Vaccines and Autism Link
Offline This is the proverbial horse that has been beaten to death, given first aid to resuscitate and then shot again. A committee has then been formed to asses the horse's condition and consultants have justified receipts for Brazilian waxing based on reports regarding the horse in question.
All that being said there is yet a new development in the idiotic saga. This topic strikes close to home for me as I have little ones and prior to that i haven't given it any thought at all. I even entertained the idea because I frankly didn't care prior to my kids needing it. I did a bit of reading on the subject when the time came to vaccinate them and that's how I became familiar with this whole fiasco.
"(CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines is an "elaborate fraud," according to a medical journal -- a charge the physician behind the study vigorously denies."
This is the CNN coverage.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/06/autism.vaccines/index.html?hpt=T2
Penn and Teller say it best here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo97VouL0ls&playnext=1&list=PLFF334B65C95C9C5F&index=38
This is mostly directed at the conspiracy theorists out there. I'm looking at you tinfoil hat wearing group.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
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I have had rubeola-"measles", rubella-"measles", mumps, chickenpox as a child. This was long before there were vaccines for any of these. When the first polio vaccine came out, I remember my dad marching us to the National Guard where they were passing out sugar cubes drenched with the vaccine. My dad watched each of us (I have a younger brother and sister) chew and swallow the sugar. He even had us stick out our tongues to make sure it was down. He had relatives who had contracted polio and he wanted to be darn sure none of his children had it.
My recommendation is to vaccinate your children. My fever was over 105 on three occasions when I had rubeola. There was real concern I wasn't going to make it. I was six weeks at home in a darkened room before I could watch TV or read or go to back to school. I still have vision problems.
Childhood diseases kill. Look up the numbers at the CDC or google for death rates. There is a very slight chance of side effects, but not autism. And the chance of death is much higher without the vaccine.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
I had every one of my children vaccinated for everything and other then a slight fever there were no side effects. The whole saga intrigues me because it's such a no brainer to have your children vaccinated. It's a true statement on our society that myths like this are so readily believed. The consequences are dire for the children that get sick, and it's their idiotic parents that are to blame.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Perhaps it's better to try and understand why people will latch onto an obscure and flawed study rather than listen to real facts about immunization. Michael Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things" is a good place to start.
Understanding that there is no purpose in the Universe frees us all to find one.
I remember reading this yesterday and then, as I'm usually compelled to do, reading the comments below the article.
One stood out, which was a mini-essay about why no-one could show any evidence that people without vaccinations might be autistic, and that CNN was doing a smear job because they ran articles like this without any evidence to back up the claims.
The irony being, of course, this was in the comments section of an article about a scientific paper in a scientific journal about the very topic, and in the article text it talks about all the other reports and tests that show no link.
I think the problem is that I'm too happy. Every time I get too happy some part of my brain makes me read CNN article comments so I can get taken down a couple notches.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Ah, pooh. I met two little girls one day a few years ago. Both autistic. The quieter one had had all her vaccinations. The really noisy out of control ADHD one had never had any vaccinations. Her mother was blaming it on the water.
People rationalize and some of them are really stupid. What do you have to be happy about? Never mind. Already it's TMI. Or maybe not. I'm not happy, I'm busy and I'm wondering what the hell I'm doing wasting my time here.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
It is funny how I have to get my dogs vaccinated or it would be considered animal cruelty or neglect, but people can choose not to vaccinate their children which not only puts their own children at risk, but the entire population as well by weakening the herd immunity.
The problem is that people are focusing on "can getting these vaccines cause major problems."
Even if they can, the question we should be focusing on is "is getting these vaccines more likely to cause major problems than not getting them."
It's like pointing out that fatal accidents do occasionally occur when we drive at 25mph and concluding that therefore we should all drive 90mph all the time.
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
Well, when I saw this thread last night, I googled the original paper where the link was claimed. Sorry but my computer was off while I was at work, so I would have to redo the search.
Even so, I found something very interesting in that paper. While it has been soundly criticized (and for good reason), it makes an additional claim that everyone in the anti vaccination crowd is missing.
The link is not exactly directed at vaccinations. It specifically states that there is a connection to children who are having GI inflammation as well. So if there is any real information here, it would have to be that kids who are in the middle of a case of the runs when they get their shots would be the ones to worry about. If your kid does not have the hershy trots the day that he gets his shots, then everything will be fine.
So even if you want to get your kids vaccinated, the whole autism risk would be fully preventable, at least according to the paper that started this whole damned mess. Just make sure that the kid has a normal BM that morning and all will be well.
Not that I buy into this nonsense but how hard would it be for a parent to call the doctor and say “we can't come in for the shots today. Junior has the runs and if he get his shots now, he will end up making caribou Barbie look like a world class cosmologist”.
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Yet more development, it seems the doctor in question also held a patent on a test for autism.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/11/autism.vaccines/index.html?hpt=T2
He stood to profit quite a bit from the scare.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc