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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."'
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.
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
Why not? The media industry decides on the law.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Where have you been? Courts have always not only made medical decisions, but ones in various other areas of science, too, when there is a dispute. What exactly do you think forensics are, anyway? They do the same things courts have always done - rely on expert witnesses. As soon as you come up with a better way to correctly solve disputes involving factual claims, please do let the world know.
Not a formal study. But sighted people using the internet make a strong case in favor of "no link".
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
Why not? The media industry decides on the law.
OK, if I'm following this that means:
Media -> Law -> Courts -> Science
So the Media now defines science?... of course now that I think about it, that's probably not to far from the truth for a distressingly large portion of the population.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
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.
No.. Courts make decisions based on evidence. Like in this case where there's no evidence supporting the claim that vaccines cause autism.
I have nothing compelling to say
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.
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.
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.
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.
No, and they don't. They've used science as evidence in a ruling. Pay attention.
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
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.
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 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.
Who else should have the final say in a damage claim? Parents accuse the producer of the vaccine to have done damage to their children by causing their autism with the vaccine. The producer claims to be innocent. That's definitely something for a court to decide.
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!
But we didn't know the courts were going to listen to reason rather than urban legends and charlatans.
No, the lack of thoes vacines is a leading indicator for...
Children killed or brain damaged by their idiot parents.
Yeah, it's funny that once they got rid of the supposedly "bad" stuff in vaccinations (thimerosol), not only did autism rates not go down... they kept getting [i]higher[/i].
Obviously, something in our environment is making autism rates climb. But it doesn't look like it's the thimerosol. Even if it is from mercury (which I don't know of any data showing that it is), it seems to be mercury from some other source, not from thimerosol.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
And when smallpox kills a few million 20 years after that, who do I get to sue?
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.
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."
And when the kids catch these horrible diseases what then?
The parents will say, "Sorry we didn't know, we thought we knew best." Do the kids then get to say to the parents: "fuck you, you will pay horrifically for what you did us" ?
Just curious.
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)
Do we really want courts deciding scientific fact?
I'm not seeing this the same way you are. What happened here is the court judged the evidence for vaccines causing autism as insufficient. In same way the court decided that 'intelligent design' was not sufficiently scientific to be taught in science classes, I suppose. The door is still open for the vaccine advocates to prove their case... but they have to do the research.
You are right, that was a 100% flamebait post, not a troll. Except of course, the connotation of a troll is that they are someone who consistantly posts inflamitory crap without bothering to add anything to the topic other than vitrol. So maybe we should see if someone else with mod points can balance it out, 50/50 troll and flamebait.
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".
"This is why I hesitate to let "experts" force major social projects on us. "
So instead of "experts" you want people with no real education in the subject, no real facts, and a lot of fear and guess work to decide?
We know that vaccines don't cause autism. Just about every kid has been vaccinated and they don't all have it.
Vaccines could contribute to it but so could a lot of things. I blame DVDs myself. The huge increase in autism started when DVDs started to replace video tapes.
So we should also ban DVDs.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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
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.
Amish people are far less likely to be involved in automobile accidents than the general population. Amish do not vaccinate, therefore vaccinations cause automobile accidents..
Do I need to spell out the sloppy thinking ?
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?
This is why I hesitate to let "experts" force major social projects on us.
But you do this every day. The specifications for fuel containers, electricity transmission, microwave usage, drugs, food, drink as all brought about from open public discussion around a set of targeted studies. There are thousands of risks you take every day based on the statements of experts that set the margin for error as low as society wants, including the squabbling over the last few percentage points.
If there's a link between vaccines and autism 20 years from now, then *society itself* will have learned something. You may be horrified, but this occurs every day, and plenty of children & adults "pay" for these mistakes. Lead paint, drugs come and go, gaseous output from industry, heavy metals in manufacturing, etc. Lots of exposure to the "safe" chemicals we make and use every day will undoubtedly have new effects learned about them in the future, and some will be negative.
You are not living in the future, nor is society omnipotent. You can do your best to push the discoveries along as fast as possible, but you're going to have to accept your place in history, as we all. For example: you skipped the century of common transmission of animal-borne diseases in congested cities, but are now living in the century of plastic, fossil fuels and biological experimentation. There may never be a time when your actions don't involve some calculated risk, where you didn't do the calculations yourself.
Right now, there is no observable link between vaccines and autism, and there may never be. Fund more studies if you want, but don't skip the vaccines, you're just butting heads with society in general.
Did you think before you typed that?
Take DNA for example. The courts have generally accepted that DNA is a unique identifier and that there are equipment out there that can determine if one sample of DNA matches another. Furthermore, the courts have accepted statistical data on the uniqueness of the DNA sample.
The question on whether the DNA evidence was collected and analyzed properly is typically a case by case issue.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frye_test and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daubert_standard
Are you suggesting the courts don't allow scientific evidence and instead rely on ...?
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
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.
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.
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."
I'm pretty certain the the plagues we'd suffer in the meantime through lack of vaccine uptake would deal with any sceptics nicely.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
A study of 10,000 non-Amish people found that none of those people had seizures after the vaccine. To me that is all the evidence I need right there.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
The courts are simply (and fortunately) ruling based on the science. The studies are very clear, these vaccines do not cause autism. I feel very sorry for these families, but they (and their lawyers) have been trumpeting pseudoscience in a vain attempt to find a single target to blame.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And the local public school district is still letting her attend?
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
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...
Presently there is absolutely no medical evidence to support this. Lots of kids get these vaccines and are OK. The percentage of kids who gets these vaccines and develop autism is the same percentage of kids who get autism just because it happens.
The only evidence that shows these vaccines may cause autism are the babbling chatter of actors/actresses like Jenny McCarthy, who frequently loves to go on insane rants/shout vests against doctors/scientists - telling them they are wrong and she is right.
Autism is horrible, so is your kid dying of meals, mumps, chicken pox, etc. Let's not spread hype/garbage.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
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.
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.
Well neither the husband nor the doctor played much of a role in the child's prenatal development, did they? Put yourself in Mom's position - she has to endure the feelings of guilt and inadequacy, not the sperm donor. As such she will naturally grasp any other explanation for the disorder, be it vaccines, overhead power lines, fluoride in the water, bug spray on her food, etc.
It's the same reason we have these absurdly nebulous diagnoses such as Autism in the first place. We've even got "mild autism" if you can't handle the full euphemism. Maybe it was a meaningful diagnosis when it had a much narrower definition, but now it's used as an umbrella for everything from practically braindead to a little slow to even just "doesn't talk much". It's become like ADD or the "learning disability" they'd have if they were a little older.
I have empathy for these families, but I don't think we're doing them any favors by constantly seeking different labels for everything, or using pseudoscience and finger-pointing to find a scapegoat for poor health, genetics, or luck.
You make it sound like they put pure mercury into them. Ethylmercury does not bioaccumulate like the more dangerous methylmercury which is NOT in vaccines. Even upon removing it there was no real change in autism rates. The last statement though is a current area of research--there may very well be some environmental factor. Certainly the environment we live in today is far different than that of the past; there are whole hosts of new chemicals ingested by mothers or infants, food sources have different levels of heavy metals in them etc. That is why there is currently a large scale national study getting launched to try and figure out some of these potential environmental factors since the vaccine route was long ago dismissed.
that's for scientist to worry about.
Wait - you didn't finish:
And scientists have shown no link between autism and the vaccine besides the fact that autism happens to human children and vaccines are given to human children.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.
Also in the context of this court case, the court did not specifically conclude MMR does not cause autism. The three masters decided that the plaintiffs could not meet a minimum burden of proof that a link existed. The plaintiffs did not have to prove that MMR caused autism; all they had to prove was that there is a plausible link. They failed to do that.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
From what I can tell, the media defines pretty much everything.
Both have about the same amount of proof either way.
(citation needed)
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
You are correct, a judge is not an expert (unless he happens to have been a scientist in the field, not likely). But the judge did look at medical experts testimony and apparantly none of them are saying it is the fault of vaccines...that should mean something. The judge has access to qualified people - he is regurgitating their expert testimony and turning that into judicial law/precedent with his ruling that concurs with them.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Do the kids then get to say to the parents: "fuck you, you will pay horrifically for what you did us" ? You must not have older kids yet.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
Uhm...water is a chemical... h2o (lower-case so o is not mistaken for zero).
The parents concern is stirred with the timing..autism and vaccinations happen around the same time, so they are using the logical fallacy "Post hoc ergo propert hoc". They are confused, frustrated and don't know any better - and there is always a lawyer or extremist looking to use that to their advantage.
Another thing that gives them a basis is that chemicals are injected into their kids at the same time, and they believe there is a bad interaction...then throw in the word "mercury" - known for poisoning people and it is not hard to understand why people, who are confused, frustrated and don't know any better are pointing fingers at vaccinations.
Given that - we need to slap around the idiots who like to argue in the face of evidence instead of hiring scientists to research and prove their claims.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Watch out -- that's the cancer cluster myth. In any population, random events will not be uniformly distributed throughout the population, but will sometimes cluster. People in the cluster then look for a reason behind the cluster instead of recognizing it for what it is -- a product of randomness.
In answer to the first question, the special masters (3 of them in 3 different cases) said that the current scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that there is no link between childhood vaccines and autism.
In the original study that showed some sort of a link, it was later discovered that 7 out of the 8 affected kids showed indications of autism before getting the vacccines.
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.
The theory I have had is that autism is a genetic trait. I see it woefully common that people with severe problems are children of one or both parents who had only marginal problems.
I think the rise in autism, then, is 1) increased social acceptance of differences, 2) changes in "mating patterns", 3) the ease of finding like-minded individuals.
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.
But with today's laws it is very difficult to follow them all without being a lawyer.
Sugar does not cause hyperactivity!
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=52516
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.
If only I had mod points...
Having worked in autism research for 5 years, just determining which potential research subjects were "autistic" enough was a challenge. Using all the standard measures (ADI, ADOS, language abilities tests, etc.) wasn't always enough. Clincal judgement plays a huge role.
I wouldn't say that the definition of autism has broadened, but rather autism is now considered a spectrum of disorders. It's more of a catch-all rather than a disorder in and of itself.
In my time in autism research, I also saw that people were pushing hard to get their mildly affected kids officially diagnosed so that they would be able to get special services. The problem here is that the schools would refuse to provide services to kids who didn't get the diagnosis, and then kick the kids out of school when they would be disruptive. So the parents were left with no alternative but seek a doctor that would give them what they wanted.
You idiots rated this guy insightful? He's just a troll. Autism is not about sugar. My son has autism, (but not ADHD) and it has nothing to do with sugar. Spend sometime with these kids and watch them struggle through life, before you spout your idiotic nonsense.
Damn, I wish I had some moderation points today..
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.
Don't forget the study showing that older parents are more likely to produce offspring with autism. Oh, and fertility treatments seem to be linked as well.
So increased detection, better understanding of the disease, people having children later in life, and increased use of fertility treatments would all seem to have some effect.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
Peanut Butter?
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.
Wrong! It is pretty clear that autism is more common than before and it seems to be something in the environment, but we do not know what, from Scientific American:
Read more here: New Study:>Autism Linked to Environment: Scientific American
The amish get autism. See here:
http://autism-news-beat.com/?p=29
why is it everyone thinks this is an 'in for a penny in for a pound' issue?
Small pox vaccine for 5 yo = good idea...
Chicken pox vaccine for a 5 yo = wtf?
whooping cough vaccine for infants = good idea
barely tested hpv vaccine for 9yo girls = wtf?
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
You're causing a serious problem in the community entirely because you're some combination of selfish and stupid. Of course you can get away with not vaccinating for some contagious disease, because you're a free rider on everyone else doing it.
There's some small risk in vaccination (very small, but it exists). You want eveyone else's kids to take the risk so that your kid doesn't have to. That's evil. Plain, simple, selfish, evil. Stop hurting other family's children to protect your own - you benefit from society in so many ways, you need to participate in society where it really matters.
This isn't "do your part, recycle" or some other BS, this is your very real duty to protect all children in society by taking a very slight risk with your own.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Wait, what is the problem? Either the kids actually have Autism and doctors should have diagnosed them, or parents of disruptive kids without Autism need get their kids to behave. Maybe you worded it wrongly, but it sounds like you are saying the problem is that schools are refusing to provide services to kids who don't need those services. That's not a problem. If the kid isn't Autistic, he shouldn't be treated as if he is. If a kid isn't Autistic and is being disruptive, he should be kicked out and the parents should be told to deal with that, not shop around for a doctor willing to misdiagnose just so the parents can claim that their non-Autistic kid isn't really a bad person.
Or are your really suggesting that the problem is doctors need to do a better job of detecting earlier so that autistic kids can get the services they need? I'm really not sure. Please clarify.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Huh? Since when is it evil to care about your family over someone whom you don't know? Seriously, I could give a damn about a family I don't know. I want MY friends and family to survive.
I can also argue that you're being selfish; forcing one person to get a vaccine, for which you acknowledge a risk, for their kid so YOURS isn't in risk. THAT is selfish; expecting someone else to risk their kid for yours.
You're misunderstanding. Autism is generally regarded as a spectrum of disorder, from those with mild behavioural difficulties all the way to those who cannot function independently in society. It's not something that can be an 'is or is not' like, e.g. Down's Syndrome.
At the mild end of the spectrum it can be really difficult, and quite subjective, to differentiate mild autism from simple naughty behaviour, and it is often when the child gets a bit older that the diagnosis is much clearer because their level of social functioning becomes much more apparent compared to those around them.
'Braver' doctors will overdiagnose and get the occasional complaint from parents saying "you labelled my child and now they're fine" because they had non-autistic spectrum behaviour problems that they grew out of. More conservative doctors will choose to watch and wait then get occasional complaints that they should have seen something subtle earlier - in fact, they probably did but decided to hold off.
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?
Obviously, something in our environment is making autism rates climb. But it doesn't look like it's the thimerosol. Even if it is from mercury (which I don't know of any data showing that it is), it seems to be mercury from some other source, not from thimerosol.
Well, there are some people in the medical community claiming that fetal diagnostic ultra sounds, whose usage has increased significantly in recent years, may in fact account for increased incidence of autism in children.
The theory is based on thermal effects of ultra sounds. Presumably heating neural tissue in early development phases by even 1 degree is quite bad. This is actually confirmed on mice studies.
However, on the other hand, there are other people in the medical community who do not buy this argument and claim that ultra sounds are 100% safe, and that human fetuses (unlike mice) are well protected by inches of mother's tissue, and larger amount of amniotic fluid, and that ultra sounds are not focused narrowly enough to actually heat the fetus (or embryo).
I guess Google search on the topic could be interesting but inconclusive.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
"You're causing a serious problem in the community entirely because you're some combination of selfish and stupid."
Did I say I am not going to get them vaccinated *or* did I say I wanted to wait until they had their own functional immune systems.
"There's some small risk in vaccination (very small, but it exists)."
There are risks either way and with the exception of things like Polio nothing should be mandated.
"You want everyone else's kids to take the risk so that your kid doesn't have to. That's evil."
Sigh... yea that's just what I said.. its not like I said I was going to look into it again when they were a touch older or anything I must be some selfish bastard. I did start immunizations on my first kid just when the doc said I should.... she had a terrible allergic reaction here is a clue those are more dangerous in infants and small kids than they are in older kids and adults.
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
Seriously, I could give a damn about a family I don't know. I want MY friends and family to survive.
Good point! Give me all your money. Now. I don't give a damn about your family that I don't know. I want MY friends and family to have money.
I can also argue that you're being selfish; forcing one person to get a vaccine, for which you acknowledge a risk, for their kid so YOURS isn't in risk.
Call me selfish, then. I'm also collecting tax money from you to fund my kids' schools. I'm a right bastard, aren't I?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I've started to wonder if the reason earlier cultures had some of those bad evil non-pc ideas wasn't to just be mean evil patriarchal societies.
Maybe they figured out that bad things tended to happen if they had too many engineers having kids with other engineers. That it was better keep similar occupation men and women apart so you'd get the mathematically minded engineer procreating with the socially orientated receptionist. Like the shallow/deep roller spiel in Red Dragon (or was it Hannibal?). Shallow/Shallow or Shallow/Deep was okay. Deep/Deep, not so much...
And the local public school district is still letting her attend?
Why not? It's not like she could spread a disease to the other kids; they're all vaccinated!
And in fact the kid herself is probably safe, since just about everyone who could give her the diseases is vaccinated. This is called 'herd immunity' and it's pretty effective.
It's okay for some people to not be vaccinated, either due to medical reasons (allergic reactions etc) or the parents simply not wanting their kid vaccinated due to risk of autism or government conspiracy or whatever comes into their heads. Some people. The problem with these anti-vaccination movements is that if they spread and many people are convinced not to vaccinate their children, then the whole situation changes as now there's a significant sub-population for a disease to infect and spread in.
And seriously, these poor deluded bastards have no freaking clue of the hell they'll be unleashing on their children and children's children if they have their way, and something like smallpox makes a comeback. Whatever the small increase in autism rates even the believers put forward doesn't compare to the millions and millions who will die.
The enemies of Democracy are
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!)
Herd immunity, if you get enough people vaccinated, even those few without protection, are protected and you can basically force a disease into non-existence, if on the other side you don't get enough people vaccinated herd immunity no longer works and people will die as a result of that.
Its also questionable if freedom should allow you to let your child suffer and possibly die if a cure exists.
There's these things you might have noticed on your wife. Likely, to you, they're little pleasure apples of delight. But they also, when the hormones are just right, begin secreting a white, milky fluid, which babies are known to be fond of.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Oh, don't sell yourself short. And anyway you don't need to be an expert, or anywhere near, to have an opinion round these here parts.
Yes, it's preposterous. For one thing, how would those alleged antibodies be transported? Teleportation aside, it would require some substance that passes from the mother to the baby on a regular basis to act as a carrier.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I offer you my non-existent mod-points.
I was diagnosed with asperger's disorder 5 or 6 years ago. On the whole, my life has not been affected in any major way. While I can identify some of the signs quite easily, and I definitely have problems socializing, I would not say this somehow makes me all that far off from your usual nerd. Yes, I'm a shut-in, for the most part, with nothing but the cold glow of my LCD monitor to keep me warm, but, again, I'm posting on /. so no surprise.
Kidding aside, the doctor who diagnosed me said it was obvious to see, but that it is not so much a condition as it is a personality trait. He explained how autism is a spectrum and how severe it can be. I wasn't doomed to a life at the end of the short bus nor was I "gifted" with incredible genius the likes of which man has never seen, despite what the average idiot and mother thinks, respectively.
In most places I go, I can't mention the diagnosis without being mocked and told that I think I'm a "special little snowflake" blaming all of his problems and social defects on a made-up disease. It's really annoying.
I guess I'm just trying to say... it's better to be more conservative with the diagnosis as you showed, and to remind people that it's not necessarily a world-shattering condition in many cases.
Because as the percentage of people who don't get their children vaccinated grows, the likelihood of an outbreak increases greatly, as well as the chance of mutation which could render the vaccine ineffective.
They -do- work. They're necessary, unless you like the thought of easily preventable diseases ripping through schools full of young children, far more of whom will die of the disease than are suspected of having been afflicted with autism because of them.
Sugar does not cause hyperactivity!
Geeze, alright it doesn't, lay off the sugar already.
The enemies of Democracy are
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.
And if evidence does appear, the ruling can be overturned. It's a pretty straightforward system.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That's one possibility (and it might be a very good one; I'm not disputing that). But, there is another possibility, which is that the rate of incidence of autism has stayed the same, but that our ability to diagnose it has increased. How many people that we call "autistic" today would have just been called "weird" or "slow" 50 years ago?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
What's up with the tag-slaying lately?
Getting rid of the chaff. Tags are for simple notification purposes (e.g. 'dup' for duplicates) or for search engines. They're not there to give glib compound word opinions, like 'wealreadyknewthat'.
Not a typewriter
Only if it is modded +5 Insightful.
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.
Troll Much?
Vaccinations are mandatory because freedom loving hippy trippers that don't consider the costs to other people's children decide not to get their brats vaccinated. And those brats infect other hippytripper brats, and those.... Wait. Could your stupidity actually be coming back on your children?
The reason people get "freaked out" when YOU tell them that YOU don't vaccinate YOUR kids is not because they are scared for their own kids. It's because of YOUR failure to protect your children from:
1. Measles - causes facial scarring, corneal scarring, and blindness
2. Mumps - can cause infertility on older victims
3. Polio - cripples children. Completely. Paralysis and often Death for those that contract it
4. Smallpox - Facial scarring, blindness, limb deformities, paralysis.
You see, they are actually recoiling in horror at what a despicable, inhuman, horrible parent you are. Children face risks. Lots of them. Before adequate medical care, clean water, and all the other modern conveniences (starting about the 1900s), lots of children died before their 5th birthday. And you have just increased their risks from our wonderful 2009 statistics back to the 1909 statistics. Not vaccinating your child opens them up to all of this, Vaccinating opens them up to a tiny risk. Easy FREAKING choice.
My two cents: You should be locked up for child endangerment if you don't vaccinate.
~Sticky
Yes, I've seen Serenity. In fact I own it, its a good movie.
They thought they had a cure for social strife, which easily kills more people that contagious diseases do..
I've also seen "The Last Man on Earth" and "The Stand". If we can go to fiction land the pendulum swings both ways.
In the real world something like smallpox has killed more people in a day than all the vaccines administered in the last 100 years combined.
Even if the odds of the vaccination killing you are 1:10,000,000 and the odds of the disease killing you are 1:1,000,000 you common sense dictates you should take the vaccination.
Normally, after "in other words", one writes a summary of what he's responding to, literally restating the same point in other words.
What you've done, however, is write "in other words" followed by something completely different from what the parent said. Nice try, but you're doing it wrong.
The parent's point regarding herd immunity was that vaccination works not only for the person who gets vaccinated, but also for other members of the community who don't get vaccinated. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, you're not only making it more likely that he'll get sick, you're also making it more likely that all the other kids who aren't vaccinated will get sick.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
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
Two reasons:
1) Some people care about others, as well as themselves. Perhaps those people care whether your kids die.
2) A small subset of people cannot benefit from immunization, or have not been immunized through no fault of their own. This includes immigrants who were not given the opportunity to be immunized and people with compromised immune systems. Oh, and children of people who think vaccines are bad. These people are protected by vaccines anyway, provided enough of the rest of the population IS vaccinated. This "herd immunity" keeps diseases from spreading. Yes, you and your kids are protected (congratulations), provided ENOUGH other people do get vaccinated.
Oh, and 3) it's a whole lot cheaper to give even a whole bunch of people a three cent shot than it is to support them for the rest of their lives because something like polio has destroyed their ability to work, walk, or breathe on their own.
I can see what you mean, but it's entirely possible for a child to be disruptive and the issue not be autism. It could be sheer naughtiness (which may be a disorder in its own right, but not autism), it could be secondary to something like chronic pain (undiagnosed constipation is a common one), it could even be some sort of home problem or abuse. None of those things are autistic spectrum, and all of them take time to tease out. Until a child reaches an age at which they acquire complex social interactions (or should), characteristic behaviour is difficult to spot.
Think about it this way: if someone says 'my computer keeps crashing' I would assume (as a Slashdot member) you would know how to go about diagnosing that - you would need to see the complex behaviour of interacting with the operating system in order to work it out. If it was a rack in a server farm and you just had a blinking LED telling you it's not working, that wouldn't be enough.
In the meantime schools can be unsympathetic because they just see a naughty child. The nub of the issue is that actually we everyone, including schools, should be sympathetic to any child with behavioural problems, because whatever the issue, the solution is for parents and other responsible adults to provide a supportive environment, not to chuck the child out.
You do realize that different compounds of Mercury have different chemical properties, right? Sure, some are dangerous in small amounts, but not all of them.
By your reasoning, since hydrogen is a toxin, then so is water.
Also, you might be surprised at the resolution of current statistical methods, even with relatively small sample sizes. It's very possible that an increase of 0.006% is detectable depending on the quality and size of the sample and the methods used.
I think it's horrible that the FDA told manufacturers to stop using a particular preservative not based on evidence that it was dangerous, but instead because a small group of vocal and misguided parents complained about it. It was stupid and, of course, seen as an admission that there was something wrong with it (when there's no evidence at all that there is).
*sigh* back to work...
Tying the defendants up and tossing them in lakes. Like in the good old days.
By making it a requirement for entering a public school for example.
I say to you, sir, that this here is America and we'll not have any of your personal responsibility nonsense.
From what I can tell, the media defines pretty much everything.
I heard the same thing on TV, so it must be true.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Nice try, but that would imply that somehow parents bear some form of responsibility, which is unthinkable.
Clearly, the evil corporation did it, because someone (else) has to be blamed, right?
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.
By educating the public about the benefits of vaccination, debunking the anti-vaccination nuts whenever they surface, and requiring vaccinations before entering public school.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Actually having an Autistic son, it was quite surprising how little equipped the average doctor was to diagnose him.
While when he started preschool the people there immediately knew there was something different about him the doctors kept just sending us to more specialized specialists until we made quite a few trips to childrens hospital with a lot of testing including MRI's and things before he was diagnosed.
Also when he started school he was not talking and very frustrated with attempting to communicate. The school principal started out not even believing in autism but after the first year agreed that autism was a real disability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
"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
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
I'm not convinced that vaccines gave both of my sons their Autism, but the regression coincided with the high fever that followed a vaccine - no fiction there. There are also "fever effects" in my children's developmental pattern, nothing you can publish in a peer reviewed journal or anything, but they actually seem to make progress toward "normalcy" in spurts now that often coincide with fevers. What does that mean? Who knows - I worked with a Harvard educated neuroscientist for a couple of years, and based on his stated opinions of the state of the art in understanding these kinds of cause and effect relationships in the brain, I'd guess that there's definitely something happening there, but the world's leading experts would only have hunches as to what's really going on.
It's one thing to speak in abstract probabilities, make historical references to plagues that ended before you were born, talk about the greater good, etc. etc. When you're the one on the front line watching human beings be maimed in the name of "the greater good," you start to question whose greater good is really being served, and do I really want to participate?
I do think it's suspicious that the last vaccine-autism case which was decided in favor of the injured was treated as a very specific special case, not likely applicable to anyone else, yet this one which was presented by parents who weren't as sharp or knowledgeable is being portrayed as precedent setting and a "major setback" for future plaintiffs.
If my kid ends up blind because you didn't vaccinate your kid on horseshit pseudo-scientific grounds, do you think I'll give a shit about the active/passive distinction in moral philosophy?
FYI, if you want to look at the ethics of the situation, you also need to read up on 'collective action problems'.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
The autism scare doesn't really have anything to do with how medical professionals and scientists in the United States treat mental disorders. Instead it has to do with how the media does business.
It goes like this: some crackpot with a MD or phD (or sometimes not even that) makes a crackpot claim which nonetheless might appear credible to the layperson. If the crackpot claim plays on the emotions, biases and greed of the public (wanting someone to blame, distrust of big pharmaceutical companies, desire for large cash settlements) and the media, always hungry for a sensational new story, picks it up and relays it to a credulous public, and the movement builds momentum. Occasionally the media will host talking head debates where experts on both sides of the issues duke it on in sound-bite interview-exchanges. The result is that both sides appear equally credible (or whoever has the more charismatic expert appears more credible) and the public goes on thinking the crackpot theory may be/is probably true, in spite of whatever the evidence is, or overwhelming consensus that the crackpot theory is just that.
And I believe the who autism scare was kicked off by a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield, and was picked up and spread by the UK media, so it's not a purely American phenomenon.
I can attest to that as I am myself deaf in my right ear, and partly deaf in my left ear. There was a period in my youth when I was evaluated at length by by doctors who thought I may have a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome over and above my hearing difficulty, however, the diagnosis did not prove conclusive with enough evidence. I suspect at times they may have been right, but, the circumstances and lack of clinical research at the time was not enough (bare in mind I live in a so called "third world" country). As for specialised services, my primary school sent me in for a series of test, of which I passed with flying colours and was able to cope with regular schooling with relatively no difficulty. I am thankful for that, I probably would not be where I am were I sent to a specialised school. That being said, there was many occasions when I have been treated as a "retard", simply because I could not hear what was being said. In most cases I have to bring forth my hearing difficulty, to explain why I could not hear, and in most cases people take that into consideration when communicating with me without being overly sensitive. I've also had to undergo speech therapy, which really helped me a bit. Over the years I found ways to disguise my disability with the effect that most people I meet these days are absolutely clueless they are dealing with a deaf person :)
Obviously, something in our environment is making autism rates climb. But it doesn't look like it's the thimerosol. Even if it is from mercury (which I don't know of any data showing that it is), it seems to be mercury from some other source, not from thimerosol.
Not to mention, worrying about the mercury in your thimerosol causing autism is like worrying about being poisoned by the chlorine in your table salt, or the flammability of the hydrogen in your tap water. Component elements of compounds undergo a chemical reaction when they combine, and don't retain their original properties.
Does anyone remember an article that was posted here several years ago about higher autism rates in areas with a lot of high-tech companies? It's been a while, but I seem to remember that the rates were higher among children of two parents with autistic tendencies themselves, suggesting that the possibility of a genetic link exists.
This is illustrative of the degree of medical ignorance behind the antivaccine hysteria. The very fact that vaccines work in young children (and the medical evidence is unequivocal that they do) proves that have functional immune systems.