Evidence Linking Autism Rise in Children to Vaccinations

You shot yourself in the foot with your source. Wikipedia is useless on any controversial or politically charged topic.

 

ROFL. You are probably too young to remember the crazies who were running around yelling "Fluoride is a Communist plot." I worked with two fellows who were absolutely convinced.

 

What does this have to do with a link (real or otherwise) between vaccinations and autism?

 

Sure if you are willing to consider the evidence. That was why I posted the PubMed link.

The Cochrane library is a collection of scientific systematic reviews that look at all the scientific papers on a topic, critique them for the quality of their methodology and comment on their clinical application.

Here is their paper on the MMR vaccine which lists 139 studies of which 31 met all of their inclusion criteria which usually have to do with things like randomization methodologies, blinding of researchers to allocation groups and other tests for objectivity of the research. I picked the MMR vaccine because it is the one that has been incorrectly associated with autism most frequently.

Here is their lay language summary

With regard to the use of adjuvants in testing, I flipped through 5-6 of them and all of them looked at the results of the vaccine already used by the population which includes adjuvants, perservatives and whatever else is in the normal vaccination. I guess you can look up all 139 papers and you may find some that did not use adjuvants in their study but just by finding one study that does use the normal vaccine that includes adjuvants nullifies your claim that studies are only done on the vaccine without adjuvants.

Here is one of the papers from the journal pediatrics that looked at autism and MMR in Atlanta.

Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children With Autism and School-Matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta
PEDIATRICS Vol. 113 No. 2 February 2004, pp. 259-266

 

If you do your homework you'd understand there's a differnece between an adjuvant and a preservative.
Thiomersal and aluminum compounds are in preservatives added to prolong the shelf life from date of manufacture to delivery to patient.

An adjuvant, is another additive which is foreign and supposed to stimulate a quicker response of the immune system in the body. Squalene, a type of fish oil is one controversal being used in some vaccines.

The medium in which pathogens are cultured..... grow...... is also a question which is seldom mentioned. The flu virus is often cultured in eggs which is one reason why most people are asked if they have an allergy to eggs before being given the flu shot. Other kinds of animal tissues have been used as a culture medium for growing pathogens for vaccine production such as monkey tissue and including.... in one of johnV's reports a link which discloses dog tissue..... If there was a sure way to screen out products and contaminants then there would not be a question of allergy to eggs.

Some other terms used when discussing vaccines is attenuated and unattenuated. An attenuated pathogen is rendered incapable of reproducing itself or so thoroughly weakened that it's considered incapable of causeing disease while retaining enough identity to stimulate a specific immunity. Unattenuated means live or capable of reproducing ...... but considered too few to overwhelm a normal immune response. In some cases.... this last type may actually inccubate in some indivisuals for a time and grow w/o stimulating a sufficient immune response before the vaccinated host gets sick..... or sheds pathogens to others who may be unvaccinated.

When different companies are involved in producing a quantity of vaccine for public distribution, each has its own formularly which it patents and controls as proprietary property. In the case of this particular vaccine.... there was a rush, since the first outbreak last spring was announced with expectation or prediction that it would go pandemic..... there was a rush to bring the vaccine on the market for a global innoculation program. If media reports are to be believed, then there were early reports that most if not all companies participating in the race to produce a vaccine would not have sufficient time to grow the pathogen and produce enough vaccine for tests before the vaccine would be needed for market. Reports included that some companies were awaiting delivery of this specific strain of virus before they could begin production. There were reports that some producers were asking for relaxing the standards to allow their production and release based upon the formulas followed in the past and testing results with previous strains.

In or about late June or July, the WHO, and the CDC, made their separate annoucements that the data was already sufficient to not overwhelm the cost of testing for the virus once an outbreak was established...... and started accepting future reports based upon reported symptomology as being the H1N1. While this might make good economic sense..... after all, in an uncomplicated case of flu like symptoms, most people recover with the same treatment regardless of flu or viral diagnosis. Complications of either usually involve a secondary opportunistic infection which requires its own separate diagnosis and treatment. While this is more economical and expedient if dealing with efficiency....... it does not insure the data being collected is correct in its information and analysis.

Mercury is a heavy metal. Heavy metals, even in the links cited by johnv, have not been ruled out in attributing to autism. Remember, a baby's life begins aprox 9mos before birth.... so there may be exposures in the womb connected to heavy metals, if heavy metals are ever implicated with certainty as contributing to autism. Heavy metals can be obtained from sources other than vaccination, but the food source is less direct, less absorbed as its bound to food and is partially espelled, being bound in the feces.

Furthermore, johnV has made no connection with the doctor he cites with the OP, nor proven that there is conclusive data disproving a mecury connection to autism or reason to believe mecury is good for the body. The fact is, mercury is toxic, it is a heavy metal, and it is not easy to remove once absorbed and incorporated into organ tissue. While tolerance may vary between individuals, the fact remains that as difficult as it is to get rid of mercury, it can build up and at some point reaches a theshold of load which will result in symptoms of toxicity or death. The human tolerance for toxins often depends upon the size and the age of the person and the function of organs responsible for metabolising and/or elimination or storage. Mercury compounds are now banned from vaccines now given to infants and children............ except for the flu vaccine. Whether or not young children or pregnant women are getting the flu vaccine without mercury is dependant on the formulary used by the company which makes the type of vaccine they are given. It is up to each parent to ask questions and, if still in doubt, compare the literature which accompanies the vaccine and compare the vaccine bottle's label with the literature to make sure the match is correct..... as when in a time of shortage and multiple producers....the stock available may become mixed.

 

You are correct. I incorrectly used the word adjuvant instead of preservative with regard to thiomersal referring to the more general use of the word adjuvant as something added to aid or assist. You are correct that in vaccines, they specifically refer to agents that improve the antigenic activity of the vaccine.

Regardless, it still stands that testing of vaccines do include the adjuvants, contrary to Revmitchell's statement.

 

That is your prerogative. I hope you will not make misleading statements about vaccinations with what you do know now.

I do have an issue with your standard of proof. My guess is you take medication of some sort since I remember you having some health issues with your heart last year. If I am wrong about this, please forgive me. Cardiac medications have all sorts of side effects and if you look up the research on them, you will see hard data that some of those effects occurs at a regular rate, are very serious and even fatal. But you feel that the benefit of taking those medications is worth the risks of these side effects.

And yet, for vaccinations where there is no evidence that autism is actually caused by them, you refuse to administer them to your children because there is no absolute proof that it will not happen. This proof you seek that your child will absolutely not get autism with a vaccine is something I believe is impossible to get even if all the resources in the world were devoted to studying vaccines and their relationship with autism. And refusing to vaccinate them you expose them to the very real risks of catching highly infectious diseases that are potentially fatal.

Ultimately, the choice is a risk-benefit analysis that each of us have to make based on the information and beliefs that we have. For many on both sides of the vaccination debate, the views held about vaccinations have little to do with evidence and a lot to do with faith. Who do you believe? It is unfortunate because I believe the evidence is pretty clearly on one side of the debate but the faith is just not there for many people.

 

No, there's none. That's a fact.

You don't? You iingest iron and magnesium every day, just to name a few. But that's off topic.

That doesn't change the fact that there is no evidence to link autism to vaccines.

This clearly demonstrates your ignorance of the scientific method. Peer review is one of the steps in the scientific method. Every theory, study, hypothesesis, etc, must subject itself to the scrutiny of, and pass, peer review in order to be accepted.

Whether you are convinced or not does not mean adjuvants are not tested, and it further does not mean there is a link between autism and vaccine adjuvants.

That's not true. Your history of posts shows you will put faith in any quack who claims vaccines are evil despite objective evidence to the contrary.

 

Simply showing that there is X% of the people who will believe anything even in the face there is no evidence ... as there is no shown link between vaccination and autism.

 

You said you didn't care for peer reviewed papers or trust people in the medical field. So what evidence are your talking about? The only paper that has historically been used to show a link between the two has been denounced by the scientific community because the head researcher manipulated the data for personal gain. Are you saying you have faith in those kinds of people in the medical field?

That is your prerogative. BTW, calcium is a metal that most healthy lactose tolerant people ingest on a daily basis. Metals such as iron, zinc, magnesium are found in vitamins that healthy people ingest quite commonly.

I agree that mercury is not one of those metals ingested regularly. Thiomersal is a derivative of mercury but does not behave exactly like mercury in the body and there is no evidence that thiomersal causes autism and has been tested to be safe for use in medications. However, it is known to be toxic to some cells including neurons and has since been replaced by other preservatives in most vaccinations with the exception of the influenza vaccine. There are many drugs that we use that are toxic to cells but are still safe to use because their overall effect is minimal. My guess is that eventually it will be replaced by other preservatives in the influenza vaccine as well.

It sounds to me like you are putting faith in doctors on the medical field who are against vaccines. I agree that there are such doctors. There are also fully trained doctors who believe that magnets help arthritis pain.

 

The best testing of all has been going on. H1N1 shots have been given to thousands and thousands of people the last month or so. How many bad side effects have you heard about? You are throwing out a red herring.

 

Sure

These are the same question.

Here is the data for Arepanrix, the H1N1 vaccine used in Canada. It also includes data on the bird flu vaccine since the vaccine was based on the same formulation which has undergone more testing. It gives seroconversion rates which indicate effectiveness in the 95% levels. It also lists the common side effects (pain, swelling, redness at injection site, fever irritablity, etc) and their frequency of occurence.

Here is the data for Panvax, the H1N1 vaccine used in Australia. Click on the product information pdf which outlines adverse event data from their RCTs (randomized control trials).

 

The main reason for mercury's toxicity is because it accumulates in animal tissues. But thimerosal is a form of mercury that is rapidly excreted from the human body while still functioning well was a toxin for microbes to make it an effective preservative. BTW, thiomersal is ethylmercury. Methylmercury accumulates. Ethymercury does not.

The reason reports surface is because people make incorrect associations for why things happen. We often think that if A occured before B, then A caused B. This is commonly the case with autism. The signs of autism often become more clearly evident around 2 to 3 years of age. The MMR vaccine is most effective when given at 12 and 18 months of age to prepare for the period of highest risk of infection. MMR occurred before autism therefore people think the MMR caused the autism. The research done so far does not suggest this is the case at all. When something terrible like autism happens to a child, it is more comforting to think that something caused it and the MMR is an easy target. I am unaware of these other reports you are talking about and if you could provide links to those reports, I could try to explain them.