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tazzygirl -> RE: vaccines don't cause autism, they just result in autism (9/15/2010 9:19:44 PM)
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~FR
I have wondered why they broadened the diagnosis of autism. Its become a catch 22 for those who have no clue what is wrong with a child or how to treat said child. There is significant evidence that refusing vaccinations can cause an epidemic.
On Tuesday, editors at The Lancet officially retracted the British medical journal's 12-year-old study that they say incorrectly linked the combination Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.
The retraction of the 1998 study comes less than a week after the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom chastised the Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his co-authors for acting "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in doing his research for the study, which claimed that eight out of 12 children who received the MMR vaccine began showing symptoms of autism within days of getting the shot.
Last year, The Sunday Times of London published an in-depth report which alleges that Dr. Wakefield and his co-authors, John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, fabricated much of their research by manipulating the patients' data. According to the Times report
In most of the 12 cases, the children's ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.
Soon after the study was published in 1998, cases of measles in England skyrocketed and, even though Dr. Wakefield's research focused on just 12 patients, its results have been the basis for much of the anti-vaccination movement worldwide.
Further is the same article...
quote:
As I've written before, no one really knows what causes autism. Children who were extremely premature are thought to be at higher risk for autism. In 2008, some studies showed a possible link between autism and certain metabolic diseases. An article in Science Direct indicates that children living near toxic waste seem more likely to be on the spectrum. Some believe that the preservative Thimerosal, formerly used in many vaccines, could trigger a toxic tipping point, damaging the immune system; others think that administering several vaccines simultaneously could be the trigger. Others blame "toxic synergy," in which many of the so-called "harmless" chemicals and additives in everyday food, medications, and consumer products become toxic when heated or combined. (Randall Fitzgerald's book, The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health, does a great job of explaining the concept.) And, of course, there's the possibility of a genetic link.
Our oldest son is on the spectrum, and when our youngest kids came along we thought long and hard about vaccinating them. With no real way to prove that multiple vaccines were not harmful, and with no evidence against the idea of a toxic tipping point, we decided to vaccinate them --but over a longer period of time. With our pediatrician's approval, we opted to have them receive only one live vaccination per visit (two if both shots had inactive viruses), and to wait as long as possible between doses.
http://writeeditrepeat.blogspot.com/2010/02/lancet-officially-retracts-study.html
Within the article are several studies with links. Perhaps going through them might open some eyes.
And a final link... to show the real basis for the Lancet study...
British physician Dr. Andrew Wakefield has been branded a primary instigator of the mania that drove parents to avoid having their children undergo routine immunizations for fear that inoculations could produce autism.
It was Wakefield's article, published in 1998 in the premier British medical journal, The Lancet, that gave authority to the proposition that combined inoculations for measles, mumps and rubella were connected to childhood autism.
Now, though, the United Kingdom's General Medical Council, which licenses doctors, has concluded that Wakefield cherry-picked the children who became his study subjects, including paying kids at his son's birthday party to give blood.
The council also found that he subjected children to unnecessary procedures, such as colonoscopies, for experimental purposes without getting ethical approval. Oh, and Wakefield was secretly bankrolled by lawyers who hoped to sue vaccine makers. Oh, and he owned a patent on a competing measles vaccine.
Perhaps no one did more than Wakefield to fuel fears of a link between vaccinations and rising autism rates - fears that persist despite numerous studies refuting any connection.
As Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, put it, "That study did a lot of harm. People became afraid of vaccinations. This is the Wakefield legacy: this unscientifically grounded fear of vaccinations that result in children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases."
Steadfastly defending both his integrity and his science - and backed by supporters who mutter about "show trials" and "witch hunts" - Wakefield has been shamed before the world. He deserves far worse.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/02/06/2010-02-06_hippocrates_would_puke.html#ixzz0zf7Uopga
Interesting what you can discover when money becomes the driving force.
Now, from the Autism Science Foundation...
Editor's note: Alison Singer is co-founder and president of the Autism Science Foundation. She has a daughter and an older brother with autism
New York (CNN) -- You might not know it to read the news of the discredited research that had long linked vaccines to autism, but there really is good progress on the autism research front.
• A study published last year in the journal Nature identified a genetic variant that could account for up to 15 percent of autism cases. Once we can determine which proteins are associated with various risk genes, we can start to understand the mechanisms of action that may cause autism. And once we understand the mechanisms of action, we can start to develop targeted therapeutics.
• Elsewhere, researchers working with the younger siblings of children with autism are identifying biomarkers that could enable autism to be detected as early as the first few weeks of life.
• Clinical trials are under way investigating a compound that has proved effective at rescuing mice from the symptoms of Fragile X syndrome, which may be related to autism.
• In addition, stem cell and genome scanning technologies hold great promise for autism research.
But all of this has been overshadowed by a seemingly relentless preoccupation with the notion that vaccines might cause autism, despite mountains of scientific evidence that have concluded there is no link. It's time for us all to put that behind us.
On Tuesday, the medical journal The Lancet retracted the controversial 1998 paper that linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. Last week, the British General Medical Council ruled that Dr. Andrew Wakefield's "conduct in this regard was dishonest and irresponsible" when he published the research. The panel's chairman said he'd shown a "callous disregard" for the suffering of children.
The original Lancet publication had launched an era of anti-vaccine activism. At a news conference after the publication, Wakefield said there were "sufficient anxieties for a case to be made" to separate the three vaccines. Vaccination rates plummeted, and measles outbreaks swept across the United Kingdom. Hundreds of children were hospitalized, and several died. Across the country and around the world, parents became stricken with an unfounded fear of vaccination.
Because my older daughter had been diagnosed with autism, I read Wakefield's study carefully. I followed his advice to separate the shots when it came time for my younger daughter to be vaccinated in 1999. Looking back, I realize now that that decision left her needlessly vulnerable to vaccine-preventable disease and, frankly, did nothing to reduce the likelihood that she too might be diagnosed with autism.
Eventually, Wakefield's collaborators withdrew their names from the Lancet paper. Later it was revealed that he had received funds from lawyers representing the children enrolled in his study and that he obtained control blood samples from children who attended his son's birthday party, paying them 5 pounds apiece.
Since the publication, millions of dollars have been spent on multiple international studies examining the Wakefield hypothesis. No study has ever replicated his results. In fact, one study published in 2008 specifically tried to replicate Wakefield's original work and found no evidence that the vaccine had a connection to either autism or GI disorders. (You can read all the autism/vaccine studies here.)
At this point, we have to be willing to accept what legitimate science tells us. The science is clear regarding MMR and autism, just as it is with thimerosal (a vaccine preservative that has also been implicated in the past) and autism. Multiple studies have failed to show a causal link.
Unfortunately, we still don't know what causes autism, and that is one reason the vaccine hypothesis has been so sticky, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. But we will never find the answers we need about autism if we keep asking the same questions over and over. We need to move forward.
The problem is, we can never prove a negative. Science doesn't work this way. We will never be able to say we have done a definitive study showing vaccines don't cause autism. All science can show is the absence of a link.
Whereas anti-vaccine parent advocates cite personal anecdotes and state that they know with certainty that their child's autism came from vaccines because "they know their child," scientists talk about the "preponderance of evidence" and "statistical significance." That is not the stuff from which good soundbites are made.
Once you put a scary idea in someone's head, it is very hard to reassure them, even in the presence of compelling science. Anti-vaccine autism activists continue to view Wakefield as a hero willing to take on the establishment and fight for their children.
In the meantime, his research has had a lasting negative effect on children's health in that some people are still afraid of immunizations. In some cases, the younger siblings of children with autism are being denied lifesaving vaccines, despite mountains of scientific evidence indicating no link between vaccines and autism. This is the Wakefield legacy.
But the aftereffects of Wakefield's false claims don't stop there. Thousands of parents of children with autism were persuaded to pursue "detoxification" treatments to reverse nonexistent vaccine damage. At best, these treatments waste time and money. One child died from this "therapy."
In addition, pediatricians have found it hard to maintain constructive relationships with some families given their implicit accusations that mainstream medicine had harmed their children.
It's my hope that today marks a turning point. A staggering amount of work needs to be done to make life better for our families, and we may now be able to focus on moving forward with good science as our guide.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Alison Singer.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/03/singer.autism.study.vaccines/index.html
This woman deals with autism personally and professionally. Should she not be someone we should listen too?
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