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Study Confirms No Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-that-evidence-is-helpful-with-those-people dept.

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."

14 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. The antivaxers will ignore this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... 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.

    1. Re:The antivaxers will ignore this... by ArylAkamov · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Same thing with any group that has an agenda to push. Support and praise science when it supports your views/goals, discredit it any way possible when it conflicts with your views/goals. Business (Or politics) as usual.

    2. Re:The antivaxers will ignore this... by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Informative

      Remember, Jenny McCarthy's science is being a mother. That trumps all other lesser forms of science.

    3. Re:The antivaxers will ignore this... by taustin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One of the doctors who announced he would no longer accept unvaccinated children as patients nailed it with the question "If you don't trust my judgment on the extensive scientific research on the safety of vaccines, how can you possible trust my judgment on anything to do with your children?"

      If you really believe that the entire medical profession, literally every one of them, is either criminally incompetent or part of some massive conspiracy, then your only rational choice, when your child is sick, is to sit there and watch them die.

    4. Re:The antivaxers will ignore this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Statistics are like a bikini: what they reveal is suggestive but what they hide is vital.

  2. in other words, by penandpaper · · Score: 5, Funny

    another study confirms that water is wet.

  3. How vaccines cause autism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    http://howdovaccinescauseautism.com/

  4. You think 7 vaccines is a lot? by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

    1. Re:You think 7 vaccines is a lot? by CauseBy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Your mom's womb is pretty darn sterile.

      You've obviously never met his mom.

  5. Re:Somewhere in the middle... by hondo77 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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:

    • Serious health problems after (Varicella (Chicken Pox) vaccination are extremely rare. Only a few have been confirmed by lab testing as due to vaccine-strain VZV, including:
      • pneumonia,
      • hepatitis,
      • severe rash, and
      • shingles with meningitis.
    • Some children who had these serious health problems after vaccination had weakened immune systems before they were vaccinated, but they had not been diagnosed by a doctor at the time of vaccination.
    • Other serious health events after vaccination have been reported, such as thrombocytopenia (low platelet count), acute cerebellar ataxia (brain injury that leads to balance problems), and acute hemiparesis (paralysis on part the body). It is not known if these were caused by the vaccine. Lab testing was either not done or did not confirm if the health effects were caused by vaccine-strain virus.

    I await your retraction before calling you out as a shill.

    --
    I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
  6. Re:That's the problem with such studies by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because not everyone can be vaccinated. Infants can't be vaccinated, along with people with certain kinds of immune problems. Those individuals are kept safe by herd immunity.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  7. Re:Somewhere in the middle... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  8. Re:Somewhere in the middle... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?
  9. Re:Agreed but there is a point by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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/