressive Autism, or has anything to do with Vaccines at all.
The Severe Fever association and vaccines with potential for neurological damage continues to remain as a much rarer potential of concern, but never the less, is still a real one, per what was actually evidenced as an association in the Hannah Polling Case, no matter how loose that association is specific to “Autistic-Like” symptoms, related to neurological damage.
https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2008/12/01/david-kirby-on-mitochondral-autism/
As a clarification on my earlier statement in regard to the MMRV vaccine, it is approved by the FDA. It is the CDC, not the FDA, that does not recommend the MMRV be administered before age 4, per recent findings by the Kaiser Vaccine Center.
The CDC’s recommendation, as linked below, is for separate vaccinations of MMR and the Varicella vaccine before the age of 48 months ( 4 yrs), due to the doubled risk of severe fever and seizures that have been identified in studies of children under the age of two. The CDC recommends the MMRV vaccine after age 4 if the MMR vaccine has not been administered separately before age 4.
The risk of severe fever and febrile seizure at age 2 and below is identified as a little over 2 in 3000, for the MMRV vaccine, as opposed to 1 in 3000, with the MMR vaccine alone.
Per the 2012 study linked below, from the Kaiser Vaccine Center, the risk drops to 1 in 15,500 at age 4 to 6 for the MMRV vaccine and 1 in 18,000 for the MMR plus Vericella Vaccine.
Temple Grandin may be making her personal risk assessment of recommendation for vaccination at age 5, and what she sees as her own personal list of vulnerabilities associated with ASD, based in part, on this information from the Kaiser Organization.
However, the danger of not being vaccinated before age 5 based on these numbers alone, which is the newest government reported statistics on risk and side effect of high fevers and febrile seizures associated with MMR and MMRV, definitely does not outweigh the overall risk of what is associated with contracting the actual diseases before age 5 if one is not vaccinated with the MMR or MMRV or MMR plus Vericella Vaccines.
Febrile Seizures alone are not studied as increasing the risk of Epilepsy or Brain damage in the general population.
However, as quoted below from the article that provided further details from the linked abstract, it is worth noting that the peak of the high fevers and febrile seizures occur at 18 months, and typically do not occur after age 5, which is where the association to date per regression and timing of event of high fever and illness among children has been identified by parents in a subgroup of children exhibiting symptoms of developmental regression shortly after these high fevers and/or other elements of illness reported by parents.
This data from the Kaiser Vaccine Center presents a strong case, by itself, of a factor of correlation rather than causation in these vaccine related serious side effects and developmental regression occurring in the same time frame, among a rare sub group of individuals on the spectrum.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22473362
“The researchers noted that febrile seizures typically occur in children ages 6 months to 5 years, and the incidence of these seizures peaks at about 18 months of age.”
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/04/02/measles-vaccines-wont-raise-seizure-risk-in-young-kids-study
One of the other greatest factors that rule out vaccines as an actual direct causal factor per developmental regression is that research has also determined that there is abnormal brain growth specific to males assessed with regressive Autism, which happens well before vaccinations are administered that is not significantly assessed in a group of females with regressive autism or other children diagnosed on the spectrum at the same age, in that study, linked below:
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/5983
There was a presentation scheduled in the upcoming IMFAR on the neuro-pathology of Cavum Septum Pellucidum and Cavum Vergae in Macrocephaly and Autism Spectrum Condition, that could have potentially shed additional light, but it appears that abstract has been withdrawn.
Cavum Septum Pellucidum and Cavum Vergae, are already implicated in association in some co-morbid and inter-related genetic based disorders associated with the spectrum such as 22q11 deletion syndrome and Schizophrenia.
https://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2013/webprogram/Paper13947.html
I am a relative “nobody” on the internet, but based on all the evidenced facts that have been presented in this entire discussion, I personally recommend that children should be vaccinated according to CDC recommended vaccination schedule unless a medical doctor advises not to do so based on medical evidence of substantial risk of vulnerability, where the cost is assessed as outweighing the benefit of vaccination, in rare instances where that determination may be advised by a physician.
That is not clarification at all. Clearly Temple Grand in was not referencing this vaccine in her statement. However you made this mistake, you would be well served to admit the mistake and move on.
Matt Carey, that was not meant for clarification, it was meant for additional information associated with the difficulty you amplified yourself in doing a study on the small numbers of children identified with the subject mitochondrial dysfunction vaccine hypothesis. That is not an issue specific to any one vaccine per epidemiological factor of further study when a subgroup with difficulties is very small in the general population.
The Mitochondrial Dysfunction/Vaccine biological mechanism is one that Temple Grandhin did not suggest. She left that part of the issue as open ended for research.
However, the epidemiological concerns in doing a study on a very small subgroup of children reporting difficulties remains the same, as the one you identified in the link I provided from this site.
I provided a great deal of clarification on the same point Chris amplifies above on looking to a medical doctor, when one is concerned about potential vulnerabilities to side effects associated with Vaccination of MMR. I also provided a great deal of clarification that it was the CDC, not the FDA, that recommends not to vaccinate with MMRV until age 4, due to increased side effects.
You either chose not to publish that second part of my comment or it was lost in the moderation process, which I can respect because this is your blog.
I have already admitted two mistakes on this blog post, and corrected them. You asserted that your claim that the 1998 Wakefield paper “sugested a link between Vaccines and Autism” was correct, without retraction of that statement or any admission of mistake. That is a disagreement that we have.that I can also accept, that I also provided a great deal of further information on.
I am not fully aware or fully versed in all the details associated with this vaccine controversy, but I have interjected factors I have heard very few people interject in these discussions.
I know that, in part, because Chris as a veteran of these discussions still does not express a full understanding of the full gravity of the “Alex Jones” factor in this overall issue of loss of herd immunity in Europe, even with referenced material from the New England Journal of Medicine.
Yes,Wakefield is the star player, but he has a whole team and stadium of supporting players.
That said, I appreciate you allowing me to take part in the discussion.
This, below, is the actual comment of clarification I made in the second part of my comment that you either chose not to publish or was lost in the moderation process. If you like you can include it in this comment if it was lost in the moderation process.
As a clarification on my earlier statement in regard to the MMRV vaccine, it is approved by the FDA. It is the CDC, not the FDA, that does not recommend the MMRV be administered before age 4, per recent findings by the Kaiser Vaccine Center.
The CDC’s recommendation, as linked below, is for separate vaccinations of MMR and the Varicella vaccine before the age of 48 months ( 4 yrs), due to the doubled risk of severe fever and seizures that have been identified in studies of children under the age of two. The CDC recommends the MMRV vaccine after age 4 if the MMR vaccine has not been administered separately before age 4.
The risk of severe fever and febrile seizure at age 2 and below is identified as a little over 2 in 3000, for the MMRV vaccine, as opposed to 1 in 3000, with the MMR vaccine alone.
Per the 2012 study linked below, from the Kaiser Vaccine Center, the risk drops to 1 in 15,500 at age 4 to 6 for the MMRV vaccine and 1 in 18,000 for the MMR plus Vericella Vaccine.
Temple Grandin may be making her personal risk assessment of recommendation for vaccination at age 5, and what she sees as her own personal list of vulnerabilities associated with ASD, based in part, on this information from the Kaiser Organization.
However, the danger of not being vaccinated before age 5 based on these numbers alone, which is the newest government reported statistics on risk and side effect of high fevers and febrile seizures associated with MMR and MMRV, definitely does not outweigh the overall risk of what is associated with contracting the actual diseases before age 5 if one is not vaccinated with the MMR or MMRV or MMR plus Vericella Vaccines.
Febrile Seizures alone are not studied as increasing the risk of Epilepsy or Brain damage in the general population.
However, as quoted below from the article that provided further details from the linked abstract, it is worth noting that the peak of the high fevers and febrile seizures occur at 18 months, and typically do not occur after age 5, which is where the association to date per regression and timing of event of high fever and illness among children has been identified by parents in a subgroup of children exhibiting symptoms of developmental regression shortly after these high fevers and/or other elements of illness reported by parents.
This data from the Kaiser Vaccine Center presents a strong case, by itself, of a factor of correlation rather than causation in these vaccine related serious side effects and developmental regression occurring in the same time frame, among a rare sub group of individuals on the spectrum.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22473362
“The researchers noted that febrile seizures typically occur in children ages 6 months to 5 years, and the incidence of these seizures peaks at about 18 months of age.”
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/04/02/measles-vaccines-wont-raise-seizure-risk-in-young-kids-study
One of the other greatest factors that rule out vaccines as an actual direct causal factor per developmental regression is that research has also determined that there is abnormal brain growth specific to males assessed with regressive Autism, which happens well before vaccinations are administered that is not significantly assessed in a group of females with regressive autism or other children diagnosed on the spectrum at the same age, in that study, linked below:
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/5983
There was a presentation scheduled in the upcoming IMFAR on the neuro-pathology of Cavum Septum Pellucidum and Cavum Vergae in Macrocephaly and Autism Spectrum Condition, that could have potentially shed additional light, but it appears that abstract has been withdrawn.
Cavum Septum Pellucidum and Cavum Vergae, are already implicated in association in some co-morbid and inter-related genetic based disorders associated with the spectrum such as 22q11 deletion syndrome and Schizophrenia.
https://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2013/webprogram/Paper13947.html
I am a relative “nobody” on the internet, but based on all the evidenced facts that have been presented in this entire discussion, I personally recommend that children should be vaccinated according to CDC recommended vaccination schedule unless a medical doctor advises not to do so based on medical evidence of substantial risk of vulnerability, where the cost is assessed as
Ms. Mia:
Alex Jones is a clueless clown and is not a reliable source of evidence. Many of his listeners actually laugh at him, not with him. Most sane people ignore him.
Matt, after I logged in with facebook, and sent my last comment, the previous comment I made was visible still awaiting moderation, so I can see now that you were responding to my clarification regarding MMRV in that comment that you can still see but have not published.
I was not suggesting that Temple Grandin was talking about that vaccine at all. I was only clarifying my error earlier in the discussion, where I miss-spoke that the FDA did not approve the vaccine, which was factually incorrect as it was the CDC that does not recommend it until age 4, due to the increased risk of fever and seizure per severe side effect.
My apologies. WordPress usually approves comments when the blog owner replies. I was not aware that the mobile version does not.
Matt, thank you for the clarification. I just started using a mobile version of the internet regularly and have encountered unusual issues like that I can relate to.
Chris, I was using the “Alex Jones factor” as a metaphor, for what the New England Journal of Medicine identifies as those in the general population that are more vulnerable to government conspiracy theories.
It is a much larger issue than Alex Jones and what is a loyal following of millions of people that do indeed follow Alex Jones and others like him “blindly”. One can also call it the “Reverend Jim Jones” factor as well, if that provides a more visual metaphor of the serious nature of the phenomenon.
Cult-like followers and leaders come in all varieties imaginable.
Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Blaxill both have very charismatic and generally likable qualities of personality, however I am not seeing any evil out of either of those individuals, just a type of Bill Clinton like confidence. 🙂
Close to 95% percent of the US population, per the unwarranted concerns of vaccines, are loyal followers of CDC advice, bending to reason instead of unwarranted hype evidenced in the unwarranted concerns.
All that said, in my view the best foot forward is science, with the other foot not losing empathy and compassion for the valid concerns, however small they may be that do exist in the evidenced reality of science, as it stands to this point.
And with all that said, blind allegiance to government without questioning anything, is not democracy. A balance can be found, and some people have more difficulty than others finding that, which I think is understandable and also worthy of empathy and compassion. 🙂
Again, and finally, I appreciate the opportunity to engage in discussion here, and I will give you guys a rest from my tenacious written personality. 🙂 I have overall, enjoyed it.
@Katie Mia *Forgive me, I’m not quite sure how to use block quotes*
“All that said, in my view the best foot forward is science, with the other foot not losing empathy and compassion for the valid concerns, however small they may be that do exist in the evidenced reality of science, as it stands to this point.”
I understand where you are coming from, as far as empathy and compassion goes. The empathy and compassion below to the children who have no voice in this matter and who are the ones who will be the victims of the decisions made by their parents. Having grown up anti-vaccine, I know exactly what the mind set of anti-vaccine activists is, and they are arrogant, self righteous and really do consider themselves ‘more pure’ then those who have been vaccinated. They actually don’t have any empathy or compassion for anyone else and really do consider those who disagree with them on the vaccine issue, stupid, lesser people then they are. That was the impression that I grew up with from my mother, that being unvaccinated made us better then everyone else. If an individual has a legitimate reason to forgo vaccination for their child, I have no problem with that, but those who blindly (and in most cases purposely blind as the information they present for their argument has been debunked multiple times, yet they persist) yes, I have a problem with that because it’s a lot easier for a human to accept and believe negative information about something, even if it isn’t true, then to accept the truth, and anti-vaccine activists use that to their advantage and refuse to hear any side but their own. That’s why the moderation is so very heavy on the known and notorious anti-vaccine web site and blogs.
“And with all that said, blind allegiance to government without questioning anything, is not democracy. A balance can be found, and some people have more difficulty than others finding that, which I think is understandable and also worthy of empathy and compassion. 🙂 ”
There is a big difference between democracy and science and I think, most who comment on and follow this blog and other blogs like it are not blindly following democracy, nor are they blindly following science. They are skeptical for a reason and it is that skepticism that keeps them from blindly following anything. Public health policy might be a political move orchestrated by government, but it is based on tested, retested and sound scientific research and data. That in and of itself makes it not part of democracy really.
Lara, I think we are in general agreement on your description of empathy and compassion, although I do not paint the whole population of people who are anti-vaccine has having character flaws; the New England Journal of Medicine suggests it is more of an issue of those vulnerable to the power of suggestion by others. I cannot dispute your personal judgement of other people you have come across in life.
My point on not following the government blindly, was to counter my continued references to the New England Journal of Medicine and government conspiracy theorists, per the legitimate questioning of government policy, where appropriate. I am not suggesting that anyone is blindly following any government policy in these discussions in regard to vaccines, this site or other “pro vaccine” sites.
I see that as more applicable to issues such as the Iraq war related Government Administration “spins” to achieve political agendas, where people did seem to blindly follow the reasonably questionable policies for a period of time, in massive numbers.
If the CDC had a “wreckless” agenda in protecting public health, as some have suggested in regard to vaccinations, I do not think the agency would have chosen to caution the public over vaccination with the MMRV as opposed to MMR plus V, until age four, over a 2 in 3000 risk of severe fever and febrile seizure as opposed to a 1 in 3000 risk. It was not an FDA requirement; it was meticulous attention to detail of caution.
This is part of the “beauty” of a Federal employee workforce, as in the rank and file world of government employment there are penalties for accepting favors from private organizations. I can’t say those limitations work effectively for politicians; however, these policies are, overall, effective to police government employee decisions potentially influenced by the perceived potential of material gain.
Government employment is not usually an avenue of vocation for people looking to get rich or gain material influence. It is most often a safe place and structure to gain employment, where generally speaking people follow the rules in appreciation of having that structure and security of employment.
I have over 20 years experience as a Government employee, and will tell anyone from decades of experience working in the “trenches” that the CDC employees, in general, are the last people to fear over government conspiracies; however, government employees of all ranks and files, can and do make mistakes that must be and are rectified.
I agree that public health agencies in the US, do have to make science based decisions for public health that cannot be subject to what one might describe as “democracy” driven decisions. Additionally, those decisions, are at times, driven by fiscal realities of funding that limit options for public health, completely out of the control of those who direct those decisions.
It bothers me a little to see the heads of the CDC getting beat up like they do, at times, for doing their jobs adequately and properly in a sea of government red tape.
However, that is just my perspective living in that “government employee” reality for over 20 years. As far as I can see Tom Insel is a “Rock Star of Science and Government Employment”, as an agency head of the NIMH, and chair of the IACC.
The overall concerns of the “Autism Community” is in “Good Hands” with Mr. Insel, and the people that run the CDC.
If it were not for the journalistic findings of Mr. Deer on Mr. Wakefield I would assume Mr. Wakefield was erring on the side of “extreme” and perhaps effectively “wreckless” caution, not any nefarious intent, per that first “infamous” press conference, based on the information presented there alone.
I think that Temple Grandin’s recommendation that people may want to wait and vaccinate their children until age 5, with MMR, if they have the items of concern on her list of vulnerabilities is also an “extreme” type of erring on the side of caution; however, I disagree that the risk of caution she is directing her influence toward is the greater risk of caution it should be directed at.
That actual, overall, assessed greater risk by the “good people” that dedicate their lives to serve others in the general public at the CDC and the current state of overall scientific knowledge is the real severe consequences in health effect measured in those children under the age of 5, who contract any of those three diseases MMR protects against.
Mr. Wakefield highlights several people on the AOA website as proof that vaccines are associated with neurological damage and behaviors that look like what is generally described as the behavioral impairments defined in the DSMIV, in that “loose criteria”, for what is currently described as Autism Spectrum Disorders.
There is the real risk of neurological damage that has already been identified as a very rare side effect of the MMR vaccine, in close to an estimated 1 in a million children. This news is not new news, but it is being labeled as new news.
As an example, if 75 million children in the US were vaccinated by MMR, one might expect 75 cases of this very rare and serious side effect of neurological damage, so a fund was set up to settle those unfortunate and horrible realities of life in the risk that comes with living it.
I think Mr. Wakefield and others have brought to the attention of the world 4 or 5 legal cases that exemplify that very rare side effect, which has already been identified for years, but not highlighted in the Global media on a case by case basis.
The difference of note is someone is tossing the label of Autism in the soup of neurological damage and resulting behavioral impairments, that are nothing new of substance, but never the less the entire world if one or one’s family are the ones actually impacted by this very rare and horrifying side effect, which is not an all or nothing proposition in serious neurological damage and resulting behavioral impairments that may occur on a case by case basis depending on the unique individual involved and their actual existing health vulnerabilities, to that effect.
That is part of that small area of real and warranted concern that I refer to as deserving of empathy and compassion for others. It also includes the much larger area of needs of the greater numbers and smaller numbers, in herd immunity, for the health of the entire general public/population, per getting as many people vaccinated as possible, who are not identified as vulnerable to the more severe side effects of vaccines.
The whole idea behind the MMR was to more effectively make that part of the real warranted concern a reality in all countries. Some people simply do not have the economic means. resources for education and awareness, or accessibility to make three Doctor visits to get their children vaccinated.
There is probably some extremely small increased risk of side effects in getting an MMR vs the single antigen M plus M plus R shots, as two additional types of antigens for disease are involved, but that cost as small as it is likely estimated, is not assessed by public health agencies as coming close to equal the positive benefit of MMR, and achieving or keeping that herd immunity so everyone’s health can be safer protected from disease.
The general public doesn’t get to vote on that one. The decision has to be based both on the science that studies vaccines/disease/health vulnerabilities with the additional factor of the study of socio-economics and the realities of existing culture in achieving or keeping that herd immunity by vaccination. That is the other side of erring on caution, that is much more complex and hard for some people to grasp as a much larger picture of warranted health concern.
It doesn’t make the folks at the CDC jobs easy, but it is some evidence of how valuable and deserving of respect, and yes empathy and compassion, there efforts are too. 🙂
For clarification Lara, I am not disagreeing with the general gist of your response to me. It is another incidence in RRBI of monologue for me. 🙂
Just presenting information that might be valuable to someone listening considering a decision on vaccinating their children, from a person that does not have a substantial “emotional dog” in these Vaccine Controversy discussions that sometimes seem to have an element of “fight”. 🙂
In case it is not crystal clear by now, I fully believe in the overall human benefit over the relatively much smaller identified, but worthy of recognition, human price in the general population associated with MMR vaccination.
It has become a larger area of “special interest” for me as time goes by. Almost as interesting to me as the “Autism Speaks” controversies in online Autism Communities.
In that case of study, also, the overall human benefit over the relatively much smaller identified, but worthy of recognition, human price in the general population associated with Autism Speaks, can be observed, measured empirically, and reported as well, in great detail, I might add. 🙂
For clarification, per discussion in comments, as of 4/28/13, there is no longer any vaccination recommendations on Temple Grandin’s website, that I am able to find there.
I am no scientist but I can tell you that there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. I know this not because of any published statistics but because I have an umber of friends who had a normally developing child who rapidly regressed over 24-48 hours following MMR vaccination and are now severely autistic. Statistics are irrelevant when you personally know people who have had their lives stolen. ‘Luckily’ for my son he was showing signs of autism prior to his first MMR. Now that his ASD is confirmed he will not be having his 2nd MMR. I will most likely pay for a private single vaccine. The responsibility for the measles outbreak in Wales lies on the shoulders of the those who withdrew the single vaccine from the UK, taking away the choice for parents with legitimate concerns about the MMR vaccine. This could have been easily recitified long ago with the reintroduction of single vaccines but yet again money saving is at the heart of Public Health policies rather than genuine concern for the welfare of our children. The British government have blood on the hands. Not only due to the measles outbreak but also due to the ASD epidemic that is getting much less media attention.
The only relevant part of your statement, Jenni, is: “I am no scientist…” The rest of what you say is not relevant because scientists have looked and found no link. What parents think they see after the MMR is a normal occurrence in many children with autism. And it is highly likely they weren’t developing normally, but just had no NT children prior to compare to. My son was showing differences then my previous 5 children from birth, but still had regression starting at about 14 months. It wasn’t sudden, it is never sudden. The realization that your child has lost skills is sudden but that isn’t reality either. My son was actually well ahead of the curve for his age in many ways, but he had differences that I knew were not normal. His lack of sleep, seeming sensitivity to everything, stimming on lights, etc. were not normal, even though he was sitting on his own at two months, crawling at four, walking at eight months and talking at nine months. He didn’t lose his gross motor skills, but his fine motor skills stopped progressing, he lost his words and began stimming on more things then just lights and stopped responding to his name, began walking on his toes and began having meltdowns. My son didn’t get the MMR though, his vaccines got delayed after his six months vaccines until he was two and a half and already diagnosed with significant developmental delay. So I saw the same thing in my own son, but there was no vaccine prior to him regressing. If a person wants to believe something though, no amount of data and facts and truth will dissuade them from that belief. Feel free to believe what you will, just stop trying to recruit people to your religion. That is what is endangering public health.
My daughter was vaccine damaged 1994 , she has athritis 21 days after getting injection she also has bowel disease at 15 she 25 now no one has backed me, im just an overprotective mother so i was told by medical profesionals im behind god himself in my eyes mr wakefield wish i could meet him personly .
Our grandchild was damaged after vaccines and developed autism. we discovered that he has a defect in the MTHFR gene. This is quite a common genetic condition where the methylation pathways do not work efficiently and there is less glutathione a major detoxifier of the body. . Children with this gene are less able to detoxify vaccines and accumulate toxins. Unfortunately vaccines are given to children without testing for this gene and the results can be catastrophic.
Because vaccines have decreased in efficiency over the years, Pharma compensated by increasing the vaccine’s viral load, which may heighten the risk for chronic viral infection. The components of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine can act like ret- roviruses, which insert their own genetic information into our genetic material. During the viral replication process, these RNA viruses commandeer our cel- lular resources for their own purposes—in particular, they use our cells’ nucleic acids to replicate themselves, and in the process inhibit many of the vital cellular functions, ultimately causing cell death. If the cell dies, the virus is released into the body, proliferating the infection. If the cell doesn’t die, the virus remains within the cell as a chronic infection.
Multiple factors contribute to the development of chronic viral infection in re- sponse to viruses contained in vaccines. These include:
• A lack of normal gut flora
• Elevated levels of the inflammatory mediator TNF alpha
• Methylation cycle mutations
• Heavy metal toxicity
• Depletion of glutathione due to streptococcal infection
Children with the abovementioned conditions may be at heightened risk when they receive vaccinations of developing the types of chronic viral infections and gut problems that are frequently seen in this population.
MMR link to Autism has been found:http://www.ms.academicjournals.org/article/article1409245960_Deisher%20et%20al.pdf
”
The aim of this study was to investigate a previously overlooked, universally introduced environmental factor, fetal and retroviral contaminants in childhood vaccines, absent prior to change points (CPs) in autistic disorder (AD) prevalence with subsequent dose-effect evidence and known pathologic mechanisms of action.
Worldwide population based cohort study was used for the design of this study. The United States, Western Australia, United Kingdom and Denmark settings were used.
All live born infants who later developed autistic disorder delivered after 1 January 1970, whose redacted vaccination and autistic disorder diagnosis information is publicly available in databases maintained by the US Federal Government, Western Australia, UK, and Denmark.
The live births, grouped by father’s age, were from the US and Australia. The children vaccinated with MMRII, Varicella and Hepatitis A vaccines varied from 19 to 35 months of age at the time of vaccination.
Autistic disorder birth year change points were identified as 1980.9, 1988.4 and 1996 for the US, 1987 for UK, 1990.4 for Western Australia, and 1987.5 for Denmark.
Change points in these countries corresponded to introduction of or increased doses of human fetal cell line-manufactured vaccines, while no relationship was found between paternal age or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) revisions and autistic disorder diagnosis.
Further, linear regression revealed that Varicella and Hepatitis A immunization coverage was significantly correlated to autistic disorder cases. R software was used to calculate change points.
Autistic disorder change points years are coincident with introduction of vaccines manufactured using human fetal cell lines, containing fetal and retroviral contaminants, into childhood vaccine regimens.
This pattern was repeated in the US, UK, Western Australia and Denmark. Thus, rising autistic disorder prevalence is directly related to vaccines manufactured utilizing human fetal cells. ”
Increased paternal age and DSM revisions were not related to rising autistic disorder prevalence.
Not really:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/09/09/religious-fundamentalists-try-to-prove-fetal-dna-in-vaccines-causes-autism-and-fail/
You really believe that bigoted drivel on that blog. Just because they have the word ‘science’ in their name doesn’t mean that it is science.
Well, that’s a substantive response. It’s a “bigoted drivel” blog. And we are just taken in by the name “science” in the title.
1oo percent my child vaccine damaged in 1994 are childrens immune systems should never been overloaded with these jabs , mmr triple vaccine and m r 1994 vaccine , would love to speak with mr wakefield .
Since the MMR was introduced in the USA in 1971, you must know what documentation dated before 1990 shows autism increased during the 1970s and 1980s,
The steep rise in autism seems to definitely be related to using aborted unborn babies in the creation of vaccines, such as MMR.
The steep rise in autism seems to definitely be related to using aborted unborn babies in the creation of vaccines, such as MMR.
Cool, so you would much rather have babies destroyed by Congenital Rubella Syndrome! Thanks for making yourself quite clear as a misogynist baby hater.
Rubbish Chris, babies are probably much less likely to get Congenital Rubella Syndrome than autism.
Autism shot up from 1 in 10,000 to now being about 1 in 100
My mother had rubella while pregnant with me and I am fine.
A friend who is a doctor mentioned that a pregnant young lady was being pressured into aborting her baby because she had rubella.
This doctor looked at the scientific facts regarding rubella and found that it is actually very rare that it would damage the baby. Perhaps just a minor vision or hearing problem.
Actually when they were making the vaccine from the aborted unborn baby they finally found the virus in the 27th baby that they had aborted whose mother had rubella. This means most babies aren’t even affected at all. If affected, typically only vision or hearing might be slightly affected.
Those who are in denial regarding the MMR autism link don’t seem to care that many more babies lives are being ruined by autism than Congenital Rubella Syndrome.
According to Dr. Shiv Chopra (M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Microbiology):
“The moment I joined…the first vaccines that landed on my desk were rubella and later on, mumps, and some later versions of measles.
I objected to it. I said, ‘I see problems in these because these are minor diseases and most people get immune by age 15. Why are we going to give these vaccines that have never been tested?’
… My suggestion was, why don’t we test women at the age of 15 and 16? Those who are not yet immune then may be given the vaccine?
Of course, the companies didn’t want that. They wanted 100 percent or at least 80 percent of the children vaccinated.
That was the only way they were going to make money. So they flew in hordes of people from the United States — of all people, Dr. Hilleman, you may remember him. He himself came. He was effectively yelling and screaming at my department that the United States has passed it and so forth.”
“Autism shot up from 1 in 10,000 to now being about 1 in 100”
Really? What data do you have that shows that using today’s understanding of autism that the rate was ever 1 in 10,000? Answer: you don’t have any.
Did you catch the study out of Denmark that shows that the autism rates for kids born in the 1980’s are much higher than previously reported? As in, kids born in 1985 have an autism prevalence of about 50 out of 10,000. So, how exactly did that rate increase by 50x? By better identification.
Congenital Rubella Syndrome was a huge issue, and remains a huge issue where it Rubella still is endemic. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001658.htm Most fetuses with CRS don’t grow into disabled children because they die.
People who downplay the seriousness of diseases like Rubella for fetuses tip their hand that they have not been very good at doing research.
“… My suggestion was, why don’t we test women at the age of 15 and 16? Those who are not yet immune then may be given the vaccine?”
So, your suggestion is to let rubella become endemic in the U.S. and allow the fraction of women who don’t respond to the vaccine risk infection during pregnancy? How exactly is that better than the current system whereby we rarely see congenital rubella syndrome?
Yes, it’s denial that we don’t accept Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent research on autism being linked to MMR. Denial that we actually read, understand and accurately represent the studies showing no increased risk of autism.
“Rubbish Chris, babies are probably much less likely to get Congenital Rubella Syndrome than autism.”
Since there’s no real data showing an increased risk of autism from vaccines, this comparison means nothing.
Congenital Rubella Syndrome is a known cause of autism.
“Autism shot up from 1 in 10,000 to now being about 1 in 100”
Did this happen before 1990?
Yes, Congenital Rubella Syndrome is one cause of autism, but not the only one.
Report, from the California Dept. of Developmental Services, had noted from 1987 to 1998 a 273% increase in autism cases from 2,778 to 10,360 reported cases. Their analysis indicated a sharp rise beginning for children after 1980.
Where were all the huge rubella epidemics over the last three decades???
Ummmm…there aren’t any because of vaccines.
How was that “1 in 10,000 to now being about 1 in 100″?
Because, that is lots more than 273%.
No, it isn’t. There’s some incredibly poor work trying to link autism to fetal cell lines used to manufacture vaccines. I take it you haven’t actually read those studies. Take Deisher’s recent study, for example. She tries to claim that there are “changepoints” (or some such term) in autism prevalence coincident with the introduction of certain vaccines. Have you ever looked at the raw data? I have. The ‘changepoints’ depend on which dataset you look at. They depend on when the data was taken. And they depend on geography. For example, the California data she cites is not a public use dataset as she claims, by the way. She appears to have scanned a graph from another person’s paper. If she had the raw data she’d have seen that the “changepoints” vary by county or regional center. So the changepoints aren’t coincident with vaccine introduction at all.
Reading comprehension seems to be poor, i.e. read again:
“from 1987 to 1998 a 273% increase”
Reported rates of autism in the United States increased from:
< 3 per 10,000 children in the 1970s
to 1 in 68 in 2010 (http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html)
“Reported rates ”
You need to understand the importance of “reported”. No one has done a full population study in the US. No one has checked exactly how many autistics are in a given population. What they’ve done is checked how many have diagnoses.
It’s like looking at the forrest floor and saying, “how many ants are there”. Well, if you don’t look under the leaves on the ground, you will get a low number.
Matt you are in denial.
It’s easy for you to say if you don’t have vaccine damaged children.
How am I, the one who has actually looked at the data, in denial?
I have an autistic kid. I’ve been taking this question seriously for a decade, asking for the raw data and graphing it myself. One can find my response to one of these papers claiming “changepoints” on pubmed.
Big Ben: “Reading comprehension seems to be poor, i.e. read again:
“from 1987 to 1998 a 273% increase”
Funny, because the question was “Did this happen before 1990?”
Did you know that 1998 is after 1990? You might want to work on learning some basic arithmetic.
Isn’t 1988 and 1989 before 1990???
Actually Matt, change points showing link between MMR and autism are probably an average.
Of course, if one really wanted to be absolutely precise then each county/region could be studied, looking at factors applicable to the county/region.
It’s very possible that if one looked at each county’s autism rate and also MMR (& other vaccines from unborn babies) vaccination rates a pattern would probably emerge, i.e. high vaccination rate = higher autism.
Might be an idea to suggest that they study this possibility next.
Perhaps crowd funding to get this going.
“Actually Matt, change points showing link between MMR and autism are probably an average.
What does that mean?
Here’s the thing. Take a look at Deisher’s recent paper. I happen to have it open right now: http://www.ms.academicjournals.org/article/article1409245960_Deisher%20et%20al.pdf
Take a look at her figure for Denmark. She shows about 1 or 2 per 10,000 for Denmark. We don’t know how accurately she was digitizing these data, by the way.
Take a look at the recent paper “Increased Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders”. What is the prevalence of autism in the 1980s? About 50/10,000.
Now, take a closer look at the second figure. Notice that the autism prevalence continues to rise for each birth cohort up to 2012. The autism prevalence for kids born in 1980 is still climbing in 2012. Is this (a) individuals getting vaccines at age 32 or (b) individuals who were missed in their childhood still being diagnosed today?
The answer is clearly (b).
So, if we are not counting accurately autistics today, how exactly do we use old data to show “huge increases” or “changepoints”? The answer is clear: we don’t. Well, if we are intellectually honest we don’t.
“It’s very possible that if one looked at each county’s autism rate and also MMR (& other vaccines from unborn babies) vaccination rates a pattern would probably emerge, i.e. high vaccination rate = higher autism.”
No, it isn’t. I’ve checked.
The rates of identified autism vary by huge factors–5x, 10x. But the vaccination rates don’t.
“Perhaps crowd funding to get this going.”
Millions of dollars have been spent advertising the idea that vaccines cause autism. Ask the people who have done that to help in your crowdsourcing.
“Isn’t 1988 and 1989 before 1990???”
So give the numbers with citations for just two years, not some claim up to 1998 that showed a fraction of the original claim, which was hundred times greater not just three times greater.
Why would it take a vaccine that was reformulated in 1978 take until 1989 to show an effect on autism? Where are those numbers?
There is a graph on this page showing the autism rates shooting up:
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/newscience/behavior/2002/2002-10byrd.htm
Right. They use the CDDS (California Department of Developmental Services) dataset. How much of the increase is due to social factors? Say, diagnostic accretion? Have you looked into that? Which is to ask–how many autistics were not identified in the past? We know it is at least a large fraction. Bearman’s studies from his Columbia U. group quantified a large portion.
So, we know that a large fraction of autistics were not identified in the past. Do we (a) ignore them and claim that the increase is “real” or (b) advocate for those autistics unidentified in the past to be found and appropriately supported?
If one is an autism advocate, one chooses (a). If one wants to push the idea that vaccines cause autism, one chooses (b). In choosing (b) one allows autistic adults to go without appropriate diagnosis and services.
Interestingly enough – both Mississippi & West Virginia, which have some of the highest rates of vaccination in the US, also have some of the lowest rates of diagnosed autism….kinda blows your hypothesis out of the water Mr. Big Ben.
Matt, regarding the Denmark graph my understanding of it is that for those about 32 years old in 2012 (born 1980) autism rate <20 in 10,000 (of those born in that year (1980));
compared to those about 21 years old in 2012 autism rate about 110 in 10,000 (of those born in that year(1991)).
That means that the autism rates are not still climbing for those born in 1980.
Where do suppose all the autistic adults that were missed in being diagnosed as autistic are hiding? As you know yourself autism is obvious.
This what was also mentioned on the link I provided previously
"
After a 1999 study by public health authorities had indicated that California was experiencing drastic increases in the number of autism cases, skeptics had attributed the increase to greater awareness of the condition and more systematic and better medical diagnosis, or perhaps simply to the growth of California's population. To determine whether the increase was real, and if so, what could be concluded about its origins, the State Legislature requested that the University of California’s Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (M.I.N.D.) Institute conduct a comprehensive pilot study.
The new study, led by Dr. Robert S. Byrd, section chief of pediatrics at the Univ. of California at Davis Children's Hospital, issued its report on 17 August 2002. It concludes there is "no evidence that loosening in diagnostic criteria contributed to an increase in the number of children with autism, and that, therefore the observed increase represents a true increase in cases of autism in California."
"
“That means that the autism rates are not still climbing for those born in 1980.”
You need to look at the graph. The trend lines are still climbing for each birth year cohort at 2012. There is no plateau.
Or, to put it simply, there was a rise in identified autism from 2011 to 2012 for every birth year presented. There is no reason to expect that from 2012 to 2013 there wasn’t an increase as well. Which is to say, many of the autistics are still not identified.
So, if you are using autism counts that do not included all autistics, how do can you claim that these data show an epidemic? The answer is you can’t.
“”no evidence that loosening in diagnostic criteria contributed to an increase in the number of children with autism, and that, therefore the observed increase represents a true increase in cases of autism in California.””
Right. That’s in 1999. Since then, MIND Institute researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto showed that some of the increase is due to diagnostic changes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19234401
Later, Peter Bearman’s group showed that even more of the increase could be attributed to diagnostic changes and other social influences.
http://understandingautism.columbia.edu/papers/
And no one has been able to show that there are not more social influences which could be driving the increase. For example, who has quantified the effect of media outreach? Autism Speaks and the Ad Council have put out the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to raise awareness. Are we to expect that this accomplished nothing?
You are working from a 1999 study and ignoring the past 16 years of understanding. I am quite aware of the Byrd study. It was discussed a great deal a decade ago. One point: in 1999 MIND was working on building up and had to justify their existence. One of their “founding fathers” had moved out of his job in the California Senate and was using his influence to help secure funding. Said founding father was a big proponent of the idea that vaccines, especially the MMR, cause autism. Add to this the fact that the Byrd study was never published in a peer reviewed journal and one finds that it is not only old, but never very strong.
An interesting thing to note: said Founding Father was later to become a team member/public representative to a project to determine if the MMR vaccine causes autism. At the end of that study, even said Founding Father had to admit that MMR doesn’t increase autism risk.
Here’s that graph again.
The trends are still climbing in 2012. Denmark is still identifying autistics long after they were born. So are we in the U.S. The idea is simply false that autism counts of children, made years ago, show an accurate count of the actual fraction of the population which is autistic.
So, Big Ben. You’ve posted a few comments since I again pointed out that the autism counts you rely upon are not a full count of the population fraction who are autistic. Why are you avoiding this topic?
“After a 1999 study by public health authorities had indicated that California was experiencing drastic increases in the number of autism cases,”
Yet the most recent version of the MMR vaccine was in use for more than two decades. Which is why I ask for the proof it caused autism before 1990.
“skeptics had attributed the increase to greater awareness of the condition and more systematic and better medical diagnosis,”
So the adoption of the DSM IV in 1994 had no effect.
Funny thing that. I have an adult son who is fairly high functioning, but who has several social, language and speech issues. He also has a few stims. Most people think he is autistic, except he never got that diagnosis.
That is because I was told by the neurologist he was definitely not autistic despite being nonverbal as a three year old! This was in 1991.
Do you see where I am going with this?
Oh, and since it is obvious he cannot live on his own, and despite spending seven years to get a two year community college degree he cannot find a job. We are now going through the evaluations to get him an updated diagnosis.
Apparently in order to get supported housing they need something better than “has a speech/language disorder, trouble dealing with others, and some odd behaviors.”
Chris, sorry to hear about your child’s issues.
I checked the 1980 definition of Infantile Autism as it appeared in DSM-III.
A. Onset before 30 months of age
B. Pervasive lack of responsiveness to other people
C. Gross deficits in language development
D. If speech is present, peculiar speech patterns such as immediate and delayed echolalia, metaphorical language, pronominal reversal
E. Bizarre responses to various aspects of the environment, e.g., resistance to change, peculiar interest in or attachments to animate or inanimate objects
F. Absence of delusions, hallucinations, loosening of associations, and incoherence as in Schizophrenia.
This is a link to the DSM IV (4) Autistic criteria:
http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-autism.html
There seem to be two categories, bottom one similar to above and the first having a combination of factors, not mentioning onset prior to age 3.
Perhaps the difference is that the original criteria applies to classic autism, i.e. infantile autism from birth whereas version 4 includes criteria for regressive autism.
Regressive autism is related to vaccines, i.e. child was developing fine until MMR (for example) then regressed into autism.
This was probably added to the 4th version due to autism arising later, than infancy.
Chris, was you child having issues from the beginning, i.e. infantile autism, or was it regressive autism, i.e. was developing normally then regressed losing skills that had been acquired?
“Perhaps the difference is that the original criteria applies to classic autism, i.e. infantile autism from birth whereas version 4 includes criteria for regressive autism.”
Again, this is false. There is nothing in the criteria that you quoted, or any other, that precludes giving a diagnosis to someone who regressed. Autism with regression has been recognized for decades.
You also appear to be making the common mistake of assuming that regression refers to a non autistic losing skills and becoming autistic. Autistics regresss. I.e. autistic children quite often lose skills.
The original criteria might have resulted in regressive autistics initially being missed them as their autism was regressive due to vaccine(s) (new issue).
Most of them were probably ‘picked’ by the next DSM version, which didn’t limit the age to less than three years.
“e original criteria might have resulted in regressive autistics initially being missed them as their autism was regressive due to vaccine(s) (new issue).”
Not at all. Autistic regression has been recognized for decades. The idea that a child would not be diagnosed due to regression is just not supported by any evidence.
When he was a toddler he had seizures from a now vaccine preventable disease.
The reason he did not get an autism diagnosis in 1990 was because he smiled and laughed.
I love how you are doing some kind of “regressive autism” diagnosis based on a comment from an anonymous person on the internets. I wonder how you what you would try with a kid with hyperlexia. A couple kids in his special ed. preschool had that. During his fifth birthday party one walked around reciting Beatrix Potter story. He didn’t have an autism diagnosis either.
You don’t seem to get what I was driving at, do you? You have absolutely no understanding what the DSM IV did. Though sometimes I wonder what was the effect of “St. Elsewhere” TV program had. I am pretty sure it had a more profound effect than the MMR vaccine.
Vaccines can also cause seizures, e.g. see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqsT5EoIk8U about the 2 minute point in this video.
Apparently, this child has hyperlexia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnK3sNqlWKo
As someone commented he does seem to comprehend fine, i.e. actually clapped when saying the word clap.
Some children are really gifted. See this amazing little girl almost two years old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r43yCiKlbCo
You do understand the difference between febrile seizures and epilepsy, do you not? Because as you’ve seen here already, people here do understand.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/febrile_seizures/detail_febrile_seizures.htm
one thing that is interesting is that those who claim vaccines cause autism often advocate against giving a child a fever reducing medicine with a vaccine.
“Vaccines can also cause seizures,”
Why are you telling this to someone who had to call 911 for a seizing toddler who had to be taken by ambulance due to a seizure from an actual disease?
Even worse, what planet are you on that makes you think I’d accept videos as scientific evidence? Just provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that shows that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the diseases they are designed to prevent.
Seriously, I have a disabled adult child. Don’t you think I’ve seen this stuff from Htrae before?
The conclusion of that study said:
Uh huh. So did Denmark use the same Merck MMR II as the USA. Because the ones used in the UK for Wakefield’s study were not (newsflash: there are several MMR vaccines, they differ by manufacturer and company)
What part of “American pediatric schedule” did you not understand? Also why did you not mention the risk difference was small. And that it was febrile seizures? My kid had no fever, but still had a grand mal seizure.
Seriously, are you even trying? You have an issue with the Merck MMR II vaccine that was introduced in 1978 with a different rubella strain. So stick to that particular vaccine, none of the other MMR vaccines.
“(newsflash: there are several MMR vaccines, they differ by manufacturer and company)”
Should be: “(newsflash: there are several MMR vaccines, they differ by manufacturer and country)”
Why do we only see the most annoying mistakes after we hit “Post Comment”?
Probably the best to answer this question of vaccines causing autism with absolute certainty would be to conduct an absolutely accurate study, i.e.:
1) assign a unique number to each baby born
2) each time child vaccinated, especially with vaccines derived from aborted unborn babies, enter into database using this unique number.
3) whenever a child is diagnosed as autistic enter into same database if child was born in a year covered by this study, e.g. not entered if born in prior year(s).
Maintain this for several years. Then at the cutoff date run a computer program that matches autism to vaccines administered.
Check results, i.e. do they show a correlation between vaccines and autism.
It would be interesting to see the results of such a study. If it showed that those who had received no vaccines had a much lower autism rate then the denial would be over.
Is there a reason why you are posting your comments twice? I can’t see any and will soon start deleting the duplicates.
The focus of those studies were the mercury in the vaccines. BTW, the Danish autism researcher absconded with other a million dollars. http://www.justice.gov/usao/gan/press/2011/04-13-11.html
Recent study is regarding vaccines made from aborted unborn babies.
Not so fast Lawrence – autism rate with MMR vaccination rate in brackets:
The incidence of autism ranged from a low of 1 in 175 children in Alabama (92.8) to a high of 1 in 45 in New Jersey (≥97.0), according to the CDC.
http://www.arkansasmatters.com/story/d/story/child-autism-rate-1-in-65-in-arkansas/34627/T7_b9r7f8EanN-fCliLEkg
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6230a3.htm?s_cid=mm6230a3_e#Tab1
Still doesn’t support the hypothesis – since you should see the highest rates of autism in states that have the highest rates of vaccination (like Mississippi), but you don’t…..care to explain?
One should also see the highest autism rates in the racial/ethnic groups that vaccinate the most. Rich white people tend to be the ones who don’t vaccinate and tend to be the group with the highest autism rates.
Probably the best to answer this question of vaccines causing autism with absolute certainty would be to conduct an absolutely accurate study, i.e.:
1) assign a unique number to each baby born
2) each time child vaccinated, especially with vaccines derived from aborted unborn babies, enter into database using this unique number.
3) whenever a child is diagnosed as autistic enter into same database if child was born in a year covered by this study, e.g. not entered if born in prior year(s).
Maintain this for several years. Then at the cutoff date run a computer program that matches autism to vaccines administered.
Check results, i.e. do they show a correlation between vaccines and autism.
It would be interesting to see the results of such a study. If it showed that those who had received no vaccines had a much lower autism rate then the denial would be over.
We should do this because? Before you were claiming that the data already showed a link. Now that this has been disproved, you want a new study to show something that is not suggested by available data?
“Maintain this for several years. Then at the cutoff date run a computer program that matches autism to vaccines administered.”
That is what the Danish studies were, and the CDC Vaccine Safety Datalink which used the records of several health maintenance organizations (like Kaiser Permanente).
Still no correlation between autism and vaccines.
As Chris has pointed out, that research has already been done – but people like you don’t like it because it showed no difference in rates of autism between the two groups.
The focus of those studies were the mercury in the vaccines. BTW, the Danish autism researcher absconded with other a million dollars. http://www.justice.gov/usao/gan/press/2011/04-13-11.html
Recent study is regarding vaccines made from aborted unborn babies.
BTW, I was the first to post an article about Thorsen being on a most wanted list.
“Recent study is regarding vaccines made from aborted unborn babies.”
Do you have anything substantive to say about the study? Some vaccines use viruses grown on tissue lines from long ago aborted fetuses. This is true. So what? The claim that autism rates are somehow linked to that is false. As I’ve discussed with data in the above comments.
The irony is, the “aborted” fetus was a victim of CRS…..which we don’t worry about anymore because of the vaccine.
Also, the cell lines are grown in labs & no “recently” aborted fetuses are actually used – and haven’t been used since the initial process decades ago.
I know I am a little late in the replies to Kate re Febrile Seizures but Big Ben has bought it up again. My family has a history of at least 4 generations of GEFS+ My son is now 19 had over 20 febrile convulsions between the age of 15 months and 13, my sister and my mum had many febrile convulsions up to the age of 10. Most children grow out of this form of GEFS+ around puberty. My grandmother insinuated to my mum that she had febrile seizures as well but those things weren’t really talked about in those days (she was born 1912) Even my daughter had 4 febrile convulsions between the age of 3 and 4.
This you would think would make them particularly vulnerable to having a reaction to vaccines, yet nobody in my family that I know of have ever had a reaction to vaccines that included a febrile convulsion. My son’s first FC was about 5 weeks after his mmr, if he had his mmr a few weeks later some may have linked it.
Can I also point out to Big Ben in the UK every child does have a medical number because of the NHS and vaccines are done through the NHS. There have been studies done here such as the Taylor et al which looked at regression and could find no connection.
So I I read both sides of the debate.. can I be assured that if I take my child for routine vaccine shots that he will suffer absolutely no untoward side effects from the shots and that he will be 100% protected from getting the illnesses he is being vaxxed for. Will the doctor give that to me in writing….? I think not…. Also if vaccinations are so safe how come over 2.25 billion dollars were paid in legal issues in to children with autism in the USA…..then a law was passed to protect the vaccine manufacturers and doctors. Can someone explain how this could have happened if vaccines were “safe”
Can you be 100% assured that if you skip the shots that your child will be safe? No.
Are the odds much higher that if you skip the shots your child will suffer harm? Yes.
If you wanted a world where every decision you make for your child is 100% safe, you shouldn’t have had children.