Decade-Long Study: Measles Vaccine Doesn't Cause Autism, Even in High-Risk Kids (reuters.com)

The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine isn't associated with an increased risk of autism even among kids who are at high risk because they have a sibling with the disorder, a Danish study suggests. From a report: Concerns about a potential link between the MMR vaccine and autism have persisted for two decades, since a controversial and ultimately retracted 1998 paper claimed there was a direct connection. Even though subsequent studies haven't tied inoculation to autism, fear about the risk has weighed on parents so much in several communities across Europe and the U.S. that vaccination rates have been too low to prevent a spate of measles outbreaks.

In the current study, researchers examined data on 657,461 children. During this time, 6,517 kids were diagnosed with autism. Kids who got the MMR vaccine were seven percent less likely to develop autism than children who didn't get vaccinated, researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Parents should not skip the vaccine out of fear for autism," said lead study author Dr. Anders Hviid of the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark. "The dangers of not vaccinating includes a resurgence in measles which we are seeing signs of today in the form of outbreaks," Hviid said by email.

Comments

But don't worry

[Opportunist]

The idiots will find a new reason to avoid vaccinations. If anything fails, the study will be dismissed as fake from the pharma industry.

Re:But don't worry

[MightyMartian]

But they don't have a right to endanger other people. If you don't want your kids vaccinated, they shouldn't be allowed in public schools (or heck, probably most private ones), or anywhere else where other children or immune-compromised people congregate. Your freedom to be a complete moron and endanger your own children should not extend to giving you the liberty to cause harm to others.

Re:But don't worry

[Joce640k]

That's not the reason socialism fails. Socialism fails because it rewards non-achievers the same as the achievers.

When non-achievers get the same rewards as the achievers then everybody stops making an effort. It starts at mediocrity and goes downhill from there.

Re: But don't worry

[jeff4747]

They can only get each vaccine when they are old enough, and many vaccines require multiple doses spread out over years. Eventually they'll be fully vaccinated, but eventually isn't today.

Also, vaccines are about 95% effective. We rely on herd immunity to protect the roughly 5% where the vaccine does not "take". My kids may be the unlucky 5% for some particular disease that an anti-vaxxer's snowflake gives them.

Re: But don't worry

[gtall]

If I recall correctly, kids cannot get the measles vaccine until they are about 1 yr. old. Until they get it, they are relatively unprotected.

Re:But don't worry

[jeff4747]

That's not the reason socialism fails. Socialism fails because it rewards non-achievers the same as the achievers.

Please point to an actual "socialist" country that actually rewards everyone the same.

That's not a "no true Scottsman" about socialism. It's demonstrating that your theory lacks evidence.

Re: But don't worry

[jeff4747]

Herd immunity isnt âoescienceâ

Uh...yeah, it is. It's a major part of the sciences of biology and public health, backed by experiments. That's why we know what percentage of a population has to be vaccinated for herd immunity to be effective.

Re:But don't worry

[Nidi62]

DNC doesn't have a right to fight a border wall. When 49,000 US citizens are violently attacked by illegals every year, a wall is common sense, sanctuary cities need to be punished for protecting criminals.

In 2013 there were 73,505 firearm related injuries and 33,636 deaths. GOP doesn't have a right to fight gun control. When 107,000 US citizens are violently attacked with firearms every year, gun control is common sense.

Re:But don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

If I made a survey of cities based upon freedom of activity, low tax burden and lack of government restriction and oversight not one of those cities would make the list. I know in which group I would rather live.

Let's have a think about cities that qualify on the basis of your list, shall we?
Aden; Mogadishu; Kinshasa; Ashgabat; Lagos; Dhaka; Tripoli -- all of them have a low tax burden, lack government restrictions and oversight, and allow you great freedom of activity. Why, they are even freer than your very own top US cities: after all, it's much easier to find yourself a child prostitute in one of these cities than in Houston, and you can act with impunity.

So why don't you fuck off to Kinshasa and live there for a year and wank on to the locals about the benefits of no government interference? They could do with a laugh, in between being shot at by militias.

Re:But don't worry

[Nidi62]

2nd amendment, read it.

I have, and also own 4 handguns, a shotgun, and 2 rifles. In literally the 1st 3 words of the Amendment are the words "well regulated". There are multiple common sense and reasonable controls that could be put on firearm ownership without infringing on the ability to own firearms, as I have laid out in Slashdot numerous times. Mandatory initial and recurring training provided by local governments (funded by a nominal tax on ammunition and of course the NRA-surely they of all people gladly would support training firearm owners in proper firearm storage, handling, operation, and relevant laws, yes?) would be a great start. More rigorous reporting and administration of background checks. And in an important but tangential action, substantive improvements to mental health treatment in the US.

Re:But don't worry

[Darinbob]

And we have no politicians in the US advocating for Venezuelan style socialism. We do have some wanting more socialist policies similar to that in Scandinavia. The mass hysteria on the right against some prominent politicians is just silly; No one is abolishing capitalism, no one is banning hamburgers, and no one has an agenda to make your children gay. For every delusional person you can point to on the left there is also a delusional person you can point to on the right.

The New Deal was essentially a socialist policy and it pulled us out of the Great Depression when the prior solutions had been failing. Social Security and Medicare are socialist policies backed by a large majority in the US (and yes, they need some fixing).

The problem is that we've got a political system based upon divisiveness today. Everyone politician is anti something, usually anti-the-other-side. Finding common ground is considered a traitorous act. Compromise is a dirty word. But a mere thirty years ago it was still considered a good thing to reach across the aisle, and moderates were seen as the intelligent voices who made things work.

I mean, NO SHIT

[Anonymous Coward]

Morons who don't vaccinate their kids should be dealt with by Child Protective Services.

Re:I mean, NO SHIT

[bobbied]

Morons who don't vaccinate their kids should be dealt with by Child Protective Services.

Well... I agree they are generally morons, but I'm a bit leery of sending CPS into haul the kids away for this. It's a bit too close to jackboots and brown shirts for my tastes and CPS tends to be a bit heavy handed at times to start with. Let's not give them another reason to come calling at your house and take your kids first and ask questions later.

I do support laws just short of making vaccinations mandatory, but there are long standing and closely held religious beliefs that preclude the use of vaccines (along with a host of other medical procedures). So let's make it nearly impossible to get public services, attend public schools or attend government sponsored gatherings of children without vaccines having been given as recommended, except if there are valid and documented medical reasons which make vaccinations inappropriate. IF your religious belief precludes your kids from vaccines, fine, but you don't get to put them in public school, obtain welfare benefits, or use other public services until you vaccinate them (or get the medical waver)...

Re:I mean, NO SHIT

[gtall]

"religious beliefs that preclude the use of vaccines" And just what might those religious beliefs be? Non-belief in modern science and medicine? Belief that kids are parents' property to do unto as they please? Belief in endangering the rest of the pop. that doesn't share those beliefs? Religious beliefs my ass, those holders are deluded if those beliefs constitute religious beliefs. I don't recall any the Bible or the Koran admonishing followers to shun modern medicine of whatever age they live in.

You don't say...

[gweihir]

Incidentally, the original "study" (long since found to be scientific fraud) the anti-vaxxers like to use for their "arguments" did not claim that either. It claimed that a specific competing product had that flaw but their own did not. Hence there never actually was a study that claimed that in general measles vaccination cause autism.

But anti-vaxxers do not live in this reality. They cannot recognize a fact when it stares them in the face.

Re:Make childhoods disease great again

[gweihir]

Fine collection of terminally stupid people you have there. With followers of the same nature.

You know what's frustrating?

[rsilvergun]

we've got talented people researching nonsense like this where the answer is already well known because we figured that out in the clinical trials before the vaccine went into use.

My mom, God rest her, was an anti-vaxxer and a nurse. A well trained Research Nurse for Pete's sake. This isn't anything new.

I'd like to figure out why the anti-vaxxer crowd believes this crap. Not the ones selling books and movies, those guys are in it for the money. I mean the rank and file. They're not just stupid. Heck, a lot of them have college degrees. If anything that's what we need to research, how do you get so many people to believe something so wrong?

Re:You know what's frustrating?

[sheramil]

I'd like to figure out why the anti-vaxxer crowd believes this crap. Not the ones selling books and movies, those guys are in it for the money. I mean the rank and file. They're not just stupid.

First, i thought we'd all agreed to stop calling them "anti-vaxxers" and to start calling them "pro-plague-ers". Second, they can either believe there's something wrong with their genetics, or they can believe it was something that was done to them by Big Pharma. Guess which option is more attractive, to hell with the evidence?

Re:You know what's frustrating?

[squiggleslash]

Conspiracies resonate. That's what it boils down to. Couple the notion that anti-vax is about a conspiracy to harm your child with the extreme fear you get of anything hurting your child during your first child's early years (I found the anxiety almost crippling myself - never enough to refuse to vaccinate on the other hand, and I found myself being furious with one of my wife's friends who started promoting this bullshit to her), and you have a bomb of doubt and uncertainty primed and ready to go off.

I think in some ways it's more surprising it's not more popular than, say, the ludicrous Benghazi or Birth Certificate type conspiracies, because there's no personal investment in either of those two. It doesn't matter if Obama had been an alien from another planet, it was never going to affect me personally. But a conspiracy of giant corporations and the government wanting to hurt my kid just so they can make more money? (Especially in an environment in which this has happened before - such as with tobacco.) I can see why someone would start to seriously worry about the truth of that, and let that worry take them over.

Re:Great but

[bobbied]

They have their ONE study, performed by a now discredited doctor who lost his medical license for his lack of ethical research techniques and lack of effective peer reviews. The study has been condemned as wrong for decades, but you can bet they will quote from that one....

In the mean time, 120,000 kids a year die around the world from the illness prevented by the MMR vaccine.

Re:If So Safe, Why Are Vaccine Makers NOT Liable?

[Gilgaron]

The carve out is because vaccines are necessary for the public health, expensive to research, low margin, and you get to sell them to your customers a handful of times at most. Basic vaccine research is already mostly financed by the government since otherwise pharma is financially better off researching new kinds of Viagra or opioids instead of vaccines.

Re:Seven percent less likely means correlation

[gweihir]

Fighting epidemics is not totalitarianism. It is species survival. It justifies killing people if nothing else is available to stem the tide. If some people think they can endanger society as a whole, force has to be applied to stop their behavior. This is not nice, but necessary. If you do not get that, you have no place in society.

Re:Learn something

[Opportunist]

Nobody pretends there are no side effects from vaccines. Vaccination is a matter of chances. How likely is it to catch a disease? How likely are lasting effects? And how likely are lasting effects from the vaccine?

And there are VERY few cases of vaccines that are offered to the public AT ALL where that chance balance doesn't tip heavily towards "you're a fucking moron if you refuse vaccination".