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Fifteen Years After Autism Panic, a Plague of Measles Erupts
DavidHumus writes "Some of the longer-term effects of the anti-vaccination movement of past decades are now evident in a dramatic increase in measles. From the article: 'A measles outbreak infected 1,219 people in southwest Wales between November 2012 and early July, compared with 105 cases in all of Wales in 2011. One of the infected was Ms. Jenkins, whose grandmother, her guardian, hadn't vaccinated her as a young child. "I was afraid of the autism," says the grandmother, Margaret Mugford, 63 years old. "It was in all the papers and on TV."'"
Should be seen and not heard. Nor should anyone listen to her.
If you'd had measles as an adult you might feel differently.
And here we have an illustration of your garden-variety Daily Mail reader.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
DR;PW (did not read;pay walled)
I enjoy telling the pharmacist that it's okay, I already have autism.
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It concerns me that there's a growing distrust of medicine. Every day it seems there are more and more people who insist, "Doctors don't know anything." It's a very disturbing phenomenon that's getting people killed.
The medical community needs to start doing something about this.
large numbers of people follow the advice os someone who has no training, no proof, or even a decent grasp of cause and effect.
Take a look to see if there are any corresponding changes in rate of autism? Here's a nice chance to run a natural experiment--the non-vaccinated become the test group...
Are diptheria, whooping cough, and polio. You can terrorize people with media stories. People will take actions that are irrational in the face of an immediate threat. We seem to be unable to weigh the costs and benefits rationally of a course of action.
Why wasn't Jesus born in Wales?
Because God couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.
"I keed! I KEEED!"
One of the infected was Ms. Jenkins, whose grandmother, her guardian, hadn't vaccinated her as a young child. "I was afraid of the autism," says the grandmother, Margaret Mugford, 63 years old. "It was in all the papers and on TV."'"
So she didn't listen to her physician. Sigh...
I'm of a mind that people like this should be charged with child abuse, regardless of their intentions. They are putting not only their own child at risk but other children as well. The science on this topic is unequivocal. Vaccines demonstrably save lives and not getting them demonstrably costs lives. Children who do not get the vaccines (without a documented medical needs exemption) should not be permitted to go to school or participate in activities with other children. Parents who do not vaccinate their children (again without a medical needs exemption) should have to explain to a court why they think they are entitled to put their child and others at risk of some very serious diseases. Yes I'm being harsh and yes I think it is appropriate the the magnitude of the problem. A vague fear of autism which is not based on credible scientific research is not sufficient grounds to not get vaccinated.
Actually, he was exactly factually incorrect. This absolutely is a plague. A plague (as opposed to the plague) is defined as a significant elevation in a disease or pest's levels compared to the recent norm.
That's exactly what's being described here.
Since the scientific definition of plague is a particular baccilus (enterobacteria Yersinia pestis), the usage of plague is entirely colloquial rather than medical. This is how you get the accepted term "a plague of $ANIMAL", e.g. rats.
And a 1000 fold increase constitutes a plague of sick people in colloquial terms just fine.
http://nsnbc.me/2013/05/14/bbc-news-removes-false-claims-about-measles-epidemic-after-being-busted/
the moral of the story is if you believe the bbc which is run by ATOS and pay for it you deserve what you get
As long as the system is so clearly corrupted by money, though, people aren't going to trust health care professionals.
People didn't vaccinate their kids because they heard a (false) series of stories on the news. The problem wasn't that they didn't trust their doctor too little but rather that they trusted the news too much. If you saw a steady parade of (dis)information from a news source you regard as credible, why would you doubt it? Saying vaccines cause autism is a nice sound bite which is easy to understand whereas the counter argument that there is no credible evidence of any link is harder to explain.
As long as big pharma is taking meds off the market and replacing them with inferior versions in order to drive down demand for a generic and force people to continue to pay them, we're all going to know it's a scam.
Name one medicine that has been "taken off the market and replaced" with an inferior version.
Things are unlikely to improve unless we really improve the quality and availability of education.
Education cures ignorance, not stupidity. In the immortal words of Ron White, "you can't fix stupid".
It's not like he held a press conference calling for a cessation of MMR vaccination and making a causal connection to autism.
It's not like he was secretly being paid over £400,000 by vaccine damage lawyers while the study was being performed, to draw conclusions that the study hadn't made yet.
It's not like he was trying to launch multi-million-dollar biotech companies that depended on the study's results coming out in favour of his hypothesis.
It's not like the data in the paper differ from the original patient records in ways that, by some amazing coincidence, all support the paper's claims.
No, Andrew Wakefield is clearly beyond reproach.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
When the people who know what they're talking about are in widespread agreement about some issue, that's generally an indication that what they're saying is the best understanding of the issue available. If you instead decide to follow the advice of someone who is totally unqualified, that's probably going to point you towards the wrong conclusion. Especially when, as in this case, everything turned out exactly as the experts predicted it would.
There seems to be an enormous distrust to experts in general. First hand experience: When the CSI TV show showed who digital photos could be magnified and give clear pictures in incredible ways, I tried to explain to my wife that this was just absolutely impossible. She wouldn't believe it. It was there on TV, so it had to be true. Never mind that at the time I was actually working in computer graphics, including reading scientific papers how to scale up digital images while making them look slightly less crappy, she wouldn't believe it.
Then she met some woman who was working in IT (never heard what that woman was doing in IT - I suppose helpdesk somewhere), and that woman said what CSI showed didn't work, and she came home and told me that actually photo enhancement as in CSI doesn't work. When I said "that's what I said all the time", she said "no you don't know about these things, but this woman is working in IT so she knows".
It's like driving without a seatbelt on. You're fine, because you're unlikely to have a car crash. Maybe you can drive like this for a decade, until one unlucky day, a drunk guy goes through a red light and into the side of your car at 30 miles per hour. Suddenly not having a seatbelt becomes a huge problem.
Similarly, this community could sit there with its low vaccination levels quite happily, because it's surrounded by a big country mostly composed of people with the common sense to get vaccinated, and because of that, measles has a hard time getting around and reaching these poorly-vaccinated areas. Until one day, someone who happens to have the virus moves in, and it has the run of the place.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
There is something to see here, darwinism. And its might is as magnificent as that of a river.
Evolution is so powerful that it can be stopped by beavers?
This has been done and the non-vaccinated children had very slightly higher rates of autism. http://www.jpeds.com/content/JPEDSDeStefano
Mod parent down all you like, but cracking the numbers is actually a pretty good idea.
Numbers for what? The changes in autism numbers over the past decades are caused by changes in the diagnostic criteria. Your proposal seems more pointless that comparing apples and oranges. (Those can be compared at least spectroscopically, see Scott A. Sandford, "Apples and Oranges -- A Comparison," Annals of Improbable Research, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1995).)
Ezekiel 23:20
Idiot 2.0
Certain diseases are deadly for new born babies. Don't wait. It could kill your kid.
Vaccines are safe. Diseases are not.
Many other researchers were unable to duplicate Wakefield's work. He formed a company to promote his therapies for this problem that others were unable to find, and neglected to inform anyone of the potential conflict-of-interest. When the press exposed this, his co-authors backed away from the paper. The British medical board looked at his work, including questionable therapies on autistic children, and found him guilty of dishonesty and abuse of patients, and revoked his medical license. The Lancet retracted his article. I feel for the parents dealing with a full-out autistic child (my wife and I are raising an Aspergers/ADD grandson), but unproven therapies based on debunked theories aren't going to honestly address their problems.
I know as a fact there was a "before" and an "after" in the life of our son -- he was an apt big baby till he was 26 monthes. Then he got this compulsory vaccination (we're French) and he was 'elsewhere' for a few days. To make it short, my son is now 8.5 years old and he's a non verbal autist.
As in, I'm protected against epidemic outbreaks by the basement walls.
Ezekiel 23:20
That pre 1963 Polio vaccine was contaminated with SV40 virus? CDC soon yanked the warning, and it only exists now on the Internet Archive. http://web.archive.org/web/20130522091608/http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/archive/polio_and_cancer_factsheet.htm
Given that vaccines Drs want to give to kids have increased 3x since 1980, and many are for non-lethal diseases like rotavirus or for things like Hep B that a baby is highly unlikely to contract, and given that drug production is imperfect, I think many parents have legitimate concerns and being ordered to unquestionably follow their known-to-be-imperfect doctor's advice feed the backlash against vaccines.
Dr. Sears has good information for parents who want to take an informed, balanced approach:
http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/vaccines
Not statistically significant I'd say, but nonetheless incredibly funny.
Yeah, I'm a misanthrope. Deal.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Psychiatric illnesses are fads to some degree. Years ago, women suffered from hysteresis and hypochondria. Currently, scads of perfectly normal people are diagnosed as autistic. This fad will eventually abate, to be replaced by something else.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So your son was completely verbal and socially proficient before he was 2 years old?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Your points are excellent, but I think you missed one. The editors of Lancet retracted the paper: http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452#ref-9
I have heard of authors retracting a paper, but this is the first time that I heard of the editors doing so.
Well, we'll be dammed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1. Measles notifications and deaths in England and Wales, 1940-2008
2. Annual measles notifications and vaccine coverage, England and Wales 1950-2009
3. Confirmed cases of Measles, Mumps and Rubella 1996-2012
#2 is the most interesting, in conjunction with #1. #2 clearly shows the decline in vaccine coverage starting in 1998, the year Wakefield's paper came out in the Lancet. Coverage dropped from 1998 to about 2002, then started climbing again before plateauing in 2004 at a level approximately equal to the coverage rate in 1990. However, #1 shows that the number of reported cases of measles from 2004-2008 was markedly less than in the 1990 time-frame. That's strange. If the coverage level is the same, why would there be 2-3x fewer cases in 2004-2008 when compared to 1990?
While not the UK, the CDC here in the US did go so far as to declare an epidemic of Pertussis in Washington state:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a1.htm
But that information, counter to what your doctor was saying, would not be nearly as effective, or convincing enough to get on the news n the first place
Yes because the truth is just soooo boring.
if the medical field did not have a long history or getting things wrong spectacularly
Say what? While sometimes science goes down some wrong paths, modern medicine has a spectacular track record. They have DOUBLED live expectancies in the last one hundred years. In what bizarro universe is that somehow a failure?
and was not widely known as being completely corrupted by money.
Medicine is no more corrupted by money than any other profession and arguably less so than many. You'll have a hard time convincing me that journalism is some paragon of integrity and journalists are the ones convincing people of a (false) link between a treatment and a disease.
Also it would of helped if they had not used mercury in the shots.
There is no evidence that mercury that used to be in some vaccines ever caused a problem.
Take a look to see if there are any corresponding changes in rate of autism? Here's a nice chance to run a natural experiment--the non-vaccinated become the test group...
There wasn't.
This would have became apparent relatively quickly; this measles outbreak may be 15 years after the fact, but the autism rates would have been affected within the first few years if there was anything in this. They weren't.
The research that linked autism with this vaccination was soundly debunked within a few years of being released. The original paper was fully retracted in 2004, and the researcher found guilty of misconduct and fraud.
The full sorry story is documented on Wikipedia and many other places.
The really sad part is that even a decade after the story was retracted, there are still some people who are convinced that they shouldn't immunise their kids.
The trouble is that we live in a world where these diseases don't scare us any more because we don't see them. They ought to. If you want to know what happens to populations without immunity that are exposed to measles, try reading up on what happened when the Conquistadors introduced it to South America.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
There was a before an after moment in my life, too. I had perfect vision until in 7th grade when suddenly everything started getting blurry. It kept getting worse. I got glasses in high school and I continued to need stronger and stronger prescriptions. It happened when I hit puberty so suddenly it sounded like that silly old legend that "masturbation will make you go blind" was true. As it turns out, vision problems tend to occur in males when they hit puberty. It had nothing to do with my "me" time.
Correlation does not prove causation. By the way, I had all my vaccinations as a baby. I don't have autism. Same with my brother, and every other kid in my school.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
It's more common than you think, especially in misconduct cases. Almost all of the authors did retract the paper's findings; Wakefield wasn't one of them.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I didn't read TFA, but I'm pretty sure that the parents chose to withhold the vaccine, not that doctors randomly gave some kinds a placebo while giving the real thing to others.
Some good statistics might be able to glean some information from this (multilevel regression model or such thing), but it will not be as good as an unbiased experiment.
They probably have the same rates, just that people who have a child who is autistic is probably more likely to not vaccinate subsequent children.
Why does it matter whether it's 500 people or 1000 people?* It's the change in the prevalence that matters. If one region has ten times the case reports normally seen in the entire country then that suggests an enormous increase in the rate of the disease.
*Consider that if the region we are talking about is 1m people, then neither is significant; if the region is 1000 people, then both figures are enormous.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
It's not like there's some ultimate number here that they're choosing not to use. Case report figures are consistent, easy to investigate and variously over- and under-estimate (false alarms vs. infected people not going to the doctor); lab-confirmed cases are more robust, slow, hard to do and consistently underestimate. Neither is a measure of the actual prevalence of the disease, which is why it's the change in the figures versus the norm that is monitored.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
My point is that your child's development was going to be normal up to 24 months whether he was autistic or not.
The bit in italics is my signature, it's a feature of the discussion system you're currently operating.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Oh, would you? And how many children would they need to study for it to be statistically significant?
Hint: the sample size required depends on the expected size of the effect you're looking for, and the confidence level you want. It does not depend much on population size (except for very small populations). A sample size of a thousand or so is more than enough to get statistically significant results in most cases, at an acceptable (i.e. publishable, usually 95% or higher) confidence level.
"Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers -- a serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html
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This isn't some subjective study where placebos will have an effect. I don't think 2 year olds are going to think "okay, that injection could have just been water, but I'm going to pretend to be Autistic for the rest of my life anyway".
which is totally what she said
There seems to be an enormous distrust to experts in general. ... I tried to explain to my wife that this was just absolutely impossible. She wouldn't believe it.
That sounds less like a distrust of experts and more like a distrust of husbands!
I am officially gone from
Yeah, but you know what kills more people? The actual disease!
The rates of death and disability are so low they are acceptable vs the disease. It is a very simple tradeoff.
Not exactly true; there are other factors.
Our son was born very premature, 2 lbs 12 oz. You could hold him in one hand. (He is a big strapping 13 year old now)
They are finding that there is a higher rate of autism in preemies compared to normal births. 'Decades' ago, there is a good chance he would not have survived, thus there is a higher incident of autism simply because preemies are surviving instead of dying.
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
No, but it does depend on outcome. A sample size of 10,000 and an outcome of 5,001 vs 4,999 doesn't tell me that the first option is clearly superior.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It seems like we're seeing the same thing happening with a lot of the progressive protections enacted by previous generations -- Glass-Steagall, civil rights, the EPA, the 13th amendment.
"We don't need these restrictive regulations, we don't have those problems any more."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
No, but parents who are so worried about autism that they're willing to skip vaccines might be more (or less) likely to try and have their kid diagnosed with autism later in life if they start showing symptoms.
Rotavirus not fatal? Um sorry but that's wrong.
It's one of the most potentially deadly childhood diseases. Worldwide half a million children die from it each year.
Even in the US 30-60 children die from it each year.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/surv-manual/chpt13-rotavirus.html
As far as Hep B, it's a nasty chronic infection that 1 million US citizens suffer from. Most get it as a child. Over time it can cause serious liver damage.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/hepb/fs-parents.html
Oh, would you? And how many children would they need to study for it to be statistically significant?
Statistically insignificant is a perfectly valid result - it means the difference is less than your margin of error. In other words, neither option is superior.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
The research that linked autism with this vaccination was soundly debunked within a few years of being released. The original paper was fully retracted in 2004, and the researcher found guilty of misconduct and fraud.
True story: As soon as I was diagnosed with asbergers my parents had instant and perfect recollection of how my behavior changed radically after my MMR shot. A shot which happened more than 35 years before the diagnosis.
This despite the fact that anybody who have read the blue book instantly diagnoses my my entire family with various autism disorders.
Scape goat is the word.
TCAP-Abort
Take a look to see if there are any corresponding changes in rate of autism? Here's a nice chance to run a natural experiment--the non-vaccinated become the test group...
There wasn't.
This would have became apparent relatively quickly; this measles outbreak may be 15 years after the fact, but the autism rates would have been affected within the first few years if there was anything in this. They weren't.
The research that linked autism with this vaccination was soundly debunked within a few years of being released. The original paper was fully retracted in 2004, and the researcher found guilty of misconduct and fraud.
The full sorry story is documented on Wikipedia and many other places.
The really sad part is that even a decade after the story was retracted, there are still some people who are convinced that they shouldn't immunise their kids.
The trouble is that we live in a world where these diseases don't scare us any more because we don't see them. They ought to. If you want to know what happens to populations without immunity that are exposed to measles, try reading up on what happened when the Conquistadors introduced it to South America.
This is a classic "outlier" or "three sigma" case.... people do not see any more the illness, and they think that vaccination is useless. I was born in 1962, so mine is the last generation to actually have suffered through all the then common children's diseases: mumps, measles etc. The only thing I was vaccinated for was smallpox.
now color me paranoid, but not only my son and daughter have been vaccinated against everything there's a common vaccine for, but if it was at all possible I'd have them vaccinated for smallpox too. I know "it's not there any more", but....
It has been proven, time and again, that human mind is not able on average to ascertain risk/rewards for low occurrence events, or to put them in relation to existing risks. This was a case in point.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
A lot of "antivaxxer" dolts trumpet Wakefield in that he's a victim of a hush-up and that he shall be exonerated. A good stick in the eye of these people is that Wakefield himself only sought to discredit MMR so that he could sell his own vaccine, they assume that he is anti-vaccine altogether like them. There are articles stating this but the patent iteself is difficult to find so they ignore that. Of course, once you present the actual patent material they will go on to disown him and yet in the same fell swoop continue using his "evidence". Sometimes you can't win...
For your convenience, here is one of Wakefield's actual patents
As soon as I was diagnosed with asbergers my parents had instant and perfect recollection of how my behavior changed radically after my MMR shot.
My child's behavior also changed radically just after the MMR shot. Crabby, grumpy, complained of soreness at the injection site, wouldn't eat all his food, low-grade fever, attitude problems.
I was hoping for a big settlement check but then a few days later these entirely normal reactions to a shot cleared up. Tough luck son, looks like you'll be getting a job in high school after all.
How is it living in Alabama? I hear the weather is nice.
Mod parent down all you like, but cracking the numbers is actually a pretty good idea.
If the non-vaccinated kids have significantly lower rates of autism, we accept that the MMR jab is responsible in some way, even if we don't understand how yet.
If not, we accept that the whole MMR avoidance thing is utter bullcrap.
Sounds like a fair way to run an unbiased experiment to me.
They quit using the "mercury" preservative that purportedly causes autism over a decade ago, and the rate of autism diagnoses in young children has kept going up.
The doctor that started all of his has been shown to be a fraud, sponsored by an ambulance chaser.
Your experiment would be interesting, but it's not necessary. And the outcome wouldn't convince the True Believers anyway.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
and i would be willing to bet people that had one autistic child is statistically more likely to have a second autistic child...
You would win that bet. The risk is about twenty times higher, 1 in 5 instead of 1 in 110.
It dose tell you that there is statistically no real difference. Which means that Jenny and the stupid parents who listened are killing children.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
When the people who know what they're talking about are in widespread agreement about some issue, that's generally an indication that what they're saying is the best understanding of the issue available.
But people who are motivated to reject it still will. Cf. evolution, global warming, the shoah (aka holocaust).
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"The federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, better known as "vaccine court," has just awarded millions of dollars to two children with autism for "pain and suffering" and lifelong care of their injuries, which together could cost tens of millions of dollars." ..
"Some observers will say the vaccine-induced encephalopathy (brain disease) documented in both children is unrelated to their autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Others will say there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. link
AccountKiller
Once again, Barbara, this isn't a "controversial" opinion, it is a murderous one.
"Controversial" just means the media talking heads are talking about it. It's a propaganda tool that lets them discredit anything, sew doubt in the viewers'/listeners' minds, and divide and distract the population.
1) Pick an idea held by many people. (If that's because it's well-researched, produces prosperity and/or political stability, or otherwise sound, it's particularly suitable because it will be strongly held.)
2) Find some ideal held by a few that contradicts it. (If it's some unresearched or refuted-by-research tinfoil-hat idea, an attractive political ideology that leads to strife, etc. that's especially effectivce as well.)
3) Talk about them as if the first is in question and the second is just as well founded.
4) Because you're talking about them, label them both "controversial", thus lowering the credibility of the first and throwing the issue into doubt.
5) Confused viewers tune in to try to figure out which is right. Never tell them, so your raitings stay high.
6) Profit!
If this leads to children suffering from and dying of loathsome diseases, political strife, tyrannies, wars, economic collapse, and so on, laugh all the way to the bank and goto step 5).
People die because of this.
You betcha!
(And then they wonder why people are waking up, turning them off, and getting their news and analysis from the Internet.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Because it's not the normal "bad" mercury that everyone knows about. The type they used in vaccines was able to be naturally excreted. The bad kind cannot.
Autism is a developmental disorder. It manifests at a particular stage of development. This is around the time when children normally receive their vaccinations, and unvaccinated children also tend to manifest autism around this time. Given the huge number of vaccinated children, many will be diagnosed with autism around the time of their vaccinations, just purely by chance. It is natural to see causality in such an association, particularly if the child had a common vaccine reaction, such as a fever, even if it is coincidental.
I imagine that if we gave vaccinations in the teen years, there would be people just as convinced that the vaccination caused their child to be schizophrenic, because that is the age when schizophrenia typically manifests.
Yes, Natural News = Crackpots incorporated. If people refuse vaccination, then let them pay the medical bills that ensue. Medical plans should include clauses that parents themselves must pay if their kids fall ill from crackpot fool theories.