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Vaccines and Autism: A Story of Medicine, Science and Fear

2 Feb

Tomorrow on National Public Radio (US) The Diane Rehm Show will host a discussion of autism and vaccines: Vaccines and Autism: A Story of Medicine, Science and Fear

In 1998 a research paper was published that linked the childhood measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to the onset of autism, a life long developmental disorder. Follow up studies could not replicate the findings casting doubt on its conclusions, and earlier this year it was proven that this original study was, in fact, fraudulent. But the damage was done. Childhood vaccination rates dropped resulting in outbreaks of measles and whooping cough. Funds that would have gone to new research into the causes of autism were diverted, and surveys indicate that about one in five Americans continues to believe that a childhood vaccine can trigger autism. A story of fraudulent medical research and its consequences.

Guests will be:

Seth Mnookin: Author of “Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top” and “Hard News: The Scandals at the New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media.” He is a contributing editor at “Vanity Fair” and a former senior writer for “Newsweek.”

Dr. Roberta DeBiasi: pediatric infectious diseases physician at Children’s National Medical Center

Alison Tepper Singer: Founder and President of the Autism Science Foundation, formerly Executive Vice President of Autism Speaks, served on the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC.)

Dr. Paul Offit on The Colbert Report

1 Feb

Untitled from lbrbsullivav on Vimeo.

Chatting with Seth Mnookin

18 Jan

I don’t want to call what follows an interview as:

a) I’m not that grand
b) It was more friendly than that

So what follows was a meandering email chat Seth and I had about the release of The Panic Virus (Amazon UK, US and CA) and the content in it.

KL: You mention in the book that one reason for writing it was that as a new dad you were keen to explore the issue of vaccination in relation to autism. Do you feel that you’ve come away from the writing process with a greater personal (as a dad) idea(s) of what the vax/anti-vax opposing beliefs are?

SM: Actually, I started the book before I was a father…and before my wife was pregnant. I think it was one of the reasons I was so curious about the topic: I hadn’t experienced the debate on a personal level and so I found it hard to understand how different people I respected could disagree so strongly about the facts.

I’m not sure whether this is a result of the writing/research process or of my becoming a dad, but I feel like I have an understanding of where both sides are coming from–and why they get so frustrated. I can’t pretend to know what my reaction would be if I believed that vaccines had harmed my child.

KL: Do you feel you share the sense of frustration that ‘pro-vaccine’ people have now the book is completed?

SM: That’s a hard question to answer. Overall the situation is extremely frustrating. I feel frustration that the issue has been so poorly covered by the media, and I think our handling of the story has as much as (or more than) anything else to do with where we’ve ended up. I’m also frustrated by the handful of self-anointed experts, like Bob Sears, who give the impression that heeding their (or parents’/patients’) instincts are the proper way to go about dealing with medical decisions.

But I think one of the things that makes this such an intractable issue is that there are not a lot of opportunities for people on opposing sides to sit down and have an actual, human-to-human conversation — at this point emotions are so pitched and the stakes are so high (or feel so high) that a sort of bunker mentality has set in. I was lucky: I cam to this without a horse in the race, as it were, so I was able to have what I think were open and honest conversations with people that I know disagree strenuously with the conclusions I ultimately arrived at.

KL: Thats an interesting thought. At what point in writing the book did you think ‘I know I’ve reached my own conclusions’?

SM: I don’t think there was one point at which I felt like I’d made up my mind about the issues that came up because it didn’t feel to me that there was any one single issue. It’s part of what I found interesting and bewildering about this whole thing. I went to an AutismOne conference in Chicago, and after watching a presentation by Mark and David Geier, I knew I had some real concerns about their approach to treatment. There were some other presentations I saw that I knew from the outset were just factually incorrect, and there were claims about government conspiracies to poison children that I found to be…well, I guess unconvincing is a good word to use.

But I certainly didn’t feel like I knew enough at that point to say whether some of the other treatments that came up had validity, and I didn’t feel like I could say with any confidence whether some of the theories regarding causality had any grounding in fact. There’s a lot of very complicated science involved, so when David Kirby stood in front of an auditorium and talked about mitochondrial disease and genetic susceptibility, I hadn’t done enough research at that time to know whether what he was saying made sense or not.

I did find the all-or-nothing quality to the debate to be disturbing. At AutismOne, it was made very clear to me that I’d be judged in absolutes: If I expressed skepticism about the Geiers, the assumption was that I didn’t think anything else that was being discussed at the conference had any type of validity.

I was open about this when I spoke with people. If I was interviewing someone and the Geiers came up — and I don’t mean to pick on them, but they’re a good example of this because they’re such prominent figures — I’d say that I found their approach to science unconvincing.

I think that there is, among some people at least, a feeling that it’d be better for everyone involved if that with-me-or-against-me attitude wasn’t quite so prevalent. I spoke with Jane Johnson about Andrew Wakefield’s departure from Thoughtful House after the GMC decision was released early last year. I really like Jane — she’s smart and thoughtful and very generous with her time and every time I spoke with her she made me think about things in new ways. And when I asked her why Wakefield had left she didn’t say that it had anything to do with the contents of the GMC ruling, which I really respected: There was not really any new information in the report. Instead, she said that he had become too much of a lightening rod and that Thoughtful House wanted to do more work with Texas medical authorities. I don’t want to misquote her, and these aren’t her words, but she essentially went on to say, This doesn’t all need to be about vaccines. There’s lots of other work to be done here that has nothing to do with vaccines. That’s an attitude I wish more people had.

KL: I know you didn’t set out to write a book about *autism* as such but it seems to attract authors – do you think you’ll always maintain a passing interest in the autism/vaccine issue now?

SM: I think I’ll maintain more than a passing interest in the issue. It’s hard to learn about it – and certainly hard to write about it – without become passionately involved in it, so it’s hard to imagine my not continuing to have some connection to a lot of these issues moving forward.

The Panic Virus

13 Jan

Seth Mnookin’s book, the Panic Virus, debuted this week. Mr. Mnookin took a look at the vaccine scares and started a two year project of in-depth research resulting in this book. Not too surprisingly, much of his work relates to the autism-parent groups who promote the ideas of an autism epidemic caused by vaccines. Andrew Wakefield and the MMR scare also play a role.

The book is very well written. I believe I have spent more time than most on the subject and I still found a lot of new and interesting information in this book. Mr. Mnookin had great access. He interviewed David Kirby and Lyn Redwood, including a discussion of how the book Evidence of Harm came into being. He spoke repeatedly with Andrew Wakefield. He attended AutismOne. This is not a “Google Ph.D.” research effort. He got down into the trenches and he brings new information to light.

In many ways, the book is a discussion of how people come to believe and promote ideas that are false. Unfortunately for us, vaccine-rejectionists and parts of the autism communities present the best example of this behavior in modern history.

Mr. Mnookin brings an outsider’s eye to the story and comes down clear and decisive that there really is no debate on these issues, no real controversy. The science is in and it is clear.

He also takes journalists to task for being uncritical of the stories presented to them. There is likely no better example of this than how the press treated Andrew Wakefield and his studies, starting with the 1998 Lancet article. Even now we still see a lot of “he said/she said” type reporting on Mr. Wakefield which gives a false impression that the evidence and support for both sides is somewhat equal. Unfortunately, things are getting worse rather than better with time as media outlets downsize and science writers are let go.

This is from the press release:

Seth Mnookin—the New York Times-bestselling author of Feeding the Monster and Hard News (a Washington Post Book World “Best of 2004” selection)—delivers a real-life detective story that exposes what may well be the biggest health scare hoax of all time in THE PANIC VIRUS: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear (Simon & Schuster; January 11, 2011; $26.99). Mnookin, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair with a Harvard degree in the history of science, looks at the bogus vaccine panics—which started with a single, now totally discredited paper linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine with autism—that have cost tens of millions of dollars and resulted in the deaths of an untold number of infants and children around the world.

Mnookin explains how dishonest researchers and snake-oil salesmen have taken advantage of desperate parents by perpetrating a fraud, and how the media—by ignoring facts and pretending that all points of view are equally valid—has through its irresponsible coverage fueled a controversy that never should have arisen in the first place. He explores how cultural relativism and insular online communities have blurred the distinction between facts and feelings to the point that the traditional American ethos of individualism has been transformed into one in which individualized notions of reality, no matter how bizarre or irrational, are repeatedly validated. In addition, he gives readers fresh and fascinating insights into the scientific process, the nature of knowledge, and the subconscious forces that drive much of our daily lives.

Why are we so willing to believe things that are false?

Mnookin’s interest in the anti-vaccine movement began in 2008, as a newly married man looking forward to having children, after a series of conversations with parents of young children regarding their anxiety about vaccines and autism. Much to his surprise, a significant number of this group of well educated professionals in New York City had decided to deviate from the recommended vaccination schedule for their children, despite the fact that there is overwhelming scientific consensus supporting vaccination on one side and quack doctors, New Age healers, and celebrities like Jenny McCarthy on the other. The subject took on even greater significance for Mnookin with the birth of his son in 2009.

After he began researching the issue and arrived at the conclusion that there was no evidence supporting a link between childhood inoculations and developmental disorders, Mnookin realized that this pseudo-controversy raised a series of broader questions that go to the heart of social dynamics and human cognition: Why, despite all the evidence to the contrary, do so many people remain adamant in their belief that vaccines are responsible for harming hundreds of thousands of otherwise healthy children? Why is the media so inclined to air their views? Why are so many others so readily convinced? Why are we so willing to believe things that are, according to all available evidence, false?

In an effort to answer those questions, Mnookin interviewed scientists and doctors, healers and mystics, government appointees and elected officials. He also spoke with dozens of parents who watched helplessly as their children withdrew behind a wall of autism. “The suffering of parents who feel unable to protect their children is almost impossible to describe – and helplessness only begins to cover the range of emotions they endured,” Mnookin writes. There was also guilt, resentment, bitterness, isolation, and anger: Surely someone or something was to blame for the ways in which their lives had been upended.

Every year, some two thousand parents of autistic children travel to Chicago for the annual conference of AutismOne, which claims to be the single largest producer of information about the disease in the world. What is paramount for these parents, as Mnookin discovered when he attended, is the sense of support and fellowship they receive. Nevertheless, the organization is relentlessly and virulently antivaccine, with one presenter claiming that vaccines are a “de facto selection of the genetically vulnerable for sacrifice” and calling doctors who administer vaccines the moral equivalent of “the doctors tried at Nuremberg.”

Mnookin writes: “If you assume, as I had, that human beings are fundamentally logical creatures, this obsessive preoccupation with a theory that has for all intents and purposes been disproved is hard to fathom. But when it comes to decisions around emotionally charged topics, logic often takes a back seat to what are called cognitive biases – essentially a set of unconscious mechanisms that convince us that it is our feelings about a situation and not the facts that represent the truth.” These same mechanisms – and the same rejection of the scientific method and the principles of deductive reasoning that have been the foundation of rational society and medical progress since the Enlightenment – are dangerously at work in the so-called debates about evolution and climate change, he suggests.

Brimming with vivid personalities, engaging anecdotes, authoritative science, historical sweep, and plain-English explanations, THE PANIC VIRUS is one of those rare books that entertains at the same time that it illuminates the mysteries of medicine and addresses a subject of vitally important concern to millions of parents, with life-and-death repercussions for everyone else on the planet.

Seth Mnookin on CNN “American Morning”

11 Jan

The Panic Virus, a book by Seth Mnookin came out today. Mr. Mnooking was interviewed for CNN’s “American Morning”. I agree with much of what he has to say: the “debate” is not balanced. It’s a few people vs. a ton of data and many more people. It is good that the vaccine-autism hypothesis was tested, but it is time to move on.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=bestoftv/2011/01/11/exp.am.intv.holmes.mnookin.cnn

Seth Mnookin responds to Andrew Wakefield on CNN

6 Jan

Seth Mnookin is the author of the upcoming (next week) book “The Panic Virus“. As someone who spent 2 years researching the issue of the vaccine/autism hypothesis, he was chosen to respond to Andrew Wakefield on CNN.

They note this in the story, but I will point it out again here: Andrew Wakefield would not appear together with Mr. Mnookin. This isn’t new. Last year the program “The Doctors” had a program with Jenny McCarthy, J.B. Handley, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel and others–where they only agreed to go on air if the there were no people with opposing views present.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=health/2011/01/06/ac.discussing.wakefield.cnn

Mr. Mnookin points out that Mr. Wakefield tried to frame the story as a single reporter (Brian Deer) “out to get him”.

He has framed this consistently as this one renegade journalist who’s out to get him. In fact, there was a British — the Medical Research Council, which licenses doctors in the U.K., spent two-and-a- half years looking into his work. It was the longest investigation they had ever done.

On the subject of Mr. Wakefield’s scientific credibility:

GUPTA: No, I think that — I think this is a pretty big deal, what’s happened today.

But, you know, he didn’t — he hasn’t had really credibility within the scientific world for some time. I mean, as you pointed out, he’s been stripped of his medical license. The paper has been retracted. His co-authors all essentially left the paper.

The problem is that Mr. Wakefield’s audience is not the scientific community. The damage he does is not within or to the science community. The damage is to public health and to the autism communities. I am hopeful that this paper in the BMJ will reduce what credibility Mr. Wakefield still has and the damage he is causing.

Mr. Mnookin has a blog post of his own on the BMJ article and editorial: The problems with the BMJ’s Wakefield-fraud story

Here is the transcript:

COOPER: Also joining us right now is Seth Mnookin, author of “Panic Virus.”

Andrew Wakefield would not go on the program with you.

SETH MNOOKIN, AUTHOR, “THE PANIC VIRUS: A TRUE STORY OF MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND FEAR”: Right.

COOPER: He would only go on if Sanjay and I were — were asking the questions.

What do you make of what he said?

MNOOKIN: I find it — I find it upsetting and — and disturbing.

He has framed this consistently as this one renegade journalist who’s out to get him. In fact, there was a British — the Medical Research Council, which licenses doctors in the U.K., spent two-and-a- half years looking into his work. It was the longest investigation they had ever done.

And that was the group that stripped him of his right to practice medicine and — and said that he had displayed a callous disregard for children.

There have been dozens of studies.

COOPER: They said a callous disregard for children?

MNOOKIN: Callous disregard for children.

COOPER: That’s why — and that’s — in stripping him of his — of his license?

MNOOKIN: Well, the — the — there were several reasons they listed. The callous disregard had to do with performing unnecessary tests on children who had been brought to him to support this point, including spinal taps, invasive examinations, colonoscopies on very, very young children.

They also found that there was — his evidence couldn’t be backed up. His — his data couldn’t be backed up. So, for it to be portrayed by — by — by Andy Wakefield as this being one person out to get him, you know, I think what he’s banking on is that people won’t actually look and see — look and see what the reality of the situation is.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: When you read this report by — by Deer…

MNOOKIN: Right.

COOPER: And I don’t know this guy Deer at all, but, I mean, I have read his entire report. It’s — it’s — it’s pretty exhaustive.

MNOOKIN: Not only is it exhaustive, but, if you took out everything that Brian Deer had ever written, there would be exhaustive evidence that — that this was not trustworthy.

Dozens of researchers in dozens of countries have studied literally millions of children around the world. And this notion that there’s some sort of conspiracy between public health officials, doctors, journalists, drug companies, researchers around the world, you know, it — it would be the most brilliant conspiracy that had ever been hatched.

And — and — and Andrew Wakefield’s setting himself up as this one renegade or this band of renegades, you know, sort of fighting against this is — is, I think, laughable.

COOPER: Sanjay, does he have any credibility?

GUPTA: No, I think that — I think this is a pretty big deal, what’s happened today.

But, you know, he didn’t — he hasn’t had really credibility within the scientific world for some time. I mean, as you pointed out, he’s been stripped of his medical license. The paper has been retracted. His co-authors all essentially left the paper.

COOPER: But, you know, let me just say one thing. Because there — there is so much distrust of big pharmaceutical companies, there are going to be a lot of people watching this who say…

GUPTA: Well, that…

COOPER: … you know, we’re all in the pockets of big pharma, or, you know, that — that there is this conspiracy.

GUPTA: That’s what I was going to say. I don’t know that it’s going to change people who are still going to be very concerned about vaccines.

And the reality is that, if we had a great answer as to what causes autism, I think that would — that would change this debate altogether. But we don’t. So, you — it’s trying to prove a negative, obviously, an impossible thing to do.

But, in his case, I — I don’t think that it — while as big a deal as this is in science today, I don’t know how much this changes the debate overall, because his — his — his science has been discredited in the scientific community for some time.

COOPER: But — but, I mean, it’s understandable. Look, parents — look, we don’t know about — a lot about autism, and — and the numbers are growing. And that is — is of concern. And it’s understandable parents would latch on to anything.

But — but in terms of just facts, and we do — you know, I believe in facts a lot on this program — I mean, Seth, are there peer-reviewed scientific reports that — that indicate a link between…

MNOOKIN: No.

COOPER: … between vaccines and — and autism?

MNOOKIN: No. And not only is there not peer-reviewed work, this is probably the most studied public health issue involving children over the last 20 years.

COOPER: Would public health officials have an interest in — in hiding a link, if there was?

MNOOKIN: Public health officials, I think, would have an interest in keeping children safe.

Even if there — if there was a link and it was discovered, I think public health officials would — would have an interest in doing whatever they could to protect children. This notion that everyone’s trying to — to — to cover their butts and — because they have already been — been perpetrating this scam, is — to distrust the motives of that many people around the world, you know, you would need to assume that — that everything going on is in some ways out to get you.

I think Sanjay’s point about our not knowing what causes autism is really in some ways the crucial one, because it’s so frightening to parents. The numbers are rising. And here’s something that you can point to. And because it occurs at the same time, you always get vaccinated when you’re a child, and autism is diagnosed when you’re a child, so it’s easy to understand why patients would latch on to that as a connection.

But it has no more validity than — than if I said microwave popcorn causes autism. The numbers have gone up since we have started eating microwave popcorn. There’s just — there’s absolutely no evidence supporting a link.

COOPER: Do — do you agree with that?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, and I think…

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And, as a parent, what do you tell other parents?

GUPTA: Well, I — I have three children. I got my kids vaccinated on schedule, on time. So, you know, I mean, that’s — I think the proof’s in the pudding in my case, because I had to make that decision.

But I think, also, you know, that I — you could get a sense of where the debate goes from here. Wakefield’s paper may be discredited, but we still don’t know. We give more vaccines now. We give them in different schedules. Could there be something new that’s possibly causing this uptick in autism?

And — and — and I think the question is going to remain out there, despite what’s happened today. You know, the smallpox vaccine, when it was given, it causes an immune response to the body. It was a — a really profound immune response, more powerful than all the vaccines that we give today, and yet the autism rates are higher now.

So, if it’s the vaccine itself, why wasn’t it happening when we gave these really, really powerful vaccines so many years ago?

COOPER: And, Seth, the report that is out today by this journalist Deer, it indicates that he had a financial — that Wakefield had a financial motive.

MNOOKIN: Right.

COOPER: What was the financial motive?

(CROSSTALK)

MNOOKIN: Well, there were a couple of things.

One, he had filed a patent application for an alternate measles vaccine several months before the paper came out, which he did not disclose at the time. It was precisely the vaccine that you would have wanted if you stopped using the three-in-one MMR vaccine. It was just for measles.

So, that’s one very obvious thing. He also was — his work was being funded by a law firm that was involved in potential vaccine litigation. And a number of the children in this study were also involved with that law firm.

So, the — for — for him to say, you know, “I had no financial connection, and, to prove it, you should read my book,” you know, it — it’s — it’s sort of like saying, no, no, I swear I’m a good guy, and, to prove it, listen to me.

It — you know, it just doesn’t hold up.

COOPER: I read — I read in “Newsweek” this week in an article you wrote about kids who have died because they haven’t been vaccinated…

MNOOKIN: Yes.

COOPER: … died — died from things that they shouldn’t have died of. MNOOKIN: Yes.

COOPER: Whooping cough.

MNOOKIN: In 2010 alone, 10 infants died of whooping cough in California, which is astounding that that is happening today.

There are children that have died of Hib, diseases that I have always assumed were definitely in the past in this country. There was a measles epidemic several years ago in California, in San Diego, that cost $10 million to contain, and resulted in a quarantine of dozens of children.

That meant that those parents then had to find some way to take care of those kids, either not go to work or pay for day care. So, even when you have a case like with that measles epidemic, where it’s true that children didn’t die, you had one infant that was hospitalized for a serious amount of time, and dozens of families that had to pay an enormous amount of money because of this.

COOPER: This is maybe an unfair and an impossible question to answer, is, do you believe Wakefield believes what he’s saying?

MNOOKIN: I talked to him several times over the past several years. Mostly in the context of these conferences that he was referring to where he’s surrounded by people who adulate him.

I think that it’s certainly possible that, at this point, he’s been living in this for so long that he thinks it’s true. I have talked to other people involved in that community who have told me candidly that they wish the conversation could move on from that, because they understood that the science is not…

COOPER: Has the media played a role in perpetuating this? Because you see in a lot of TV shows, you know, on this subject, several sides represented. You have the people who believe the vaccines cause autism and the people who don’t. And it seems to give equal credence, you know.

Or you have a famous person, you know, like Jenny McCarthy, and nothing against her personally, but you know, who is going to get a lot of attention. Has that made the problem worse? Has that given the — this side more credence?

MNOOKIN: I think absolutely. And an example I use is there are people who believe the earth is flat. Most people obviously do not, but if you had one person who believed the earth is flat and one person who said, “No, it’s actually round,” and they were discussing the issue together, it would seem that the consensus was split 50/50.

So here you have a situation in which you have millions of doctors, public health officials, all coming down on one side, and then Andrew Wakefield and a very small number of people who are associated with him, a miniscule number of people, saying, “No, this is what’s actually going on.” But because we can’t present millions of points of view or millions of people, it ends up sounding — there’s this false equivalency. It ends up sounding on the one hand, on the other hand, when there really is only one hand in this case.

COOPER: Do you agree with that, there is only one hand in this?

GUPTA: Yes, and I mean, the one thing I would say with the earth, flat earth, round thing, is we know the answer to that now.

One of the things that again has made this discussion so difficult is that, at the end of the discussion, no matter how much you disagree with the other person, if they come back to you and say, “So what does cause it?” We still don’t have that great answer. It could be some environmental unknown with a genetic predisposition. Who knows? But that, in part, has made this difficult.

Also, you know, just as a parent, I can tell you, it’s so deeply personal. And that also, despite what’s happened today, I think many parents who are dealing with this right now are still believing this, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

COOPER: It’s a fascinating topic. I appreciate both you guys being here with your expertise. Thank you. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Seth Mnookin.

Paul Offit responds to Mark Blaxill

5 Jan

Over at Age of Autism today, financial whizz Mark Blaxill subjected Paul Offit’s finances to his usual searing intellect. I can’t quote from his post because its just to smart for me to understand!

Anyway, his conclusion has drawn the following response from Paul Offit in an email:

Just for the record: I no longer financially benefit from the sales of RotaTeq. My financial interests in that vaccine have been sold out by either The Wistar Institute, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, or me. I will, however, continue to stand up for the science of vaccines because unfounded fears about vaccines have hurt children. That is why I do what I do and why I have always done it. And I will continue to closely follow the distribution of rotavirus vaccines because these vaccines have the potential to save as many as 2,000 children a day, which is why I joined the research team at Children’s Hospital.

Seems pretty clear to me 🙂

The past is present (non autism related post)

5 Jan

Kev has recently discussed the book, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. Besides discussing the dangers the movement poses in its current form, Dr. Offit puts the anti-vaccine movement into historical perspective.

Ever since there was vaccination, there was a resistance to the practice. One of the easiest hooks is to discuss the ingredients. In the case of the original vaccine (which used the cowpox virus to protect humans against smallpox), the target was clear: it comes from cows. One of the more famous images was a cartoon made by James Gillray, showing people growing cow parts after vaccination (click image to enlarge):

It’s so 19th century. Or, is it?

I wasn’t aware of this image (or didn’t remember it) before I read the book. I was taken aback by the similarity to recent imagery used to frighten people about the rotavirus vaccine. If you recall, fragments of a pig virus were found in one of the rotavirus vaccine brands. This was a time for a reasoned, serious discussion. Was there potential for these virus fragments to be harmful? (as it turns out, the virus does not infect humans. It is even found in the fecal matter of humans who have recently eaten pig products).

Here’s one image:

Yeah, kinda cute and funny. The text of the post has headings like “Rotavirus Vaccines Use Monkey, Cow, Pig Materials for Production” and, for some odd reason, “Using Cancer Cells to Produce Vaccines? ” What this has to do with pig virus fragments in rotavirus vaccine is beyond me. The post goes on to link to a video by Barbara Loe Fisher, who discusses “fatal pig viruses”. Fatal to infant pigs, yes. Fatal to humans, no. But, Ms. Fisher doesn’t make that distinction.

Here’s another image, this time from the Age of Autism blog:

There is room for a real vaccine safety movement. In fact, vaccine safety advocates have been successful in creating real change. Dr. Offit makes this clear in his book. But scaring people with these images isn’t helping anyone.

Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

4 Jan

I mentioned in a previous post that I was reading Deadly Choices and used it as the basis for a post on how much of a myth the idea of there being ‘mild’ diseases is.

I’ve (literally) just finished reading the book so I want to give it a review. I should be clear up front, I liked the book very much and I like Paul Offit too so you’re not going to find much negativity here.

The book is a clear and coherent look back at the roots of the modern anti-vaccine movement (mostly in the US but we get a sadly necessary large mention too), its leading proponents and figures. It also swings up to the modern day and looks at the contemporary anti-vaxxers such as Jenny McCarthy etc.

Sadly (from my point of view) it makes the role of modern day anti-vaccinationism clear: its mainly due to the confluence of vaccines and autism that has given rise to a politically motivated type of anti-vaxxer. To give examples we’re all familiar with its like when an out n out anti-vaxxer like the owner of the website whale.to became friends with the leaders of Generation Rescue that the initial overlap first occurred – first they borrowed material from each other then they become supporters of each other and now they follow the common goal of destroying the vaccine program in the West. That might sound a little over the top but its nonetheless true. Ask any anti-vaxxer what their goal is and that goal will be the eradication of vaccines.

Offit’s book is also a study of some of the incidents where vaccines _have_ been at fault and details how these rare occurrences are used to chronicle the side effects of vaccines and direct future safety testing. The first few chapters of the book make it clear just how important some of these tragic incidents have been to today’s safety testing. Another upcoming book that tackles this subject is Seth Monookin’s The Panic Virus and of course Offit’s own book The Cutter Incident details one such incident in great detail.

According to Offit himself:

I wrote this book for children; Deadly Choices is an attempt to stand up for them. A child’s vaccination decisions are made by his or her parents. If an adult chooses not to be vaccinated from Hepatitis B and she dies, that was her own choice to not be vaccinated. What bothers me is that children aren’t making that choice. Who represents the children?

And he’s absolutely right. In the same vein, whilst Deadly Choices is not an autism book per se, it should be the responsibility of the autism community to spread its message far and wide, partly because its the right thing to do and partly because its the modern day autism community that has spearheaded and led the contemporary anti-vaccine message. We have some wrongs to right.

Deadly Choices: The myth of the mild disease

29 Dec

I’ve started reading Deadly Choices and goodness me its a breath of fresh air in terms of factual analysis and also writing skill. The last autism book I read was Age of Autism so you’ll appreciate how great the difference is.

I’ll be blogging about Deadly Choices a fair bit I guess and I guess Sullivan will too (after all he is Bonnie Offit) and in this first blog post I want to discuss why the idea that certain illnesses are perceived (and indeed promoted) by the anti-vaccine lobby as mild and therefore of no risk – just another excuse to stick us all with another needle containing who knows what!!

The book Deadly Choices, makes this point crystal clear in the Introduction. Regarding a Hib outbreak in Minnesota:

[parents]…were afraid that vaccines contained dangerous additives, or that children received too many vaccines too soon; or that vaccines caused autism

…

…one mother reconsidered her decision: ” the doctor looked at me and said, ‘Your son is going to die, he doesn’t have much time.’ Honestly, I never really understood how severe the risk [was] that we put our son at.”

Deadly choices indeed.

And what about mumps? In 2009, an outbreak caused by an unvaccinated traveller coming back from England caused a chain reaction that infected over 1500 people in 8 months. The end result?

When it was over, mumps was found to have caused pancreatitis, meningitis, deafness, facial paralysis or inflammation of the ovaries in sixty-five people, nineteen were hospitalised.

Hib and mumps are just two of the diseases previously easily controlled by vaccines that are now becoming rampant again due to poor vaccination rates and the fact that such deadly and crippling diseases are now just a plane ride away.

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