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Court Rules Autism Not Caused By Childhood Vaccine
wiredog writes "From The Washington Post comes word that three special masters have decided that MMR vaccines do not cause autism. 'Special master George Hastings said the parents ... had "been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment." ... "the evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short of demonstrating ... a link."'
The courts are evaluating methods and conclusions, not doing the actual research. They don't have to have medical degrees or be doctors, just understand enough science to comprehend the scientific method and enough math to follow the statistics. This follows the same argument that one shouldn't have to be a doctor to take medicines correctly, or have to be a lawyer to follow any given law.
or nativity of some people. Contrary to evidence (e.g. a Danish study showing no adverse effects of the vaccinations, and possibly a reduction of asthma due to them http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/06/bad-science-mmr-vaccine), some folks still prefer urban legends over real science.
You are obviously ignorant of both the law and of this story.
The court didn't make a "medical decision", they made a "finding of fact". Deciding facts is the entire reason we have courts.
If there is a judicial proceeding that hinges on a scientific question, what else are you going to do?
This wasn't some stupid "And now, we will have a judge decide some science for us!" thing. A bunch of parties sued, alleging that their children had been harmed by vaccines. The only way that those cases could be decided, is by deciding whether or not the vaccines were indeed responsible. The court doesn't "decide scientific fact", it has scientific expert witnesses and research as evidence in deciding whether or not a particular party is responsible for a particular injury. The same way that a court would use eyewitness testimony or DNA forensic evidence.
Concerning scientific matters, judges rely on expert testimony. In this particular case, they relied on three experts appointed by the court that there was very little evidence to support a link between MMR vaccines and autism.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Indeed. And a right mess it is.
http://www.thatsfuckingstupid.com/index.php/2008/11/just-a-quickie-you-wont-feel-a-thing/
(founded 95,000,000 yrs ago, very space opera)
The reason that vaccines are mandated is very simple, herd immunity. Herd immunity is what lets people that can't get the vaccines (like your friend who is allergic) live their life without serious fear of catching these deadly diseases. Yes, vaccines carry some non-trivial amount of danger, but science has verified that the danger to the individual is outweighed by the danger of society losing herd immunity.
What people don't realize is that it only takes 10-15% of the population being unvaccinated to cause a major outbreak. Once that happens, it is much more likely for a disease to mutate and be able to attack even those that are vaccinated. That's why the government mandates vaccines, and since the government is mandating vaccines. It makes sense for the government to pay out when vaccines hurt people when the government is the one that made the decision, not the manufacturers.
This is why I hesitate to let "experts" force major social projects on us.
Agreed. We're much better off listening to Jenny freakin' McCarthy.
What happens if and when 20 years from now there is serious evidence of a link between autism and some vaccines.
"Smallpox was the first disease people tried to prevent by purposely inoculating themselves with other types of infections; smallpox inoculation was started in China or India before 200 BC." Furthermore, in the UK "[v]accination was first made compulsory in 1853, and the provisions were made more stringent in 1867, 1871, and 1874."
We started the scientific experiment over 2,000 years ago and the social experiment over 150 years ago. I think we've got a pretty good handle on the statistics by now.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
You think that's bad, check out Down Syndrome rates as the female gets older.
couldn't find a pretty chart, but it works
Interesting that you should say this, since the doctor who published the original study was actually paid to do the study by the parents who wanted to sue over the alleged MMR-autism link. From the BBC article:
If that wasn't bad enough, alongside with other charges (see here), there are signs of him fixing the data in the study. Not exactly what I'd call a pillar of ethical and unbiased behavior...
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
Obviously, something in our environment is making autism rates climb.
Not at all. It's a combination of 2 things:
1. the definition of autism has broadened with time so that things that weren't considered autism 50 years ago now count
2. better detection means people with autism are more likely to get counted.
The scientific consensus is that there is no reason to believe that autism is more common now than before.
*sigh* back to work...
Yeah, those polio drugs i'm taking every year sure are expensive...
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
FYI, the genetic bases for both of these trends is (at least partially) known. For Down's syndrome, this is caused by non-disjunction of chromosome 21. Since eggs are in a state of suspension in a female (after all having been created at the same time), the longer they are in this suspended state, the higher the chance for a non-disjunction. This also contributes to why miscarriage rates go up (and fertility down) as women age.
For autism, at least one of the contributing factors is de novo copy number variants (segment of the genome that have been deleted or duplicated). As the father gets older, his sperm (which he constantly makes) have undergone more copying, and mutations (errors in that copying) will accrue. Errors such as non-disjunctions, in which a whole chromosome is copied, lead to inviable sperm. However, smaller mutations are viable...but may still be deleterious.
Doctors don't usually come up with their own schedules; unless you're actually an immunologist, it makes far more sense to trust a published schedule, like ACIP or NACI. These are reviewed every year, and cover all the interesting rules and interactions between various agents. Vaccination scheduling is far more complex than you might realize - there are specific rules covering live and non-live agents, which agents can be given at the same time, minimum/maximum intervals between series doses, and more.
Disclaimer: I've worked in the industry, specifically with regard to writing schedulers. I know firsthand how hard it is.
More like the courts are saying once and for all that the unfounded claims being made by people about vaccines causing autism have no basis in reality, which any good doctor could have told you.
Because many vaccines are mandated by law, there was sort of an inusrance fund setup to cover cases of adverse reaction.
From an article:
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/02/12/court-rules-vaccines-not-to-blame-for-autism/
"It is worth noting the standard the court was using allowed for the petitioners (the parents of the children with autism) to demonstrate âoebiologic plausibilityâ as opposed to direct cause and effect. Scientifically, biological plausibility is an easier standard to meet."
So the courts ruled that it is not even plausible that the vaccines caused autism.
Of course one day there might be a theory and some evidence that changes this ruling.
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
The reason you vaccinate at 2-6 months is that the mothers antibodies provide protection up until then. After about 6 months the childs immune system is essentially on it's own. If it has seen a disease (or vaccine) prior to then they can safetly develope a native immunity to it while still under the umbrella of the mothers immune protection.
Today it is rare for a baby to die. 300 years ago it was assumed that most would die before the age of 5. The primary difference is vaccines. By vaccinating children you protect the child AND you reduce the disease load on the population in general.
I am very pleased that your gamble didn't hurt your children but if enough children are not vaccinated then the rate of these disease will shoot up dramatically, and these are deadly and debilitating diseases.
The amish get autism. See here:
http://autism-news-beat.com/?p=29
That's because smallpox has been eradicated, thanks to vaccination.
They stopped using thimerosal in the MMR vaccine *years* ago. In fact, that is what makes it so trivially easy to show that mercury from thimerosal in the MMR vaccine was unrelated to autism. They removed it, and nothing changed.
(And by nothing, I mean not even the anti-vaccination rhetoric. It's about as bad as the buffoons who claim that Coke is addictive because they surreptitiously still add cocaine -- undetectable cocaine, even!)
Malaria.
40 years ago, if you got it, you could guarantee it would resurface every 3-10 years for the rest of your life.
Now, it can be fully cured.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
if the kid is autistic enough to warrant being kicked out of school for autistim-related disrupions wouldn't that be easy enough for a doctor to detect early on?
No. Autistic children typically behave very differently in a one-on-one environment than they do in a group, between strangers and people they know, and also between an adult and their peers. Their behaviors are also not consistent, they may be fine in school 99% of the time, but then something will set them off that they can't deal with.
http://www.mhall119.com
I don't know what's more frightening, your willful ignorance or the fact that someone modded it insightful.
By your logic, airbags don't work because they don't work 100% of the time in all circumstances. Or plants don't grow anywhere at all because they won't grow in battery acid.
As long as a large enough portion of a population is vaccinated against known strains there won't be enough hosts for a new strain to emerge that the vaccine is ineffective against.
Even people who were vaccinated can get it if there immune system has been compromised by something else. If most of the population is vaccinated the chance of being exposed to it while you have a compromised immune system is low. If the population was made up of ignorant fools, there'd be a good chance of coming into contact with it while you have a compromised immune system. Now there's a chance for a strain to develop that can handle the antibodies of someone who has had the vaccine. Then you give it to your kids, they spread it to the school, and so on until it's an epidemic.
Please, for the love of whatever invisible space man you believe in, don't breed. If you have, your invisible space man god told me to tell you to sacrifice them to him. Then they can play in space with the invisible pink unicorns.
The German bit didn't get dropped. They are two separate diseases. German Measles is properly called Rubella. Regular Measles.
Yes thank them, but they should still be giving the polio vaccine, so don't thank the cdc. One 3rd world country carrier could bring it back to the US and we are once again sitting ducks since none of the current generation are vaccinated.
Polio has been eradicated in the entire Western Hemisphere. I know that there are 3rd world countries outside of the western hemisphere, however the only 3rd world countries that have polio still are outside of the western hemisphere.
Since legal immigrants are required to get polio vaccines if they're from a location that still hasn't eradicated polio, we are left only with illegal immigrants. 50% of undocumented aliens arrived on a legal visa, that means they had their polio vaccination if necessary. So, we're left with some 50% or illegal immigrants all of which had to have arrived without a valid visa. The likelihood of them being outside of the western hemisphere is pretty low.
A good example is Rabies in Japan. The likelihood that an animal will enter the respective country with the respective disease without having the respective vaccine is super low.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS