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Study Confirms No Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism
An anonymous reader sends word of a new study (abstract) into the relationship between the MMR vaccine and kids who develop autism. In short: there is no relationship, even for kids at high risk of developing autism. From the article:
[Researchers] examined records from a large health insurer to search for such an association. They checked the status of children continuously enrolled in the health plan from birth to at least 5 years old during 2001 to 2012. The children also had an older brother or sister continuously enrolled for at least six months between 1997 and 2012. "Consistent with studies in other populations, we observed no association between MMR vaccination and increased ASD risk among privately insured children.We also found no evidence that receipt of either 1 or 2 doses of MMR vaccination was associated with an increased risk of ASD among children who had older siblings with ASD." ... [An accompanying editorial said,] "Taken together, some dozen studies have now shown that the age of onset of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, the severity or course of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, and now the risk of ASD recurrence in families does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children."
... Because this discovery was made by science.
They will just claim this is
1) Big pharma conspiracy
2) Jewish conspiracy
3) Both of the above
Antivaxers will only refer to science when it supports their own theories.
another study confirms that water is wet.
The normal people knew it already.
The conspiracy nuts will think it's just another layer of the whole conspiracy.
Bluntly, if it was just for them, I'd say "let Darwin win at least sometimes". The problem is that they're a threat to everyone around them, too.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
http://howdovaccinescauseautism.com/
How many studies do you need? Every single legitimate study shows not only that vaccines do not cause autism, there isn't even any correlation between the two at all.
Then it was the vaccine itself - So0 thte stupid fucks stopped vaccinating their children - No change.
Thn they listened to a porno princess whoo's qualifications were? none.
Then it was proven that the "researcher was operating in tandem with a lawyer to make money off sympathetic juries. A lie based on lies, but they still believe.
Then Autism speaks sychophants started foaming at the mouth when certain people were removed from the "autism spectrum", because they really needed and demanded that rising epidemic.
You are as likely to change these people's minds about vaccines as you are to convince a fundamentalist Christian that the world wasn't created in 4004 b.c.e.
In fact, anti-vaxxers are just the liberal version of creationists.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Aargh! Wrong thread, my apologies!
Perl Programmer for hire
It would be more accurate to say "12th study confirms no link between MMR vaccine and autism", with a subtitle of "versus no studies showing a link"
I found an interesting article about autism. And I'm treating it just like the anti-vaxxers. I found it on Facebook. I'm applying no scientific analysis of the contents. I'm spreading it around without putting any real thought into it, expecting everyone to just mindlessly forward it to as many people as they can find.
Is it even about autism anymore? I'm lucky enough to have some family members that are anti-vax and post about it frequently on Facebook, and it's never about autism. Now everything is about "chemicals" and "toxins" and staying natural and how measles didn't kill our grandparents. They've made up their mind, so it won't matter if science shoots down an excuse that was never in doubt to anyone that cared about science. They'll just come up with another excuse that is just as baseless.
Think of it this way. You're living in your mom's womb, then you get born. Your mom's womb is pretty darn sterile. Suddenly, you're born and you're literally being assaulted by every germ around you, with probably thousands of them being encountered by your immune system every day.
How are a *few* shots (7 may seem like a lot to you) going to compare against thousands of things all hitting the naive immune system of an infant all at once, starting from birth, every day?
Or is it the fact that the particular antigen is injected into a muscle supposed to make it more scary?
It just seems to me that the amount of antigens presented to someone during a shot is just completely dwarfed by the natural exposure. It's just that the select few antigens in the shots just happen to be particularly helpful in helping you resist *actual serious disease*.
Also, I can't find your "varicella vaccine mortality rate of 1 in 30,000" information on the CDC website, Please provide source. What I found was this: "Other serious problems, including severe brain
reactions and low blood count, have been reported after
chickenpox vaccination. These happen so rarely experts
cannot tell whether they are caused by the vaccine or
not. If they are, it is extremely rare." I think we would hear about it if thousands of people died from the chickenpox vaccine.
Furthermore, they also say that only the FIRST dose has such an extreme reaction. So the "much higher than 1/30,000" claim you make is extremely dubious.
--PM
--PM
The mortality rate of the vaccine according to the CDC is 1 in 30,000. (The actual wording on the CDC site is that 2 out of 15,000 will have extremely severe reactions to the vaccine, and 1 of those will be fatal.
You are completely full of shit. From the CDC site:
I await your retraction before calling you out as a shill.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
In the US, with proper care and diet, measles is about .5% fatal or less to someone who was not vaccinated. Even if you don't die you've got a significant (~1%) chance of having some sort of brain damage (I'm including deafness/blindness in "brain damage".)
If you have a vitamin A deficiency, though, measles can be up to 25% (or so) fatal.
Measles isn't a joke and like polio, we should eradicate it if we can.
--PM
I am a medical professional, a pediatrician to be exact. I don't share your concerns about the rising number of vaccines and the prevalence of autism. First, although the number of vaccines has increased, the number of epitopes that the immune system responds to has actually decreased. Look at page 126 of this article:
https://www2.aap.org/immunization/families/overwhelm.pdf
Secondly, its not clear that the prevelance of autism is increasing:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9495906
It is true however that both of those facts make it much harder to not un-separate vaccines into a "proper" discussion.
T 1. Why have vaccines and autism rates both grown exponentially in the last 25 years? (no, detection does not come close to answering)
According to at least one study, changes to the diagnostic criteria and including outpatient diagnosis accounts for much of the rise. In essence, creating an autism spectrum diagnosis resulted in more diagnosis. That doesn't mean actual cases are on the rise since there is no way to rediagnosis those prior to the change. As for vaccines, correlation does not imply causation, something the recent study on the vaccine / autism link proves yet again.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The first question is related to how in 1989 Kids up until age 18 received 7 vaccines. [...] Today, it is 72.
You're so full of shit. According to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, in 1989 the CDC recommended 8 vaccines for kids (the same 7 it recommended through the 70s, plus Hib). The 2010 schedule includes the 8 from 1989 plus hep A (dangerous in kids, lethal in adults), hep B (40% lifetime risk of liver cancer in 95% of newborns who contract it), flu, varicella (not the innocent, cute little illness antivax wingnuts claim it is), pneumococcus (lethal), and rotavirus (potentially lethal).
The evil drug companies took the 8 vaccines from 1989 and added 6 more potentially lethal or crippling diseases, for a total of 14. One-four. Maybe the 72 number is an innocent mistake reflecting the total number of shots, although I sincerely doubt it's that high as DTaP and MMR are each 3 vaccines combined into 1 (as they have been since the early 80s). That narrows it down from 14 to 10 unique vaccinations, and they simply don't take an average of 7 shots each per vaccine.
Yes, I get testy about this. As many times as antivaxers tell me to "do my research!", it seems that none of them can be bothered to.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
There is also something particular to Chicken Pox which makes the vaccine even less desirable: length of immunity. If you actually catch Chicken Pox you get immunity for life. However if you vaccinate against it you need to continuously remember to get boosters - I believe currently every 10 or 20 years - otherwise your immunity may lapse. What is bad about this is that Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox. So in this case taking the vaccine to protect against a very mild childhood disease may lead to an increased chance of a more serious disease later in life...unless you set a 20 year alarm so you never forget a booster shot!
You're full of shit too. You speak as though getting chickenpox will prevent shingles which it won't and there's other things that you have claimed that I find to be...less than accurate but don't have the time to find sources so I won't claim them.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
What is bad about this is that Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox. So in this case taking the vaccine to protect against a very mild childhood disease may lead to an increased chance of a more serious disease later in life...unless you set a 20 year alarm so you never forget a booster shot!
As far as I know, this is very inaccurate. Shingles is a neurological disorder which only affects people who have generated Chicken Pox antigens. Chicken Pox itself has two or three strains, which can be contracted at any point in your life. For instance, the common Chicken Pox (the one with the vaccine now) is something I might have been exposed to when very young, but I've never officially got it (no pox) and eventually I figured I was immune and was tasked as the person to take care of anyone who had it. However, as an adult, I got a secondary strain of Chicken Pox -- symptoms are pretty much identical to the common variety. Result? I'm now susceptible to shingles. If a vaccine had been available back when I contracted it (and I'd had the vaccine instead), that would likely prevent me from getting shingles, as I would never have developed the requisite antigens. However, since there's still no vaccine for the second strain as far as I know, had I taken the vaccine (which was pretty much the same as my existing immunity), I still would have contracted Chicken Pox and then been susceptible to shingles. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox"
Wrong to an extreme.
Shingles is a resurgence of the virus which causes chicken pox. Once you get chicken pox, the virus is dormant in your body, your immune system continues to fight it. When your immune system is weakened, you get shingles.
Vaccination against chicken pox not only reduces chicken pox, but never being infected with the wild strain of chicken pox reduces the probability of contracting shingles when older:
" the risk of getting shingles from vaccine-strain VZV after chickenpox vaccination is much lower than getting shingles after natural infection with wild-type VZV" http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/varicella/
And you are exactly right. The OP does have one reasonable point in his post - now that we've knocked out the 'big' childhood infectious diseases (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and haemophilus) through vaccinations, we are working on immunizations where the cost - benefit ratio is much less clear.
Hepatitis B, Varicella (Chicken pox), pneumococcus, rotovirus and Hepatitis A are all safe and effective. Whether or not they need to be given to everyone is an interesting question. Hepatitis B is certainly reasonable for persons living in areas where the virus is endemic (South Asia in particular) and is reasonable for persons who plan on being drug addicts or health care workers. The problem is that most people who end up in the former life style aren't the type to seek medical attention early on. Varicella immunization, as you point out, wanes after a decade or so (as does tetanus, diphtheria and especially pertussis) and chicken pox is a largely benign illness (although complications do occur). The pediatric community has decided that a nuanced approach to this won't work so it's "everybody gets everything all of the time".
This appears to be pretty safe (again, the number of distinct antigens in all vaccines is dwarfed by the number of different proteins presented to your immune system every time you go out in a crowd) but there are theoretical concerns. You can make the argument that antigens presented by a vaccine are qualitatively different from your garden variety protein. You can also note that autoimmune diseases (where the body overreacts to antigens) is common, sometimes severe and undoubtedly increasing in the Western world. Thus, one can be concerned that pissing off the immune system could cause problems.
It, however, has never been demonstrated that vaccines are causally related to any autoimmune phenomenon or disease.
So, in the best of all worlds, one would have an informed discussion about the risks and benefits of all 14 recommended vaccines. Which would take a couple of hours. Which, of course, doesn't happen.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Except when you look at these anecdotes, like all of the cases in the Wakefield study, you find out there were signs of autism before the vaccination. People like to have something to blame.
"unless you set a 20 year alarm so you never forget a booster shot! "
So, go see a doctor at least four times during my adult life? That's a standard that I can meet. When you see a doctor, they check your immuno records. For those who don't currently see a doctor once every five Presidential terms, let's find a way to get them more medical care.
1. Why have vaccines and autism rates both grown exponentially in the last 25 years? (no, detection does not come close to answering)
Changes to the definition and protocols for diagnosing it account for the rate changes just fine.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So you are doing "hefty research", yet are making mistakes that anyone having performed such research would not make. So either your research approach is fatally flawed, you are lying, or you have forgotten the research you made. Pick one :)
But your numbers have repeatedly been shown to be inaccurate, or describing something different to what you think... Again, really - why should anyone discuss this with someone who gets so easily confused and who is frequently mistaken or flat-out wrong?
I am not officially on the Autism Spectrum Disorder. My son is, for behavior very much like mine.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Contrary to your argument, those who receive the chickenpox vaccine seem to have proven to have a lower risk of shingles (scroll to "Risk Factors"). Stop posting lies and deceit.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve