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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."'
...against the theory that jerking off causes blindness.
I have a bad feeling about this...
Maybe now he'll let his poor kids get their polio shots.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...that courts now have medical degrees and are qualified to make medical decisions on behalf of the population.
Of course, there's no way this could possibly be abused.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
rtfa
Jack Thompson will come out and say that the bad juju from violent video games is whats causing the surge in autism?
Besides, I was under the impression that it was the combination of vaccines before the age of 2 (36?) that was the leading factor. Specifically MMR+Chicken Pox combination.
I'd get no exercise.
Good, now maybe that idiot Jenny McCarthy will shut her mouth about this. There are no telling how many kids have been put at risk because they're listing to celebrities harping their pseudo-science.
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.
I can predict some tags for this story: duh, noshitsherlock, establishedscience, wealreadyknewthat, tellmesomethingididntknow, !news, oldnews
Autism occurs and makes itself known about the same time as the vaccination occurs, which may explain why some people makes that connection.
But even if there was a small risk of autism related to the vaccination the risks involved by not being vaccinated are higher and the risk of an epidemic is higher if there is no vaccination performed.
So if it's possible to get a vaccination - get it. People avoiding vaccination are a breeding ground for diseases like polio and a lot of other nasty things. The only disease successfully erased is smallpox - unless it escapes a laboratory somewhere, in which case we may have a disaster on our hands.
Personally I would call parents that are fighting against vaccinations as irresponsible and a danger to society.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
This demonstrates some of the problems when the media picks up on these things. The CNN article states cnn.com:
... have found no association between vaccines and autism."
However, "the medical and scientific communities
"Hopefully, the determination by the Special Masters will help reassure parents that vaccines do not cause autism," the statement said.
A ruling on a court case doesn't necessarily convince me one way or the other on this. They aren't experts running experiments publishing their findings, they're examining the presented documentation, by both sides of an issue. I'm surprised that the mass media took the time to even present an article with this kind of finding; they're usually good at stirring up muck, but not pointing out when they were wrong.
I will wait for science to show me that the risks of potential side effects are outweighed by the benefits provided from these vaccinations. Until then, show me the MMR.
Let's make vaccine manufacturers as civilly liable for their products as every other manufacturer. Clearly, their products are proven safe now, and there is no possible scientific link between some of these products and serious harm in children, therefore they don't need any extra legal protection.
Funny thing is, I have met people who are very allergic to most vaccines, and my wife knows a woman who lost one or two of her siblings (he was a healthy kid) because of a fatal reaction to one.
This is why I hesitate to let "experts" force major social projects on us. What happens if and when 20 years from now there is serious evidence of a link between autism and some vaccines. The people who mandated them will say "sorry we didn't know," but the parents should be able to say to them "fuck you, you will pay horrifically for what you did to our kids, you miserable social engineers."
Boy I feel better that the courts ruled on this, because Lord knows there's no chance of Corporate-led, Pharmaceutical-grade palm grease being applied 3x/day there to "enhance" someones opinion...
The plaintiffs (parents of children with autism) are required to present evidence that shows that there is a link between the vaccines and autism. The judge ruled that the evidence provided by the plaintiffs did not show such a connection, thus their complaint is dismissed. They can find more conclusive evidence and try again if they wish.
"Court ruled that water is not chemical" ... I would be no surprised by USA anymore.
for people who are interested in topic and pseudo-prove it is vaccine what causes it, http://chetday.com/autismdiet.htm this article could help you (or you may want it to pass it to someone to whom it would help)
My neighbor believed this, her husband was dumbfounded, but he and the doctor couldn't convince her otherwise. I had never even heard of it before I had talked to her husband. Kind of sad.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I think for some reason a lot of people find joy in finding problems with progress. They seem to want every advancement we make as people to have some dark side effect that will lead us to our doom.
There is being vigilant not taking things at face value, then there is going overboard and jumping to conclusions just to prove progress is bad.
Just recently a bill was passed to stop a chemical from being put into children's toys, however there is no evidence that it is actually harmful in that amount. And is being replaced with new chemicals that could be just as bad, if not worse.
Is it that they want to be Hero's saving us from them selfs or do they take joy in preventing progress.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
I don't know do we?
Because our society has certainly decided that scientists can no longer decide scientific facts. If that were not the case, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
Over the last 10 years, US and UK have spent tens of millions of dollars to provide "negative proof" of something that we had already known, just to quiet down the conspiracy theorists. But instead of quieting them down, this has empowered them, by giving them and their claims legitimacy. Now, we're faced with a situation where childhood vaccination has taken a nosedive, and we're seeing old goodies like measles re-emerge into small (for now) epidemics. And as herd immunity is eroded further, we will see additional diseases make an impressive comeback.
So now that we took the right to make educated judgments about medical and scientific matters, away from doctors and scientists, we've also demonstrated that as a society we're incapable of making rational decisions... which isn't surprising. The only option left seems to be the courts, where reasonably educated judges may or may not rule according to the best data available. Well... at least there's a chance.
And for those who will scream at me about mercury in vaccines, why don't you compare a single or rare exposure to a tiny amount of mercury... to how much mercury you must feed to your children via fish... and corn syrup.
I don't have a medical degree, in fact I'm just a barber, but it is well known already that Autism not caused by vaccines, but by spirits residing in the lower intestine. Sometimes wood nymph bites will also cause this but they are more likely to cause AIDS. And yes, Elves do live in your armpits and cause the funky smell. bleeding with Leeches take care of everything. Unless you're a witch...then of course you float just like a duck.
I wonder if I can get appointed to the Supreme Court?
I tend to lean to the left side of the political spectrum, but two threads of liberal thought piss me off more than just about anything: anti nuke environmentalists and autism/vaccine linkers. Both group are as bad as any anti science fundamentalist, but in a way worse: they think that science and reason backs them up, when really it doesn't. They're just using it as a rationalization for their existing superstitions, mainly of the "don't mess with mother nature" variety.
I guess that's settled.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I didn't know about this until just last week, and I'm fifty! But apparently the evidence is pretty good. Search the Web for "paternal age autism" and you'll find a raft of stuff, such as a Washington Post article that says this:
This hits home for me since there is actually some possibility I might attempt to father a child or two in the next several years. Food for thought.
On the other hand, at worst the risk is less than 1% per child.
Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
Honestly, it's different in every person. Those who may be built better might not have any issues with the vaccine. Those with weaker immune systems may have issues manifested later in life.
It's honestly really stupid of us to say "It does" or "It doesn't" at this point. We don't know enough about how the human body works on a per case basis. All we can do is make generalizations.
It's like saying AIDS will kill you.. For the majority of us, yes, it will. For the one guy in china that was found to be completely immune to the virus, no, it won't.
I expect follow-up rulings on the religious beliefs of the Pope, and the bathroom habits of bears.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Fuck, I hate the over use of this term. The widespread popularity of the myth of vaccine problems (I fell for it once myself) should only go to show that common sense is anything BUT common. People are pattern matching machines. We are very good at intuitively understanding the WRONG thing. Anything one person may call "common sense" may be called a "bizarre belief" by another person.
So could we PLEASE just stop using this term altogether? Like "political correctness" it was a once-useful term that has simply become a label for people to throw at other people for political reasons that has no basis in reality.
Sooo the court is saying that putting Mercury (used as a preservative), a known toxin, into vaccines, didn't cause autism? Even though now they no longer do that and there is still risk that maybe some shady or ignorant vaccine makers still do that?
Sure there is no 100% correlation but if a vaccine changes your risk from 0.006% to 2% then that is something I doubt scientific evidence nor professional experts are going to be able to prove. My girlfriend while studying to become a nurse met an instructor with 3 autistic children (no genetic history) and 3 other people in the same class with autistic children. All lived in the same area. Pretty suspicious odds, if is not the vaccine its something environmental that wasn't around that much 100 years ago.
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)
This is one of those issues that directly pits personal rights against the greater public health. It would be nice to allow people to opt out, but when they do they put the remainder of the public at risk of epidemic. It's a herd thing.
I have a friend whose child immediately had an epileptic seizure right after a vaccination and has been having seizures ever since. They collected money from "master fund". It happens.
A study of 10,000 Amish people found there are no autistic Amish people. Amish do not vaccinate. To me that is all the evidence I need right there.
The one disappointing thing here is that the court blames physicians for the public misconception. In reality, the blame lies more with the mass media, who turned the original claims into a massive health scare.
The vast majority of physicians correctly investigated the claims and determined that the evidence did not stand up to scrutiny. But the media took that and turned it into their beloved "lone rebel" story, with a parents' champion fighting to get the truth out while the sinister establishment tried to suppress it. Result? Massive decrease in vaccine uptake, threatening public health and risking a deadly epidemic. All because "your children are at risk" sells more papers than "oops, we goofed up, turns out vaccines are safe after all".
Best Slashdot Co
If the government required vaccine makers to shoulder the burden of liability claims, absolutely no drug company would ever bother to manufacture them. They take a very long time to develop, sell for a relatively low price, are generally given to jury-friendly and photogenic children, and are difficult to manufacture.
The powers that be have decided that the public health benefit of vaccines existing far outweighs the risk of the govt. having to pay out liability claims.
SirWired
I'm on the losing end of this argument, but I have long believed that special courts such as this one are unconstitutional usurpations of Article 2 courts which have "the Judicial power" and that power cannot be passed onto special courts whose purview is less than the entire judicial power. While this argument is perhaps a century or two too late, unconstitutional acts are still unconstitutional, despite centuries of adherence to them. The stack of people who will disagree with this comment is likely huge, but just because we've always had "Bankruptcy" Courts doesn't mean that their existence directly contradicts the clear meaning of Article 2 which stated that the judicial power would go to the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress shall from time to time create. Yes, Congress could make no courts. But, ANY court created must possess the ENTIRE judicial power and not be a limited or "special" court. When you see "special court", read "unconstitutional court." Tunester
There was no scientific evidence that Silcone Breast implants caused illness either, but that didn't stop them from driving Dow Corning into bankruptcy with claims that they did. People do have a right to their beliefs, even if they are paranoid delusions, they have a right to refuse to get their kids immunized. What they don't have is a right to is compensation for harm that occurred after another event with no evidence that the other event actually caused the harm. In this case, the original claim was that the mercury (Thimerisol?) caused autism; it was quickly removed from vaccines, and then the claim was changed to the vaccination itself caused autism. When that couldn't be proved, then the claim was changed to several different vaccines taken closely together cause autism. (This last claim isn't quite as ridiculous as the other claims, since vaccine safety is tested a single vaccine at a time, not in combinations.) Yeah, I'm sorry about your kids' medical problems, but, like silicone implants, there is no statistical evidence that the medical problems occur any more frequently in kids that have had the vaccinations than kids that have not. Post Hoc, ergo propter hoc is still a logical fallacy.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Europe: 3.5m pounds paid out in vaccine damages
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4356027.stm
more than $916 MILLION dollars have been paid to people injured by vaccines, not just those claiming autism, because every single case there has been dismissed.
Source: http://newsok.com/high-court-should-reject-vaccine-suits/article/3321176
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Well, maybe not, but Cornell researchers found that autism spiked when cable TV became more widespread. It may or may not be related...of course, there is the factor of affluence and whether autism would be more likely to be diagnosed and treated in households that could afford cable. Maybe there's a statistically significance between whether or not parents of autistic children drive luxury cars or own large houses, too, but who knows. However, there was a difference in autism rates when correlated to television watching.
I find it strange that the court can quantifiably say that something doesn't cause autism when no one really knows what causes it. Doesn't someone have to actually discover what causes autism before other scientists can conclude that another thing *doesn't* cause it? It seems they have the scientific method backwards.
There are two types of vaccines, as far as I know. One has inactive pathogen, the other has a reduced viability. If your "friend's" sibling came down with the disease and died, then correlation of that lot to determine if the vaccine had been properly prepared is in order.
If, on the other hand, they died from reaction to the vaccine carrier (often egg-based, to which some people are allergic), then that suggests that non-vaccine related allergies should have been determined prior to giving the vaccine. Most doctors ask (or have records) about your allergies which helps screen out these occurrences.
Vaccines are, without a doubt, a statistical gamble we as a society make. There will be a very, very small portion of the population which will have a reaction to the event (whether it is to the vaccine, the carrier, infection of injection spot, etc.). The payoff is wide scale reduction of seriously debilitating diseases. Yes, it looks pretty onerous from the hindsight of a parent who's child suffers, but the society as a whole reaps an enormous benefit. 10 children dying is tragic, but 10 million with polio is far, far worse.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Honestly IS that your solution, to sue the manufacturer? Are you the chip off the same block that says "Let's sue McDonald's because their coffee was too hot and I was an idiot for holding it between my legs while I was driving". Really, if you don't believe in the vaccination then don't take it or have your children take it. However before you make such a rash decision first go over to a 3rd world country and see the disease's effect that non-vaccinated children.
This will likely be modded down for the "American way" comment but that is the only society that I know that has such a "sue them nothing is my fault" mentality.
a court once determined the earth was at the center of the solar system as well..
evidence about autism is not as iron clad but a court cant rule on what causes autism, that's for scientist to worry about.
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
You aren't allergic to "vaccine" , you are maybe at most allergic to one of the component, and most probably not the one used to pump up your immune system, but highly probably other maybe like preserver, anti fungus etc... Still I would like to see more statistic or evidence of such allergy or how many pro-million of fatal reaction there is.
As for long term consequence, there has been no long term consequence up to now for how many vaccine ? How long will you draw your fear rule you ? 50 years ? 150 years ? 20 years is ALREADY a long time. I got my first shots of MMR far more than 20 years ago FFS. So your 20 years limit is over.
And in the mean time children have died in the UK.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I'm a little concerned. Is it possible that a specific batch of vaccines got contaminated due to poor quality assurance practises (sorta like how sometimes food gets contaminated with pathogens) and the contaminated vaccines started something like this? I once saw a hearing on C-SPAN by a congressman who basically accused a company of tainting the vaccines with a chemical that broke down into mercury in the blood resulting in mercury poisoning. But in that instance his complaint was not that the vaccine was the culprit, but that the company had not adhered to the regulations put fourth by the FDA and allowed tainted Vaccines in the wild anyway.
Does anyone else know anything about this?
Disclaimer:
And by the way, I do trash the Christian Fundamentalists in the anti-Vaccine community. Seriously. They piss me off. But then again, Christians piss me off in general. And if they had their way we'd all be back in the dark ages and disease would run rampant.
I'm reminded of an episode of This American Life that discusses vaccines:
http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=370
"Stories of people who ruin things for everyone else...or who are accused of that. Like the San Diego parents who didn't vaccinate their child for measles (pictured at left: measles virus). When their seven-year-old caught the disease on an overseas trip, this decision became a whole community's problem. The outbreak infected 11 children and endangered many others."
Both have about the same amount of proof either way.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Wiki :
Before the widespread use of a vaccine against measles, its incidence was so high that infection with measles was felt to be "as inevitable as death and taxes."[3] Today, the incidence of measles has fallen to less than 1% of people under the age of 30 in countries with routine childhood vaccination.[citation needed] The benefit of vaccination against measles in preventing illness, disability, and death has been well-documented. The first 20 years of licensed measles vaccination in the U.S. prevented an estimated 52 million cases of the disease, 17,400 cases of mental retardation, and 5,200 deaths.[4]
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Thimerosal does not need to be in modern vaccines - single dose sterile packaging SHOULD be able to render it unnecessary. This is a good thing, while injecting trace amounts may not be statistically linkable to autism if you can avoid any unnecessary heavy metal exposure then you should. Same with radiation, X-rays or pesticides, each will eat away at your ability to live to 90.
We currently have the technology and economics to avoid thimerosals use, perhaps some poorer countries do not. In the West problems only arise when health staff get sloppy and reuse packs or are unable to notice a seal broken during shipment. Blaming such incidents on the FDA not allowing mercury use is incorrect - its plane old management failure, its harder to fix and most of know it too well.
Fortunately, he hasn't much moved past whether God wants him to believe in evolution or not.
The word is in: here is proof of god's existence and disproof of evolution.
Joking. But hot on the heels of Darwin's birthday is this survey which says that only 39% of Americans believe in evolution.
If the court is able to resolve complex scientific issues, why did we not bring them a question we want to know the answer to - like is Hawking radiation for real ?
Rather than wasting time with questions we already know the answer to.
Nullius in verba
I think this is a ruling I like, because, among other things, the scientist who wrote the original vaccination/autism link paper misrepresented his data using selective data inclusion or exclusion to support his hypothesis.
But at the same time, courts don't have to make their rulings based on any sense of 'truth'. They don't even have to make them based on best scientific research, and there are many historical cases where they haven't. In Michael Shermer's book "The Borderlands Of Science" he talks about the widespread belief in the 1920's-1950's that local injury caused cancer. While there may be a relationship between injury repair and apperance of cancer, it's pretty weak, but in the '30's people regularly sued their employers for getting hit in the ankle and later developing cancer in the other foot -- and they won. In some cases, the courts even went so far as to say that despite there being no scientific evidence to support these claims, because it was a generally held belief that there was a relationship, they decided in favor of the injured worker.
So, as I said, I *like* the court's decision, but I don't delude myself that they're Correct. They're just making a decision based on what has influenced the judges the most, and we can all hope that the decision turns out to be a good one.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
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.
Does shatner write for the washington post now?
I'm always skeptical of overuse of ellipses. You never know what has been left out.
Or, "I'm always... left out"
stupid valentines day
Except that we can correlate the following:
1. the vast majority of slashdotters don't have children,
2. the dangers of lead are so great that pediatricians advise expectant mothers against eating most types of high-lead fish (such as swordfish,kingfish,non-farmed tuna even) where the lead ppm/ppb is far lower than that in the thimersol
3. which has most assuredly still not worked its way out of the vaccine supply system entirely. The thing is, fair disclosure should be said. The public spazzes out and manufactures have to pull toys off of shelves for lead levels (that in some cases) was lower than what was in vaccines
4. Vaccines are often given to children weighing under 15 lbs. If we prorate exposure to the adult body, would you be willing to tolerate a known teratogenic chemical dosing scaled for the it-beer gut? No consumer in their right mind would.
5. Correlation while not causation is enough to have warning labels on tobacco products, saws (caution blade is sharp) lawn mowers (do not reach under blade while motor is spinning).
Assume people are inherently incompetent -- that's they only way any company can reliably attempt to do business (what gives with the 3 inch pull strings on kids pullalongs?!?!?)
There's just too much to actually follow up fairly in a comment
I've got a 10-year old nephew that says otherwise.
ha, looks like Jenny McCarthy is just a wrinkled has been playboy slut and not a very bright political activist at all.
Amanda Peet is cuter anyway...
Worrying about the mercury in Thimerosal is like complaining about the poisonous gas - chlorine - in table salt.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
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.
Given the above, I see this ruling to be the result of straight-up rear orifice covering by the drug companies. To rule that the autism was definitely NOT caused by vaccine when the cause in unknown is very suspicious. I wouldn't have a problem with them saying "We will not hear any more cases until you come up with real proof", but for them to say "Nothing to see here, please move along" raises the my TFH (Tin Foil Hat) level up a notch.
Disclaimer: My brother has Aspergers.
Have you ever seen an autistic kid? They might be a bit hyperactive, but for the most part, they could completely care less about whether they are friends with other kids or not. IT was explained to me thus: if a deaf kid or a blind kid took the autism communications diagnostic tests, they'd still pass because they do something to compensate for their communications shortcomings. The autistic kid doesn't even care.
This is my sig.
Ben Goldacre writes for the Guardian in the UK with his excellent Bad Science column. http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/bad-science-bingo/
He recently highlighted an ill informed rant by Jeni Barnett from LBC Radio on this issue of the MMR vaccine. They seem to be unaware of the Streisand effect in trying to shut him up and remove the clip from his website.
Autism rates went UP after the mercury containing compound (you didn't think it was metallic mercury, did you?) usage in vaccines was reduced.
Furthermore, Autism itself has no objective test. It's a "spectrum disorder" and diagnosis is based on symptoms. Historical numbers may not be comparable.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Well, I had an MMR vaccine and am not autistic, so my anecdote counters yours.
Unless you have some sort of evidence that actually links the disease to the disorder...?
Thats what peer reviews are for. Both peers and courts can be wrong, but I trust the peers more.
People have suggested a "Science Court" with science-savy judges and officiers as a possibility.
Not to mention the dangerously reactive metal sodium.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
+5 is not enough! One piece of anecdotal evidence does not disprove hundreds of studies.
Why is it so hard to understand that someone could have both received an MMR vaccine and been diagnosed with autism without there being any relation between the two? Most people with autism have had an MMR vaccine, just as most people without autism have had an MMR vaccine.
Where is the supposed plausible evidence?
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/02/autism_and_the_mmr_vaccine.html A psychiatrist explains why the original link between autism and the MMR vaccine was absolute junk science of the worst sort. It was a career jump for someone who made a fake link, and had already fudged the underlying data to boot. The fact that the guy isn't in jail is kind of amazing.
Oh, man! So if I get this for my newborn, he'll skip right from "toddler" to "young adult"? That would certainly make the parenting process easier! Thanks, Special master Hastings!
PS: uh, "special master"? Man, these new prescriptions are awesome!
So the government says their vaccines don't cause Autism and you can't sue the crap out of their friends in the pharmaceutical industry. No? Merck has been trying to make Gardasil mandatory. God know how much they spend on lobbying.
Yeah, I get why the court ruled the way they did. The thing I don't understand here is.. if vaccines actually work.. then why is it that the people who take them get all freaked out when you tell them you don't. If you believe they work and your child got one then you believe your child is safe from one that didn't get one right? Why mandate by law that every child get them?
I don't want to argue if they work or not.. I don't know, I'm not that smart.. all I want to ask is why can't people have a choice in the matter? What's with you anti-freedom Nazi's pushing vaccines on peoples children?
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Your 10-year old nephew knows nothing about medicine.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
a "state study"(?)(Statens beredning för medicinsk utvärdering.) concludes childrens vaccine "Safe and efficient". No link to autism. News stub in swedish: http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=58360&a=1440032&printerfriendly=true So, I'd urge believers of a link between autism and vaccination to start picketing the Swedish government, demanding some answers. Maybe that would get more debate into more homes, since as it is now, some parents are putting my child at risk (vaccines don't give 100% protection). Measels can make you retarded and/or dead.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
It is a commonly accepted theory among psychiatrists that autism is caused by genetic causes, and not by external causes like upbringing or other factors (like vaccines).
Many moons ago I worked at Chuck E. Cheese's as a door checker, guess how many times I got the flu over one winter even though I had the vaccine.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We don't know what causes autism, but a COURT DECIDED that this isn't what does it.
Whew! I was so worried that those rogue scientists and their foolish experiments might get a say in this. I'm glad the level headed non political process of the courts had the final say instead.
Next on the docket: I creationism a valid theory?
Am I the only one to think, "Wait a second, the court doesn't get to decide this."
Vaccines either did or didn't cause autism, and that's determined scientifically by looking at the evidence. What the court rules has no impact on whether or not vaccines cause autism.
That said, I'm glad to see a courtroom see reason for a change instead of finding in favor of the party with the best lawyers.
Question everything
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!)
No you don't. You just think you do. Welcome to the world of anecdotal evidence and the logical fallacy of "post hoc ergo propter hoc".
I don't know the validity of this one way or another, but what business does a court have in ruling the outcome of science? Isn't it based on facts? Isn't it the science that shows that this happens or it doesn't as a direct or indirect cause? Courts present opinions...
One wonders how many anti-vaxers are two or more generations removed from a threat. I mean, I can point to my parents and say, "My mom got polio as a child, and had rubella while pregnant. Thankfully, my sister was in the lucky unaffected minority; German Measles leads to severe side effects (including brain damage and blindness) in over 50% of affected children. My father lost a sister to measles."
Furthermore, my vaccinated husband caught whooping cough, presumably from someone who wasn't vaccinated. Vaccines do have a failure rate for whatever reason, and we rely on herd immunity to protect those for whom it does not take. My mother-in-law stayed up with him for two weeks, trying to keep him breathing.
Anyone who has heard stories like that when growing up doesn't doubt the need for vaccines. But one wonders if the anti-vaxers are living in a bubble, or never listened to stories like this from their parents or grandparents.
--okay.
One problem I have with trying to convince people about vaccines is explaining how herd immunity works. What I want is a little computer simulation that could be little more than particles moving randomly for a set period of time (equivalent to, say, two weeks.) Into this simulator is introduced a vector, an infected person. The rest of the particles are immunized according to whatever disease this is-- you know, with a particular rate of success of 85-95%. Then you show how it spreads, with the percentages of morbidity and mortality showing up at the end.
The point there is that I'd like this simulation to be adjustable-- you start off with an immunization rate of 95% (with whichever success rate is appropriate for that vaccine) and can change that rate to show what happens to the population as a whole when a portion of the population doesn't get vaccinated. Then you could show people how their "stand on principles" can lead to epidemic or pandemic conditions.
As you might guess, I am not a programmer. Anyone want to rise to the challenge?
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
I've got a 10-year old nephew that says otherwise.
What are his credentials?
Comment of the year
This dumb pseudo-science wholistic-alternative-nature-medicine nonsense and scaremongering is the true decadence present in developed societies.
Including those electro-sensitive assholes that trouble children by complaining and scaremongering about 100 mW WiFi hotspots in their kid's school.
I bet the Chinese will laugh their asses off when they hear about U.S. cities having outbreaks of measles. Measles, that the Chinese will have just eradicated by the time the first big outbreaks will hit the U.S.
Please improve science teaching in all levels of school and institute a mandatory insurance of say a few hundred bucks per year that covers treatment and quarantine, that people who are not vaccinated might need later in life.
Is this the same court system that ruled that cigarettes and nutrasweet don't cause cancer?
and your evidence for a link is....
While you're thinking, here are some actual facts.
I feel sorry for your nephew, but you have to accept that autism is naturally occuring and that there isn't always someone you can pin the blame on.
Up until the moment stupid people decide that imaginary man in the sky forbids it or that they just don't need it.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I've got a 10-year old nephew that says otherwise.
I'm sorry to hear about your nephew, but that's evidence of nothing.
Hypothetically, if I had a 10-year old nephew with autism that wasn't vaccinated, would that be proof that the vaccine would have prevented his autism?
Actually, so long as the unimmunized kids don't cross a certain threshold, population immunity makes it so they're not much of a risk.
Basically, so long as most people are immunized, those few who do get sick won't have anyone to spread the disease to, so it will die out right away, rather than becoming an epidemic.
That said, I think it's a really, really bad idea to skip vaccinations. I'd never do that to my kids if I had any.
I'm no expert, but I don't see how the mothers antibodies could be protecting the child after delivery[...]
From the Merck Manual Home Edition:
Obviously, this is anything but a comprehensive review of the relevant medical literature. I personally wonder how long actual antibodies last (as opposed to the immunity of which they are one facet). Hopefully, this has piqued your interest enough that you'll look deeper yourself.
But I could be wrong, maybe antibodies get through as well, it just doesn't seem likely.
How "likely" does it seem that you would have five classes of antibodies? I'm not going to beat you over the head about being wrong (which would make me, what, a bio-nazi?), but I will call you out for relying on supposition and gut feeling instead of doing even the most basic checking (not even "research") before spouting off.
If we collectively make fun of Ted Stevens for speaking "authoritatively" about things he does not understand in the least (series of tubes!), I would suggest that we are perfectly within our rights to call out each other for spouting equally ill-informed drivel about topics on which we have not bothered to read.
They work when the vast population takes them, since the disease won't be easily spread. But if there is a large portion of the population that isn't immunized, a lot of children with immunizations will get sick.
I forget the term for this, if there is a term.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
While it's looking more and more like autism isn't caused by the MMR vaccine it does seem that something that is integral to our modern way of life does cause it. Before I saw Rain Man I had never heard of Autism, now I have an autistic son, my ex has another autistic son, one of my best childhood friends has an autistic son, my GF has a son with asperger's, and there are others I am aware of within my community. This can't be explained by increased diagnosis and I didn't meet any of these people as a result of the condition. There is something that has entered our environment within the past half century or so that is causing an alarming rise in the incidence of autistic spectrum disorders. I don't know what it is, perhaps it's the foam padding in our furniture, or household cleaners, or chlorinated water supplies, or TV, or microwaves, or food additives. Perhaps it is vaccines and the pharmaceutical corporations are covering it up. I simply don't know.
That's nothing. I just drank an entire glass of a highly explosive substance mixed in a 2:1 ratio with an oxygenator!
Second, vaccines are tested much the same as any other medication -- a population is selected, (assuming a double blind study) some of the population is given the actual medication while the remainder is given a placebo, statistical methods are then applied to determine the safety level. While this method validates (or invalidates) the safety of any particular medication, it says nothing about the safety of medical cocktails. Young children (less than 2 years old) are often given multiple vaccinations during a single "well" visit. Nobody has even attempted to determine if these multiple, simultaneous vaccinations are safe.
Third, and to the point, there is scientific evidence that the rate of autism is more common now than in the past. Scientific heresy you say? Consider this: In 1975 a study was performed to look at bleeding during pregnancy as a risk factor for autism and childhood psychosis. Computerized records of 30,000 children born between 1959 and 1965 at 14 university-affiliated medical centers were examined (that is a huge sample). Fourteen children were identified as having autism (by the definition used in 1975) -- a rate of 4.7 children per 10,000. This rate matched perfectly with other contemporary studies. Additionally, 6 other children were labeled as disturbed, psychotic, autistic, or schizophrenic. The remaining children were considered cognitively normal. Labeling all the cognitively non-normal children as autistic gives a rate of 6.7 children per 10,000. This rate is _far_, _far_ below even the low-end estimate of 30 per 10,000 for autistic spectrum disorders today cited by the National Institute of Health. FYI, the study was published in the highly credible Journal of autism and Childhood Schizophrenia in 1975. This is an apples-to-apples comparison folks. The rate of childhood autism is definitely increasing.
Finally, the court can make any ruling it wants. That in no way determines the cause or treatment of autism or any other disease for that matter. What is does do is throw yet another monkey wrench into the lives of families that are already struggling to deal with their situations. Our tax dollars would be better spent on medical research to identify the true causes of diseases and effective treatments.
Yes, because N=1 trumps N=10,000 every time.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
I don't know do we?
Because our society has certainly decided that scientists can no longer decide scientific facts. If that were not the case, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
Over the last 10 years, US and UK have spent tens of millions of dollars to provide "negative proof" of something that we had already known, just to quiet down the conspiracy theorists. But instead of quieting them down, this has empowered them, by giving them and their claims legitimacy. Now, we're faced with a situation where childhood vaccination has taken a nosedive, and we're seeing old goodies like measles re-emerge into small (for now) epidemics. And as herd immunity is eroded further, we will see additional diseases make an impressive comeback.
So now that we took the right to make educated judgments about medical and scientific matters, away from doctors and scientists, we've also demonstrated that as a society we're incapable of making rational decisions... which isn't surprising. The only option left seems to be the courts, where reasonably educated judges may or may not rule according to the best data available. Well... at least there's a chance.
And for those who will scream at me about mercury in vaccines, why don't you compare a single or rare exposure to a tiny amount of mercury... to how much mercury you must feed to your children via fish... and corn syrup.
Wow, maybe you have identified places to look for the "unknown" environmental factor.
This is also why we need:
1. Strong regulators who are funded to independently research this sort of stuff when needed.
2. To stop fighting out these kinds of issues in lawsuits.
When a medical procedure or drug enters the market the introducer should pay to have it tested to show that it is safe. Once this is accepted, the onus should then be on the government to show that it is not safe (or that there was clear fraud). If a government rules that a product is safe a court should not be able to award damages.
The problem is now that anybody can come up with any theory they'd like and sue for billions of dollars in a class-action. This encourages:
1. Plaintiffs to come out of the woodwork with any crazy theory to make some money.
2. Companies to avoid even researching safety issues - not because the research would cost money but because the outcome would punish them with 20/20 hindsight.
Go ahead and force companies to do safety studies if you must, but the outcome should be products pulled from the market - not lawsuits. And fraud means outright fraud. If a company finds one data point that suggests that there might be a risk, but doesn't pull a product until a study is completed several years later, they shouldn't be punished for this. If you pulled a product every time somebody got sick from it there wouldn't be anything on your pharmacy shelves. Lawyers love 20/20 hindsight. Now, if a company completes a definitive study and buries the results that is fraud. If a company completes a study and there is controversy in the data, and the company honestly reports the data to a regulator and gets the nod to put a product on the market, that isn't fraud.
Okay...lets.
I don't have a source for the quote below but I believe it stands on its own; it brings another point of view to the issue: it isn't a matter of how much mercury is in corn syrup, a can of tuna, a single vaccine dose. It is a matter of dosage relative to weight: vaccines are dosed for *everyone* not 2 day old infants with a weight perhaps 3-5% of what their adult weight would be. This quote captures the essence of the issue with regards to vaccines and mercury content and provides an apt illustration for why it is a good thing that the stuff was removed from vaccines (other than the flu vaccine -- still in there):
And, for the record, this is still being debated even if the Courts believe there is no link:
http://www.usautism.org/USAAA_Newsletter/An_Epidemiological_Analysis_of_the_Autism_as_Mercury_Poisoning_Hypothesis1.pdf
Autism is certainly a complex disorder.
As I said, mercury is still used in the flu vaccine and even after thimerosal was removed from the vaccines it remained in the supply-chain for a number of years while stocks of vaccines were used up. It is also used during the manufacture of the vaccine and then removed at the end -- meaning it is *still* in there though in much lower amounts.
What is *really* funny to me is that most people spouting the value of vaccines have done very little research into the issue themselves; "vaccines" are a sacred cow that you are not supposed to challenge or speak out against. Most people have *never* read a
Personally I would call parents that are fighting against vaccinations as irresponsible and a danger to society.
I don't think it's reasonable to make a blanket statement like this as far as all vaccines go. Different vaccines pose different risks, and different diseases also have different risks. Once you get to a point where more people or animals are injured or killed by a vaccine than the disease it's combating, it's probably time to weigh those risks and consider ditching the immunization program.
That said, I'll add that I fully agree with teh sentiment of your statement, in the sense that many immunizations pose negligible risk when administered, while they combat diseases that can be rather dangerous. The MMR vaccine is one of those that EVEN IF THERE WAS A DEFINITE LINK (which of course there is no evidence of), it would STILL be worthwhile. The anti-MMR kooks are no better than any other religious acolytes. Nothing anyone says, no hard science is ever going to dissuade them. They believe, on faith, that autism is caused by the MMR vaccine, and it's impossible to prove a negative in this case, any more than it's possible to prove conclusively that God doesn't exist.
So what is society to do about them? Prosecute the "conscientious objectors" for the harm they cause. If they're making educated decisions, surely they know the risks that the diseases pose to not only their own kids, but also everyone who their kids are around. Having that vaccination paper would absolve them of liability in the event of an outbreak, but those without proof could and should be held liable for everyone's medical bills, parents' lost work, and pain and suffering of everyone involved. If we can hold those religious kooks who let their kids die of trivial conditions because they believe prayer is more powerful than medical attention, surely this is feasible.
I'll just add that I do understand these sorts of risks and liabilities. For example, after research and careful consideration of all the risk factors and so on, I chose to cease vaccinating my animals, which are as much my family as the humans. With the horses, their risk factors are extremely low with no legal repercussions. With my dog, however...rabies is a mandatory vaccination. It's also one of the more dangerous vaccines out there from an adverse reaction standpoint (anaphylaxis resulting in death isn't exactly rare with it). However, in my home state, rabies is a virtually nonexistent threat. It's extremely rare even in non-vaccinated wildlife (aside from bats). There have been maybe a couple dozen documented cases of rabies (in non-bat species) here since 1910 or whenever the records started being kept. That includes wildlife, humans, and domestic animals. The odds of any dog in this state, even that come into contact with wildlife, contracting rabies are negligible. It's a statistic quoted by the animal control people with the large municipalities that compliance with the vaccination/license laws is less than 30%, so it's a bit of a stretch to argue that the vaccinations are keeping the virus in-check (again, consider all the unvaccinated wildlife that don't have rabies, too).
Even in light of all that though, I'm painfully aware that if my dog was to ever bite a human, it would be her death sentence since I don't have her rabies papers, since law enforcement quarantines all non-vaccinated dogs who bite humans for a week or two to see if they manifest symptoms, and then kills them regardless and has their brains shipped off for rabies testing. It's barbaric, but that's the greedy veterinary lobby at work. I choose that risk because the health risks of the vaccine, coupled with the needless expense, just seem so ridiculous in comparison. And I will do everything in my power to make sure it never comes to a test.
Really guys, sometimes I feel glad that I live in a little bit more "socialist" country...
Here in Mexico, we have socialized health care, and all parents get a "national vaccinations card" for their kid along with their birth certificate.
This card has spaces for stamps of all the vaccinations kids have to get, along with the ages when you have to take your kid to get them. As part of the National Vaccination Program, the goverment gives all the vaccinations for free (except for the really new ones, like the HPV vaccine for girls)
"Oh, but I can ignore the card" you say? No, sorry... Your kid will be denied admission in a public school (and basically all the private schools too!) if the parents don't show that the kid has received all of the appropiate vaccinations for his/her age.
No sig for the moment.
He ran off to America. It's up to you guys to deal with him now.
I suggest releasing Smallpox into his neighbourhood and seeing how fast he changes his mind about vaccines.
thimerosal contains mercury, not lead. Also, table salt contains Sodium and Chlorine, both of which are highly toxic. Just because an element is dangerous in some forms, doesn't mean it is dangerous in every compound it is found in.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
If they want to find the results of Vaccs from autism then they need to look in the Colin!!! They are researching the brain! Its the colin thats holding all the mess from Vaccs!! Watch this video!! Ignorance is a shame!!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7018835240451107552&hl=en
A study of 10,000 Amish people found there are no autistic Amish people. Amish do not vaccinate. To me that is all the evidence I need right there.
This is a common urban legend. It is wrong at multiple levels. First, Amish do vaccinate albeit not as frequently as the general population. Second Amish do get autism at about the same rate as the general population. . So it fails at both levels. The claim of this sort originally claim from anecodatal evidence from Reporters' Dan Olmsted and David Kirby. See http://autism-news-beat.com/?p=29. Note that the Amish have a different environment from most Americans and have a very small genepool. So even if both claims were made
A court has determined there is no causal link between vaccinations and MMR.
In other news the National Institutes of Health has decided that when both civil and criminal charges are simultaneously brought on a case, if one is in federal court and the other in a state court, it does not constitute double jeapordy.
That would be relevant irony (OK, it's sarcasm) if the title (as in the original) were accurate. It's not. The court was a compensation court. They did not rule there was no causal link, they ruled that one could not be shown conclusively enough to award compensation.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I'm sorry, but even the rulings of a court can't define facts or reality!
Whether it is caused by the vaccine is solely to be determined trough researching the subject.
Well... I guess if you have enough power/money/religion, you can rule everything.
I should have bought that "Obey gravity! It's the law!" shirt.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Leonard Engel, a popular medical writer, stated in Harper's Magazine in 1954 that "the case against cigarettes is by no means proved" and that cigarettes may have "little or nothing to do with cancer of the lung."
The only words I can describe these postings with. There's a strong herd mentality I'm seeing here - that all parents with a fear of autism are not providing vaccination to their children, which is just as ridiculous a claim as the vaccination causing the autism to begin with.
For the record, I am a father of two children, one of which is autistic, and both of my children's vaccinations are up-to-date.
The issue isn't the vaccinations, the issue is the Thimerisol (and more specifically, the mercury component) content in the vaccination. Thimerisol is used as a preservative in the vaccine. The uproar is over the amount of Thimerisol (and hence, the amount of mercury) that a child is subjected to at any one time. Some parents have urged their doctors to stagger the vaccinations slightly as single injections of each type in the MMR vaccine. The net effect is the same, but the cost of doing so is higher, so most doctors (and HMOs) do not offer this - it's their way or the highway, and given you can't get a child into elementary school without vaccination records, most parents don't bother.
Regardless of the psuedo-science surrounding the connection between autism and the MMR vaccination series (and the attendant bad mojo/fallout in the form of increasing outbreaks), it still boggles the mind that we would knowingly inject children with a known toxin. Perhaps, for other reasons unrelated to autism, we should look at a different preservative? Of course, even though I am suggesting it for other reasons, that will be a very, very unpopular opinion.
People have suggested a "Science Court" with science-savy judges and officiers as a possibility.
They already tried a Science Court back in the late 90s but it proved unsuccessful and was canceled after only a year of operation.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The theory is that autism MAY be caused in some instances by thimerosal.
Newborns are now subjected to multiple vaccinations at birth, including Hepatitis B. Why in the world would you vaccinate a newborn for Hep B which is sexually or blood borne transmitted disease?
It's been documented that the total dosage exceeds the EPA maximum exposure of mercury. Is it a coincidence that the symptoms of autism mimic those of mercury poisoning?
Our family's life has been destroyed by this affliction. We have an 8 year old who is non-verbal, wears a diaper, and has done numerous damage to our house. We love him dearly but will soon have to institutionalize him because we can't handle him anymore.
Sometimes it's amazing to see the lack of compassion and flippant attitudes on this site.
The Skeptical Inquirer ran an article a little over a year ago about the anti-vax movement. Highly recommended reading.
I'm sorry about your child's autism... and the tremendous toll it has taken on your family, but I have to tell you - reading your comment has made me ever so sadder for our society.
Sir, the only place where either the value of vaccinations or any causative relationship between vaccines and autism are still debated, is in the public press and on the Internet. Anti-vaccination has become a subculture, that is so far off the chart of what is scientifically substantiated, that it is now the prime example of how people will eagerly buy into only the biggest lies.
I have over 12 years of experience in immunology and virology... I have 2 degrees in biology and biomedical science... and after very carefully examining the peer-reviewed primary literature in the matter of autism vs. vaccines, I have found zero evidence to show a positive causative relationship... not even a strong, statistically-significant correlation.
With regards to vaccines in general, to claim that their benefits are questionable is to render the last 50 years of research null and void. It's simply wrong.
I know that my post hasn't made life any better for your family, but I do hope that it can at least help to get you back on track. Honestly, we in the medical research community have only your interests at heart. We're not all part of a giant conspiracy, and if we knew something to be harmful, we'd have withdrawn it long ago. Not trusting us, simply because there are websites full of hate and stupidity that tell you so, is quite a bit like hating black people after reading Clan literature. Every bit as insane, and may be even more damaging.
Not all vaccines are of equal worth. I once got into a long discussion with my kids' pediatrician, in which he eloquently defended vaccines in general, but at the end he shook his head and said, "well, the chicken pox vaccine...that was sort of forced upon us by the pharmaceutical industry". His point was that chicken pox is not that dangerous a disease, and that exposure to it provides better immunization than the vaccine. But it's a lucrative little industry, and the disease itself is a huge inconvenience to working parents. So it became required, but the motivation was questionable.
Vaccines in general are hugely beneficial, but it's also healthy to question each one. The combination of an overly-protective government and a greedy pharmaceutical industry could be dangerous.
The Big Pharmonster strikes again!
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I thought it was obvious.
I was listening to a radio program on Sunday. Someone with the title "Doctor" was saying that what would help this person was a homeopathic remedy and that it was "science based". Later he said that colon clensing products were not very effective in some cases.
With a doctor like this, it is a clear sign that we have entered a period where science education in the US is pointless because people do not understand how to think. So if you think this decision will somehow deter any of the fruitless lawsuits or somehow encourage mothers to get their children vaccinated, you are wrong.
I've always wondered about the peculiar way in which americans regard autism. Over here in europe it is tought (and taught) as children's psychosis, and treated as such. This news would be roughly equivalent to trying to prove (or even propose!) that schizophrenia is caused by adult vaccinations. Sure, there are developmental theories about chemicals which might possibly alter brain development, but even THOSE theories suggest the effect has to be caused during intrauterine life. And nobody would even dare to put one of those theories'place above plain and simple genetic predisposition. Could anyone in the field help me understand why are these very unlikely theories about autism causes the source of oh so many studies and debates? Does the public not understand very well the disease? Do american psychyatrists see it as something other than children's psycosis or even a very similar schizophrenia?
to get their kids viral infections treated with antibiotics, thus killing people with the beautiful antibiotic resistant strains of diseases they've helped create.
Maybe this is a silly question, but how do antibiotics work on viruses?
Rubella has pretty much been eliminated from the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella#Prevention Of course with idiots like this it'll come back unfortunately.(Just damn sad that if they kept up the vaccine for a little while longer then nobody would need it.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
"Be thankful that people are fighting for right to choose what you do with your children."
Not in this case, not getting a child vaccinated hurts everyone. Non vaccinated children may cause mutations in a virus rendering the vaccines useless. This can not happen in a vaccinated child.
Communities getting sick is bad for economics, overall health.
"That said, the fact that science cannot find a cause for the incredibly rapid increase of autism in industrialized nations isn't helping matters."
That's incorrect. It is the broadening of the term. In fact, the 'increase' follows the broadening of the term exactly. In fact, when the vaccines where changed in 1998 it had NO impact on the 'autism' rate; which was expected.
"People are looking for a common link and keep coming to a solution that is common to these nations and immunization stands out."
It's no more a common link then drinking water is a common link. It was rational to think this 30+ years ago, not any more.
"It may not be true, but it isn't that irrational."
Based on all the evidence, and there is mountains of it, it is irrational to keep thinking vaccines are the cause.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, unvaccinated children can be a vector for a mutation that will render current vaccines useless.
Vaccinated kids can not be a vector. t's not possible.
Now when 95% of more of yout population is properly vaccinated, the odds of the vector is very, very low.
Do toy allergies and the fact that sometime(rare) vaccines don't take in some children we can't be at 100%
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Chicken pox isn't that serious in children, but it can be considerably more severe in adults, not to mention the virus becoming dormant and then reappearing later in life as shingles.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Chicken Pox cause death, brain damage, scars, and when your older they come back in the form of shingles. Shingles can be so painful that people have been know to kill themselves.
And the only reason not to give multiple vaccines in one shot is because you are a mean SoB that likes to see kids get poked with needles.
Please get a clue.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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!)
Mod this guy up. Thimerosal hasn't been used in first world vaccines for several years now. If it was the cause, we would have seen a precipitous drop in Autism cases.
It seems there is a lot of anger anger and rage on the part of people that want other
people to give vaccines to their children. This doesn't help people sort out the facts
and risks. There do seem to be some 'big picture' things that are getting over looked,
though not by everyone.
1) Should the courts (or any authoritative body) decide what is scientific fact for everyone
and allow no dissension or discussion? Courts (or authoritative bodies) are not
always right. The easy examples are wrongly convicted people and the fact that the
world is not flat (it's not, right?).
2) Public health decisions are often not in the individual's best interests. When you start
to research what is fact/fiction about vaccines you run into the term "herd protection". The
premiss being, that the vaccination might not be anything you need, but it's given to you
to protect someone else.
3) There are a lot of "non-vaccine" things in the shot. There is still mercury in some vaccines
(aka, Thiomersal), aluminum, etc., that are known toxins (heavy metals) that growing babies
are especially sensitive to.
4) The risks of not giving a particular vaccine may be very much higher or lower then another. A
lot of the fatal and horrendous outcomes that are sited for reasons why all vaccines should be given
are often from decades ago (before improved health care) or from areas where health care isn't
available or utilized. No one wants anyone to get any disease, but the impact of getting Chicken pox
is very different then getting Tetanus, so the decision about one vaccine may be different then for
another. If your child isn't going to be sexually active or an IV drug user in the first 1-6+ years of
life, does it really make sense to give HepB shot at birth just because "there are people that might not
ever see a doctor again"?
Assuming it's not about the inconvenience to the parents, do they really need to get it at 12 months while their bodies are still in rapid growth? Maybe wait a few years and if they don't get it naturally (thus giving them LIFE long immunity) then give them the vaccine?
I spoke to an autism activist.
I asked does it cluster geographically? No. So it isn't environmental.
I asked does it run in families? No, although parents of an autistic child are more likely to have another. So it isn't genetic.
Is it because of childhood vaccines? No, because Thiomersal has been eliminated from children's vaccines and diagnosis are still rising.
Why is it?
Part is due to people previously being labeled awkward being labeled autistic. Part is due to parents having children too late in life.
No one to sue, except maybe you.
This lady, Mary Tocco, has 5 non-vaccinated children with a husband. They both studied all the vaccines and found them to be of questionable cause. She has been in business for nearly 30 years. She is on the board to remove the "Philosophical Exemption" to not have children vaccinated; why do you suppose that is, or is philosophy and truth indistinguishable in the matter of vaccines having a negative effect?
Your call, visit her biography, buy what she knows for U$25 delivered DVD video that should be more helpful then all the video games that created the illusion that anti-vaccination argumentes are limited to quacks.
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By the sound of this board, most people believe vaccinations should be mandatory. If you feel you need the vaccines to protect yourself or your children, by all means get them. But don't go forcing your "the sky is falling" philosophy onto everyone else.
Besides, what does it matter if an epidemic breaks out? You and your children are completely immune. Be happy, there will be less traffic.
Stop calling truth an unreasonable philosophy.
Dr. Simoncini (http://cancerisafungus.com) remedied all cancer using sodium bicarbonate (Baking Soda). He's in jail for 4 years on unrelated charges.
Mary Tocco (http://www.marytocco.com/marytoccobio.htm) has over 20 years experience on the subject; she and her husband doesn't vaccinate their 5 children, and found philosophy & truth joined that the pre-dominant causes of vaccinating today that have caused all the ill health are in-effect more philosophical from ignorance as yours.
Mike Witort ( http://wakeupwell.org/ ) is perhaps the simplest man in existence yet more effective than all the others, specializing in nutritional remedies to correct the bodies absorption of necessary metals and proper digestion combined with lymphnode/endocrine -activating massage therapy and more knowledge blended of ancient Chinese and competing "theories" that you might not be capable of reasoning. He is constantly harassed, and has spent years in prison for following through in his ministry of good will.
Rick Simpson "Run From The Cure" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjhT9282-Tw ) has been growing acres of high-THC marijuana on his estate over at Canada and the the Royals arrive to uproot it all without charges; they don't charge him because he has affidavits in place and compurgatorial statements from people that were about to die and his "gamble" saved them; he uses typical "junk" science to refine Hemp oil with THC from the plants, and gives it to whomever is about to die. There were many people with less than 2 weeks estimated to live, and letting their skin absorb the THC oil or just ingest it would kill the nastiest of diseases. The Royal Mounted Police continues to harass because they think the Royals estimated theirselves a street value of $10k worth of plants goes into making half a cup of his thick resin. He doesn't sell it for smoke, and will not get a license because people like your philosophy is what makes the truth such a hindrance to license everything that is free and good.
All these people have 1 thing in common; they don't force anyone to abide, they just wait for you to receive them; free states. If you want to force people to accept innoculations, then you'll undoubtedly accept one of theirs in equal exchange to recompense the damages that occur.
I would login if I could, but Slashdot moderation has slandered (user ID account "nradude") this from being seen.
I approve this message,
without prejudice,
m. Gregory Thomas(tm).
Yes, I was vaccinated against small pox and polio and that was it. Caught measles, mumps and chickenpox. Never caught german measles which is a different disease from regular measles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_measles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
wow, whatever happened to the famous Slashdot saying "correlation does not equal causation"?
I guess only when you want it too...
It would be nice if it worked that way. Unfortunately the way it actually works is better demonstrated by the 2008 measles outbreak in San Diego. Some of the victims were too young to have gotten their measles vaccination.
The idiot parents who took their unvaccinated child to Switzerland and brought him back with the measles should feel free to stick to their beliefs.
They should also be forced to compensate their victims for any medical care, including lost time at work, and any costs incurred by the city, state, medical facilities, and the airlines because of their beliefs put a lot people at risk and cost the rest of us a lot of money.
Support SETI@home
That's the thing about the fringe -- it's just like the fringe on a jacket hem. Left or right, it doesn't matter: it goes all the way around.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
A smart guy I used to know once said to me ( and this is verbatim ) : "I owe it to the world to reproduce because my
genes are superior".
Well, guess what ? This arrogant jerk had a daughter, and she is profoundly autistic, and completely incapable of surviving without help for the rest of her life.
So much for those "superior genes" ...
And of course this guy is 100% on the "It's all the fault of the MMR vaccine" bandwagon, because of course his genes were
"superior".
And me ? I'm still laughing about it.
Oo, sorry, *double* fail there. Properly spelled (as it is in the OP), nativity is indeed a word in the English language, as evidenced by entries in dictionaries such as, say, Wiktionary, or Merriam-Webster. However, given that it means "birth" (and usually Jesus' birth at that, c.f. Christmas dioramas), you're probably right that the OP meant naïveté instead. :)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The people who are claiming that government mandated vaccinations resulted in their child's autism are typically the same people who would claim that the government is responsible for their child being afflicted with a disease because the vaccination wasn't mandated.
The vaccines themselves don't cause autism.
The mercury in them (and all flu vaccines) do.
I'm in the same jizzboat too, brother err is it sister(I recently found out that females too can shoot a wad once a month)? Maybe we can make an aquaintence over breakfest. I like eggs, get to work.
You dare devil you!
Of course the "good" news is that since there's a biologically plausible link between a reduction in herd immunity and an increase in epidemic outbreaks, any one whose child is killed or damaged by one of these outbreaks will be able to sue the anti-vaccination groups, right?
I mean, if their activities led to the increased risk, they'll be sure to want to be held responsible. Won't they?
Anything else would be hypocritical.
I am really sick and tired of hearing about how "mercury"/vaccinations caused Autism in my own son. It is something that could have caused it, but I don't care. He is still my son, and I will learn to adapt, improvise and overcome. I will, as a parent, take care of my son, and move on, and continue to find the best schools and care for him. I will ensure that he has is afforded the opportunity to live a fulfilling life. Life always gives you twists and turns. Deal with it and move on.
Not everybody who enters the US from a foreign country is an immigrant, illegal or otherwise.
You mean, something to the effect that he was a normal, healthy, happy boy before he got the vaccine. Then he got sick right after the vaccine, and subsequently developed the signs and symptoms associated with autistic behaviour?
From the Canadian public health agency:
"Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative used in many vaccines. In large concentrations, or over extended periods of exposure, mercury can cause damage to the brain and the kidneys."
"Nevertheless, NACI has recommended a long-term goal of removing thimersol from vaccines, provided that safe alternatives to this preservative can be found. This will help to reduce unnecessary environmental exposure to mercury."
While it is smart PR to state that there is no "proven" link, Kids are nevertheless getting caught in the grip of this poison. It is to me, somewhat telling that the agency is pushing for the removal of Mercury in these drugs. Me, I'm sort of a fan of not having mercury voluntarily injected into either myself or my child.
Quick question. What's so bad about measles anyway ?
When I was a kid I had chicken pox, measles, mumps, impetigo etc. etc. You name it I had it. Us kids used to be actively sent to play at the house of the local "kid who had disease X" just so we'd get it too. Similarly we also used to play out in the dirt on our local farm and were no strangers to riding on cows, horses etc.
In later life I seem to do quite well regarding diseases and very rarely get any of the colds/flu etc. that "go round" from time to time. Personally I've always put this down to my immune system having been toughened up by all the childhood diseases.
Full disclosure: In case you haven't guessed, I'm the parent of an autistic child and my wife and I have chosen *not* to vaccinate. It is an informed decision arrived at after much research and consideration.
The problem here is that a large part of the research families of autistic (and not autistic) children have been given was gathered around the work of Andrew Wakefield, who has recently been found to have outright fabricated his evidence linking the MMR vaccine to autism.
Why his story isn't being reported louder, I don't know, but this is the unethical and immoral tool who has convinced so many families to put the health of their children and of society's children as a whole, at risk.
You were lied to. It's not your fault, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't re-examine the situation.
Worrying about the mercury in Thimerosal is like complaining about the poisonous gas - chlorine - in table salt.
It's exactly like that, except that you can bathe in seas of salt with no ill effects. Try bathing in Thiomersol if you think it's so safe.
In case you didn't know, Thiomersol is toxic in any quantities. The LD50 is high enough that it can be used to preserve vaccines, but any quantity causes harm.
FWIW, I would be very interested in the research you conducted when arriving at your conclusion to not vaccinate. I will be having children soon, and have read the anti-vaccine stories. However research has dictated there is no correlation between vaccines and autism, and I believe it.
Disclosure: I am a scientist in the medical field and while I don't work on vaccines and toxins, I am familiar with statistical methods used to arrive at these conclusions.
When you were a kid, they didn't make a point of telling you, "You could die or suffer permanent brain damage from this disease." It was unavoidable, so why scare the kid? Just cross your fingers and hope he comes through it OK. Better to get it early, because the risk rises with age.
Here is a software analogy to vaccination, thinking of a vaccine like a software patch. These are the sorts of meta issues that are rarely discussed when focusing on pseudo-arguments about the results of specific studies.
Vaccinations are like software patches that are proprietary closed-source products, that companies make money off of selling, and that patch installation service providers use to drive business throughput for their other services. Much of the regulation of these patches is done by people who have a direct or indirect commercial stake in this industry and convincing people they need the patch.
Vaccinations are like software patches that are generally released with only testing against a small population of software environments; this is like Microsoft releasing a single patch for everyone which modifies *all* x86 PC software in the world (including everything on GNU/Linux) after having tested it on a few versions of Windows and looking at the performance afterwards of a few major applications over a few months or a couple years. Anything a few years down the road is considered not to be related to the patch and in any case would be hard to prove.
Vaccinations are like software patches that you can't back out -- ever.
Vaccinations are like software patches that change their code (formulation and quality control) year to year even if they are said to be to prevent the same problem, with claims for the "safe and effective" nature of previous patches being used to justify claims about new untested patches from this year's batch.
Vaccinations are like software patches that claim to be effective against last years trojan or worm or virus, ignoring the fact that trojans and worms and viruses mutate.
Vaccinations are like software patches that usually only work in a positive way for ten years or so.
Vaccination are like software patches that might be pushing some unknown limit of total patches that can be accepted and still have decent computing performance in the face of new demands on the system.
Vaccinations are like software patches that are built on a culture of patching security vulnerabilities without ever emphasizing basic security precautions like using encryption or administrator-level authentication. For example, extended breastfeeding through the toddler years promotes the general immunological wellbeing of a person for life: :-)
http://www.llli.org//NB/NBextended.html
Thus, one might think infant formula should be prescription only (for rare special cases) since formula decreases "herd immunity", but formula is available everywhere without a prescription, showing a double standard here. Chances are about half of US slashdotters were raised entirely on formula and will create a lifetime infection risk for everyone around them as well as suffer from worse health. Yet, formula feeding is supposedly "a matter of personal choice" and was promoted by the medical care community in the past and continues to be heavily promoted among new parents by that industry. Similarly, good nutrition, enough sleep, avoiding bad stress but having enough good stress, having face-to-face friends, and similar things, promote wellness, but junk food, allnighters, programming death marches, and spending too much time on slashdot are all legal.
There are a bunch more analogies one could make, thought they are more abstract, related to co-evolution or auto-immune disorders.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9115571
Anyway, the bigger picture is being missed here it seems to me. That is why it is so hard to assess risk versus reward. That is not to argue that any specific vaccine or schedule has any specific consequence, although administering HepB vaccine at birth to children of non-positive mothers certainly seems questionable to me.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Thankfully there is a cure for Autism, it's called spanking.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Women over 30 impart increased risks to their children as far as other ailments and diseases go. Has Autism been investigated as having anything to do with the mother's age when the baby is delivered?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Sadly most people don't know whats in vaccines. Most of you who keep saying that vaccines are completely safe are sadly ignorant to the fact that one of the most poisonous substances known is a preservative in most if not all vaccines. Thiomersal which is ethyl mercury, is the main preservative found in vaccines. Some people think this preservative was taken out but Bush never signed the mercury ban from vaccines. Ive even seen news reports on TV about how they say mercury is good for you and the vaccines are nothing to worry about. Thats a bunch of shi- to me.
The MMR shots are worthless anyway. Those diseases are harmless childhood diseases like chicken pox. You would get them as a kid and develop an immunity naturally and never get them again.
Another deception is the fact that the schools and state governments try and tell you that vaccines are mandatory for school attendance. This is complete and utter trash. All you need to do is sign a waiver and your child doesn't need to take the vaccination. But they never inform you of this.
Its a whole lot of lies and bullshit.
bump
The judges did not make any claims about what does or does not cause autism. They just ruled that the people suing had no proof that vacines caused autism. But if any proof appears in the future, they are free to open their case back up then.
I'm sorry my nine-byte, one-line, hand-typed, sig without so much as a hyperlink or inane quote is so disturbing to you. I'll make sure to fix that right away. And I'll talk to Taco to ensure my decade's worth of posts here are edited to remove this offense to the eyes.
Or maybe I won't.
SirWired
...but not the figure.
So how did they arrive at the figure for the "herd immunity threshold"...
Wait, I'm confused. Didn't the government concede that some kids (Hannah Polling specifically, and in general those with mitochondrial disorders) can have such adverse reactions to vaccines as to induce or contribute to Autism. Isn't there a government "vaccination injury compensation" program? Didn't the Polling family get compensated from this program for her autism? I'm getting conflicting messages here. One court rules one way, another court rules another. Both sides point to the ruling that they previously believed in. That doesn't sound very scientific to me. The AAP says that it is "unproven" that there is a link between autism and vaccines. That is very different than saying that it is proven that there is not link. Also, haven't children died from vaccines? Yes, there are plenty of merits to vaccinations. But please, don't claim that they're safe or that we know all of the consequences of them. If you want to claim acceptable loses. That is fine too; at least that's honest. Since we have proven (err. I mean the courts have ruled) that vaccines can be too much for kids with mitochondrial disorders, wouldn't it be better if we tested for mitochondrial disorders before administering vaccines?