Paulina – two things. I think that they should be offered separately if for nothing more than giving some peace of mind to parents. I guess the problem with that is it would take far longer to get your kids vaccinated. Second, no evidence of a causal link does not equal end of discussion. We’re having a discussion. The scientific community continues to look into autism, it’s just that every single study except for this bogus one consistently rejects a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

April – thanks for that great link.

Kev & Amber’s comments came from the old site. I’ve shut this post down on that one largely because I don’t really want people linking me to Hitler publically.

Kev – thanks for your inpur – well reasoned and stated. You’re absolutely right, the research monies being used to combat these bogus claims, could more aptly be used to helping people live with autism.

Amber, Amber, Amber – you are the worst kind of commentor. I almost deleted your comment, but I wanted people to see the kind of vitriol and nonsense that comes from the MMR-autism camp. I’m not going to bother to ask you to substantiate your claims because you’ve just made a blanket statement that you couldn’t possibly quantitatively support. But let’s play your game. I was vaccinated for lots of things as a child – polio, smallpox, etc. By your argument, I was brain damaged. Yet, I have multiple degrees and have worked at some of the finest universities in the world. How did my brain damage manifest itself?

Do I think MMR is needed? How about this, there are children in the Northern Territories of Australia that are being diagnosed with polio because their parents refused to allow them to be vaccinated.

What’s with the Hitler quote? Are you referring to your own willful ignorance? The lie that MMR causes autism? Because if that’s the case, I think it’s an apt use of the quote. Otherwise – go sell crazy somewhere else.

A Free Mans last blog post..Game Day: Cake Walk

It boggles my mind that you know the ingredients in those shots and still choose to inject them into your baby. You honestly think the MMR is needed? I guess what a doctor says goes no matter how crazy the idea sounds.

“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
Adolf Hitler

Ambers last blog post..Reality bites back

I have an eight year old autistic child. I have blogged about autism news and science for over five years now. I can state with some degree of confidence that there is no link whatsoever between autism and vaccines.

I want to address a few canards I can see floating about.

The question of the vaccine ingredients: take formaldehyde as an example. There is more formaldehyde in one slice of a banana than there is in the combined total of formaldehyde in all vaccines administered from ages 0 – 6 of the US and UK schedule.

The argument that the schedule is too much for a child to handle is equally fallacious. Research has established that theoretically, a childs immune system could cope with upwards of 10,000 vaccines administered at once. The issue is really one of antigens and teh fact is that simply being alive subjects a person to more antigens than the entire vaccine schedule.

Its true that thiomersal is still in the optional, seasonal flu vaccine. But being logical it should be plain to see that when vaccines were largely removed from vaccines in 2001 we should’ve had a large, easy to see drop in the rate of autism diagnoses. This has not occurred.

The various vaccine aetiology hypotheses have been around for over 10 years now and so far there is not one piece of valid, peer reviewed, journal published science that supports any of them.

As parent to an autistic child myself, I would very much like to see research monies allocated to things that will make a tangible difference in my childs life. Education, adult housing, job creation, communication therapies. This cannot happen whilst we are still centred on these damaging and misleading hypotheses.

Kevs last blog post..Reality bites back

April’s last blog post..All normal on the baby front

And about the studies. That was also a rant. I’m not suggesting that there is a link between MMR/Autism. I can’t say, with 100% certainty, that I believe there is no link though.

What I was saying is that it’s frustrating that there’s so much misinformation on the internet (or media in general). While I’m certain that I could find studies linking MMR (although I was referring to vaccines in general) to Autism, I don’t, for a second, suggest that they are scientific/reputable studies. BUT, to a parent that isn’t internet savvy, they can easily stumble across these, and they will believe it, even if it was written by some quack in his garage.

I really enjoyed the post. I only called it bold, because it’s an extremely hot topic.

My best friend has an autistic son. Everything they’ve been through over the last 4 years suggests that it is a hereditary trait passed down from one of the parents. Whether a vaccine “triggered” his regression to autism is unknown. Maybe it was a coincidence that he “changed” after getting vaccinated. They’ve tried the GFCF diet with no noticeable improvement.

Any time I interact with him, and he’s such an angel, I can’t help but wonder if we know everything there is to know about vaccines. I don’t think we do, and only time will tell what else may be going on.

A google search for “MMR Vaccine Autism” brought this up on the first page:
http://www.autismwebsite.com/aRI/vaccine/MMRreferences.htm

I am not saying I believe what is there. Hell, most of the references are to Wakefield. BUT, to a parent that finds a site dedicated to autism that says that there is “more than a casual link between MMR vaccine and autism”… well…. as likely as it is to be misinformation, it is on the internet, and more people than I’d care to guess believe everything they read on the internet.

To recap…. I’m not arguing your points or post. Just frustrated with misinformation.

Take care.

Joe’s last blog post..He’s asleep! Time for a nap!

1. I only addressed MMR in this post. I’ve not seen the research on the vaccines that you mention and as far as I know, they don’t require them in Oz. Thanks for the tip, though, and if it turns out that the boy requires either of the vaccines you mention, I’ll do the same kind of research as I did for MMR.

2. Because, there are studies and there are studies. The problem with a lot of the nonsense that surrounds things like this is that advocacy groups get ahold of a “study” that’s not published in any kind of reputable journal. The press gets a sniff and before you know it “X” causes cancer, impotence and herpes. It’s crucial, if you want to be an informed parent to make sure that what you read comes from a reliable source.

Oh, and one more thing, I just realized that you claim to be able to come up with a matching number of studies that show a link between MMR and autism. No, you really can’t. Not from peer reviewed scientific journals, Joe. I’ll refer you to my list:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=search&term=mmr%20autism

And will wait to see yours.

I don’t disagree with vaxes. Like someone said earlier in a comment, I do disagree with the number given in the first 18 months of his life.

Then, there are some vaxes that I disagree with. Some, because we don’t know of longterm effects of getting them. Take, for example, the chicken pox vaccine. It’s great that kids won’t get pox, but now there are studies that are suggesting a link between the chickenpox vaccine shingles later in life. I’m not going to dig it up right now, but I can if you’d like.

Then, the rotavirus vaccine. Seriously? It’s diarrhea. That’s all. It causes around 37 deaths nationwide every year. While I would be devastated if I was one of the 37, that is an insanely small number. If you don’t get the rota vax by the time you’re 5, then you don’t get it, because you’ve developed the immunity.

And let’s say your child contracts rota… the treatment is just rehydration.

When my son was born, the staff was itching to give him an eye prophylaxis (which contains silver nitrate). The thing is, Sarah had already tested negative for gonorrhea and every other test they threw at her.

When it comes down to it… parents need to be required to do their homework, so they can make informed decisions. Blindly rejecting, or even accepting every shot the medical field wants to give their child is ignorant.

I’ll be challenging Ty’s doctor to come up with an alternative vax schedule, and I really hope they can separate these vax cocktails (DTaP) at some point.

Joe’s last blog post..He’s asleep! Time for a nap!

one final thing for you to look at
btw
you have great taste in music cool for cats really made me laugh.
all the best