Is this the new version of the abortion debate? You don’t agree with me so you must be a stupid, ignorant and mostly bad person?!?

God i hate celebrities.

All important medical issues are decided by angry mobs of ignorant laypersons who have their minds already made up. That’s always been the way science advances.

It’s not a matter of “what side do you believe is right”. It’s “what side IS actually right”. And that side is Amanda Peet’s.

McCarthy is an idiot.

Jenny, having a child with autism does not make you any kind of medical expert. I am sorry you child has autism, but the evidence is clear…. VACCINATIONS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

You are literally killing people by scaring them away from the greatest life saving medicine with have.

Why is it that the Stupid Burns brighter with blondes?

So the mob rules. Is that it?

At this point, I’ll trust my cats over McCarthy.

McCarthy is so frighteningly ignorant it beggers belief. She pontificates about the subject yet fails to grasp even the most elementary science. This vaccine stuff has been debunked time and time again, yet McCarthy continues to advocate policies that HARM children.

That she cites her ‘angry mob’ as though it were a good thing should tell you something.

Jenny, I’m sorry your child is autistic. I know you feel you need to lash out and blame something for your misfortune, but you’re just going to have to accept the fact that sometimes these things happen.

Please stop trying make the world safe for influenza and other micro-organisms.

Oh, and please stop the thinly veiled threats of violence. They’re not nice.

“We are not against vaccines..” could have fooled me, you speak of support for safe vaccines and yet every objections you have raised in the past and present based on health impact has been demolished by evidence and good science. When one unsupported claim is totally and utterly dismissed, you move on to a new one – maybe it’s time to spot a pattern here?

Seeing as our vaccines thus are proven safe, you should be for them by your own admission and yet you rail against them publicly at any chance you get.

What drives you people, it certainly isn’t reason and evidence?

I don’t really care what a bunch of celebrities think. I’ll look at the dozens of peer-reviewed medical studies that have shown no link between autism and vaccines, or between autism and heavy metals, or between autism and thalidomide. Then I’ll look at the one study, from over 10 years ago, that suggests maybe there might be a possible link between this one vaccine and a gastric infection that kinda seems to be associated with autistic kids… and the 8 out of 10 co-authors of the paper that disagreed with that conclusion.

I believe the SCIENCE! I like Amanda Peet for standing up for the science in a world where talk shows allow McCarthy to spew here ignorance and dangerous propaganda all over the screen, but I follow the SCIENCE.

There is no link, that’s NO LINK, between vaccines and autism. Autism is sad. It is a terrible thing to have to deal with as a parent. Researchers agree that increases in autism rates are due to better diagnosis and a broadening definition of what is classified as autism.

Vaccines prevent diseases. As more people refuse to vaccinate their children, the herd immunity that protects us will eventually reach a point that will allow outbreaks to occur. The W.H.O. estimates 242,000 deaths in 2006 from Measles. We don’t have this problem in the U.S. because of vaccines.

Anti-vaccination people are a danger to everyone.

That was me before I had autism in my life,

Be sure to let us know when you get a degree in epidemiology in your life, or perhaps a few well-designed studies.

“Oh, snap!”

What? How is that an “oh snap” moment?

@IW:
“I’ll also point out that lots of other things are on the rise besides vaccines and autism. For one, pirates.”

So we’re going to be seeing less global warming? Awesome!

Also, I don’t understand the argument that autism is caused by vaccines. If that’s the case, then why are so so so many children vaccinated WITHOUT developing an autistic spectrum disorder? I may have Asperger’s Syndrome, but neither of my siblings are at all on the spectrum, and we all got the same exact vaccines as kids. (I’m firmly in the camp that it’s genetic, since I’ve family members who would probably have been diagnosed similarly had it been around when they were kids. And this would have been prior to vaccines being used so ubiquitously, thanks much.)

As a mother with TWO autistic children, I find McCarthy’s ignorance appalling. Don’t we have enough difficulty in dealing with and understanding the Autism Spectrum without letting fad pseudo-science sway our families away from proper health care for our children?

THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE connecting immunizations and autism. Immunizations help keep our kids safe from dangerous diseases. Don’t they have enough to deal with without having to worry about illnesses that can be prevented?

unreal…why did the author of this article feel like jenny mccarthy’s comments were anything but disgusting? she threatens someone with an “angry mob” and claims that, because she has an autistic child, she has some special knowledge about the science of vaccinations?
the tone of this article is ridiculous and pro-ignorance.

Yeah, but it’s an angry mob of people who think JENNY McCARTHY IS A GENIUS.

Why do I picture a mob of Blinkin clones from “Men in Tights” all running in random directions screaming “I’LL SAVE YOU MASTER ROBIN!!!

That’s a mob you can distract with a handful of shiny beads.

I’ll also point out that lots of other things are on the rise besides vaccines and autism. For one, pirates.

vaccines cause pirates, too? OMG Jenny McCarthy’s son is going to become a pirate!

I have autism in my life (my son is autistic). But I don’t want Jenny McCarthy and her ignorance in my life.

Who does everyone think they are judging Jenny..And they believe the government will save them…Hello..

Amanda Peet is right with dozens of studies to back her up. No need for an angry mob.
If you say “No” to vaccines, you’re saying “Yes” to childhood diseases.

Kate says: As a mother with TWO autistic children, I find McCarthy’s ignorance appalling. Don’t we have enough difficulty in dealing with and understanding the Autism Spectrum without letting fad pseudo-science sway our families away from proper health care for our children?

end of quote.

Hey call me the bitch but sometimes this is what it takes to get it through these people’s heads. Hey Kate! Why don’t you have another child vaccinate it and make it three for three!

The government wouldn’t be making pay outs to people whose children are autistic as a RESULT OF VACCINATIONS.

Good luck with that 3rd child. they say 1 in 100 kids is autistic now. Yet I have hundreds of friends who didn’t immunize their kids and NONE of them are autistic. Imagine that.

But you keep telling yourself that. Go for number 3. 3rd times a charm. I have no sympathy for people who are so stupid they blindly trust the DRUG COMPANIES. Go talk to plenty of scientists AND doctors who disagree with you.

Liz Finn (and yes my uncle is Tom Finn the attorney who helped many people in this country whose children died or fell ill (or became autistic) from Vaccines.

“Good luck with that 3rd child. they say 1 in 100 kids is autistic now. Yet I have hundreds of friends who didn’t immunize their kids and NONE of them are autistic. Imagine that.”

That is a textbook post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacious bunch of reasoning.

Imagine THAT!

“Hey call me the bitch”

Okay. Bitch.

You are completely wrong, paranoid, delusional, and directly contributing to the spread of disease and the deaths of innocents. You are a monster. And a bitch.

If people like Liz and Jenny McCarthy had their way, kids would still be dying by the millions from polio.

dear liz: take a statistics class moron, that’s not how it works. and the only “doctors” who will agree with you are homeopaths and chiropractors who are so full of shit their eyes are brown.

you should be ashamed of yourself for promoting the vile and homicidal stupidity of the anti-vaccine movement.

I find it funny that so many commenters address McCarthy directly, as if she would actually receive and read those notes.

Liz Finn (and yes my uncle is Tom Finn the attorney who helped many people in this country whose children died or fell ill (or became autistic) from Vaccines.

congratulations!

you’re legacy will be:

thousands dead of previously eradicated infectious diseases, solely based on the fact that a lawyer can convince an ignorant judge to award damages based on shoddy thinking.

put that in your crack pipe and smoke it, moron.

So McCarthy thought she had an angry mob with her, did she ? I guess the science side has a bigger mob…

Oh strike that, science sports a larger legion of people educated on the subject and who actually know what they’re talking about and can use solid reasoning !

I don’t know but, even if PZ pointed the poll out to us, seems like there are still more people on the science side than the ‘mob’ side.

Liz Finn:

It’s been thoroughly studied — autism and vaccinations have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I don’t pretend to understand why demonizing vaccinations helps some people cope with having an autistic child, but it makes about as much sense as blaming astrology and the alignment of the planets.

Autism and vaccinations are completely unrelated. Really, they have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Okay, yes, I got here from ScienceBlogs, but seriously, only children who are allergic to the egg proteins that are involved in vaccine manufacture, or such problems, have anything to fear from vaccinations, and for those who can’t have shots, herd immunity is needed to save their lives. Measles and polio, can kill or permanently disable; whooping cough can kill. Tetanus can kill in about the nastiest imaginable way.

I know people with Aspergers, and autism-spectrum problem, that are too old for most of the childhood vaccines now available. So they didn’t get it from vaccines. Children with autism who had head measurements done as babies all– 100%– were notably above average in head size. This was before their immunizations could have begun.
Autism is upsetting for the parents of children with it, and it’s understandable they want to find an explanation. On the other hand, it can’t be easy to be the parents of a child sick all the time with allergies, but they don’t seem to be fed the same sort of irrational bullshit explanations– maybe because “alternative practitioners” can’t make thousands chelating someone who can bee treated with antihistamines and a clean room to retreat to.

Sorry, the last paragraph of my post should read:

Furthermore, there is no reason to suspect the American Academy of Pediatrics of collusion and having an autistic child is no license for slander.

Actually, Liz, it is one per thousand. Also, I hope that if one of your unvaccinated friends does get a child with autism, you realize how wrong you were and immediately vaccinate your children before a minor disease like the measles kills them. Or, in the case of mumps, leaves the boys infertile.

Also, keep in mind that autism is mostly genetic and does not show itself in young children until they are at least a couple of months old.

..and who the hell is Tom Finn?

@Liz Finn; you’re not a bitch.

You’re just lashing out because you’re ignorant and the facts scare you.

Read some books with actual verificable facts in them. Join us.

I have to say, Liz is a sorry excuse for a human being. Kate, I hope you won’t have to deal with people like her too often; like you said, it’s hard enough without this crap. Good luck to you and your children.

As to Liz’s “arguments”: there have been many studies done by universities from all over the world showing that vaccines and autism are not linked, so people don’t have to just take the drug companies’ word for it.

Liz mentions Kate should talk to doctors and scientists that disagree with Kate, but she doesn’t suggest that Liz might talk to some doctors and scientist that disagree with Liz. She also doesn’t mention that the latter group vastly outnumbers the former.

As for Liz’s friends who didn’t vaccinate her children and didn’t get autism: good for them, but they were probably just lucky. Unvaccinated children with autism do exist, and studies show autism rates to be the same as for vaccinated children. I just hope the luck of those friends will hold out and that they won’t have a measles outbreak among their children.

And I’ve always wondered why people would be so distrusting of the drug companies just because they make some money on vaccines. Couldn’t they make lots more money by simply allowing people to get sick and then overcharge them on the then urgently needed, life-saving drugs?

Finally, I’d like to thank Liz for reminding us that the drug companies aren’t the only party in this “debate” who have a financial interest. Certain lawyers are benefiting liberally from the vaccine-autism scare, and so are parts of the alternative medicine community. Maybe they just want to help people with autistic children, but then you should equally apply that argument to all doctors, scientists and pharmacists who don’t support a link between autism and vaccines.

Gee Liz, that’s funny…

I was vaccinated, twice actually, (thank you Air Force), didn’t get da autism.

My son? Like a DART BOARD. No autism.

My wife, her sister, no autism. In fact, by your “logic” every child ever vaccinated should have autism. Yet they don’t.

As far as the “science” behind your viewpoints, well, first you have to stop changing the cause. But then, every cause you pick gets eviscerated, so I imagine moving the goalposts is the only tactic you have left. Are you even still in the stadium at this point?

Man, it must suck to be you guys. All that work to keep your inane, illogical beliefs alive.

Liz, please educate yourself. Use wikipedia.

It’s not too late to be rational and try to undo some of the baseless myths your uncle has promoted.

“I look at (Peet) now and say to myself, ‘That was me before I had autism in my life’”

Well that’s a flat out lie.

Before she had autism in ‘her’ life, Jenny McCarthy believed her child was a super evolved spiritual wonder being who was going to save mankind (yes, seriously, look up her involvement with the Indigo Children). Her head was full of vicious anti-scientific twaddle before her child was diagnosed with autism.

‘New age’, rhymes with sewage.

I am quite surprised by this degree of wilful ignorance. “Green” ethics are essentially Science based so what is this nonsense doing here?

Since the vaccine/autism scare in the UK media that resulted in people witholding it from their children London is now facing a startling increase in cases of Measles. Several other countries have experienced similar epidemics due decreased vaccination rates.

Measles is 90% contagious in close quarters and has a mortality rate of 1/1000. In an outbreak your child will have a high risk of infection and may die.

Love all the science you guys are citing! So, when a parent observes vaccine damage in an infant or child they should just be quiet about it? Not going to happen. Here is a question for you: Do you think vaccine damage is reported by doctors? Yes, no, maybe? Here is an article based on an actual study: http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2008/03/05/vaers-what-we-really-know-about-the-reporting-of-adverse-events/ (the results? “During 5 months, a total of 33,420 vaccinations were administered during 14,466 encounters. There were 5,914 follow-up contacts by vaccinees within 14 days of the vaccination visits; 686 (11.6%) generated an alert. Clinicians submitted VAERS reports for 23 of these (0.69 per 1000 vaccines doses), which is almost 6 times the dose-based reporting rate to VAERS (p.731).”)

Well, this is supposed to be an “eco-friendly” site and you all are in favor of putting TOXINS into our kids bodies????!!!

There is plenty of evidence against autism-vaccine links, and while I won’t state that all vaccines are worth having for all people, for the most part there’s some solid epidemiology underlying their use.

Anecdotes are pretty much pointless – the biases that come into play with anecdotes pretty much outweigh the data value they bring. That’s why experiment is necessary – clinical trials, adverse event reporting, double blind studies… science isn’t some big monster, it’s a way of examining the world.

Don’t forget that those scientists against whom many of you are railing are people – people who are largely out there trying to help. I switched fields from mathematics to neuroscience, when my nephew was born with a brain tumour. I certainly don’t have an agenda beyond trying to help the public, but I don’t like to see bad science (or pseudoscience) propagated on sites like this – influential non-scientists giving opinions on medical subjects is a pretty sure way to end up hurting someone.

If you want some reading on thimerosal and vaccines in infants, there was a 2008 paper on the subject:

M. E. Pichichero, A. Gentile, N. Giglio, V. Umido, T. Clarkson, E. Cernichiari, G. Zareba, C. Gotelli, M. Gotelli, L. Yan and J. Treanor (2008). Mercury Levels in Newborns and Infants After Receipt of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines. Pediatrics 2008;121;e208-e214

and here’s one on vaccines and autism:

S. K. Parker, B. Schwartz, J. Todd and L. K. Pickering (2004).
Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Critical Review of Published Original Data. Pediatrics 2004;114;793-804.

The case for an autism-thimerosal link has been dismantled a number of times. Yes, there is still much to learn about autism, and bringing attention and funding to the study of autism (and its etiology) is a good thing – but concentrate on raising money to help scientists trying to work on the issues, rather than trying to spread pseudo science that undermines the real efforts being made by devoted scientists to help the public good.

Now, who would you believe, Jenny being an eye witness and not having financial ties to pharmaceutical companies? Or, Amanda Peete and Paul Offit who make their living off vaccines.

Bottom line is this: Why in the hell was my baby injected with more toxins in the first 15 months of his life than is deemed safe for a 550lb man says the EPA? Jesus, someone answer the question and someone take accountability. Neurological disorders didn’t go up 6000% for no reason … vaccines tripled and so did neurological disorders. If your child is one of the few who doesn’t have a life threatenting peanut allergy, asthma, ADD, ADHD, or ASD .. God bless you and go hide in the sand with Amanda Peete and her heatlhy baby. For the rest of us … 1 in 4 … we’ll stick with the truth and Jenny.

Out of the studies that show autism was not caused by vaccination, which one does McCarthy have a problem with?

For all the idiots who commented you’ll pick science over McCarthy, McCarthy is spreading research backed information. Maybe if you got more than Playboy in your mailbox, you’d see that McCarthy is one smart bunny – unlike Peet who listened to one man about vaccines and thinks she knows it all now!!!

Few comments here show any understanding of immunization theory, vaccine injury, biochemistry, medical ethics, the politics of bureaucracies — myriad interwoven elements of the issue. Sadly most people seem capable only of reductionism and fearmongering.

Investigating vaccine safety concerns is not equivalent to maligning shots. Simplified, is Ralph Nader anti-car? Is Meryl Streep anti-apple?

Tens of thousands of parents are reporting problems with vaccines. Yet public health administrators, manufacturers, media and consumers inexplicably try to dismiss these reports with reflexive and fallacious arguments — preferring uncomplicated ignorance.

Tragically that irresponsible inaction ensures continued injury to a subset of the population with genetic predispositions; note that Hannah Poling is not the only child with vaccine-induced autism who suffers from pre- or post-shot mitochondrial dysfunction.

Educate yourself. Read testimony to the Federal Omnibus Autism Proceedings (the “vaccine court”) that’s looked at this issue since 2002. Verdicts are expected in 2009.

Read vaccine injury reports to VAERS — the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. Look atthe lab tests these families have as proof. The evidence will break your heart.

Read David Kirby’s 2005 book “Evidence of Harm” and you’ll understand the political machinations that prevent U.S. citizens from seeing vaccine injury statistics in the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink.

Listen to people like Dr. Bernadine Healy, health editor for U.S. News and World Report. She was head of the Red Cross, and a director at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Healy told CBS News last spring: “I think the government or certain public health officials within the government have been too quick to dismiss the concerns of these families without studying the population that got sick.”

Jenny McCarthy is right — until you have walked in her shoes, you have no clue. Until you have done the reading necessary to understand this topic, or talked with doctors and chemists and parents affected by vaccine-induced autism, show a little compassion and keep your mind open.

Or for those who are too lazy to investigate:

The first:
Conclusions There has (probably) been no real increase in the incidence of autism. There is no scientific evidence that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine or the mercury preservative used in some vaccines plays any part in the aetiology or triggering of autism, even in a subgroup of children with the condition.

The second:
Our literature review found very few studies supporting this theory, with the overwhelming majority showing no causal association between the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine and autism. The vaccine preservative thimerosal has alternatively been hypothesized to have a possible causal role in autism. Again, no convincing evidence was found to support this claim, nor for the use of chelation therapy in autism.

Next time you find a study supporting your view it needs to be compared to the majority of studies. Anecdotal evidence or a single study is not proof of anything. Vaccines remain completely safe.

For all the idiots who commented you’ll pick science over McCarthy, McCarthy is spreading research backed information.

It depends on what you mean by “research.” If you mean studying at the University of Google to find antivaccination websites, then, yes, her information is “research-backed.” It’s just really bad research. On the other hand, if by “research” you mean quality science, clinical trials, and epidemiology published in peer reviewed journals and representing the consensus of the best scientists in this area, then, no, you’re full of crap. Jenny is in fact spreading pseudoscience. She thinks her Google knowledge trumps actually knowing science and studying the science. Truly, Jenny McCarthy is a perfect example of the arrogance of ignorance.

It’s not really a question “who is right -0 McCarthy or Peet”. A more serious question is “what does the science say”? On that score, the only one that matters, Peet is right. Jenny still thinks vaccines contain anti-freeze and ether. Nuff said.

“Oh, I know, you’re going to say that measles and mumps can have complications. How common are these complications?”

“By the way, all of you are forgetting that Hannah Poling was injured by vaccines. If it was possible for her to get injured by vaccines, then it is more than possible for other children to have the same result.”

Hmm. In one case you wonder about likelihood, but in the other you completely ignore it. Why is that?

The Squid Zone said:
“I must admit, I find it incredible that anyone would take seriously anything that comes out of the mouth of a B-grade soft porn / D-grade mainstream celebrity.”

Oh, you mean like Amanda Peet?

It’s not really a question “who is right -0 McCarthy or Peet”. A more serious question is “what does the science say”? On that score, the only one that matters, Peet is right. Jenny still thinks vaccines contain anti-freeze and ether. Nuff said.

Exactly right. Reality is what it is regardless of what pseudoscience mavens believe.

Why are you “science” bloggers so afraid??? Jenny McCarthy saved my sons life, NOT his pediatrician. My son’s autism is almost completely REVERSED thanks to detoxification, a proper diet, and therapies. I just don’t get why you can’t believe that kids lives ARE being saved here?

Twyla spake thusly: “… that biomedical treatments such as diet and supplements can help many people with autism.”

Um… let’s see what an actual study has to say about these diets.

Indeed. If PETA believes it, it’s probably a load of crap:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/09/peta_even_more_impossible_to_parody_than.php

Nic,

I’m not so sure that autism can be completely reversed. There is data, however, that show some of the genes that may be faulty in the disease can be “turned on.” Behavioral therapy early in life has much to do with it as well. I haven’t read too many of the details, but some scientists speculate that if you track these individuals at various molecular levels, you might see a correlation of changes in mRNA and protein as a result of environmental stimulus.

I’m sure diet makes things better, just as certain diets reduce symptoms of other diseases, such as Tourette’s and ADHD.

@IThinkForMyself

“Really? Tell that to my son, who developed an encepalopathy after receiving his MMR and DTaP on the same day. This is noted in his medical documentation, by the way. Tell that to Hannah Poling. Tell it to Dr. Healy. Tell it to the thousands upon thousands of parents who are telling the exact same story.”

If what you’re saying is true, it would be borne out in the longitudinal studies. It isn’t. This is PRECISELY why anecdote is not evidence, ever.

There is not a single good study that even suggests the remotest link between MMR and autism, or thimerosal and autism. The study that got this whole thing going has been disowned by all but one of the authors, and the last author (Andrew Wakefield) is up on professional misconduct charges related to all of this.

If you really care about the origin of autism and various encephalopathies, why are you wasting your time praising this ridiculous, debunked hypothesis? Go and spend your time and give donations to organizations that look for the real causes of these issues.

Jenny McCarthy isn’t just wrong; she’s doing active harm by diverting attention from research into the real causes of autism.

It is amazing to me at the amount of people talking smack. A lot of you are slamming Jenny because she simply wants to GREEN our vaccines and take out the uneeded toxins. She does NOT want to do away with any vaccines. She understands how important they are!

I am a proud mom of a 6 year old son with Autism. I also believe that CONTAMINATED vaccines caused my sons Autism. I know alot of you dont agree with that theory. But until you see a completelty normal child go from healthy and normal to autistic in a matter of days of recieving so many vaccines at once. You will NEVER understand what us mothers feel. We are not trying to Blame anyone. But when your child goes from fine to having a life long disabilty, it makes you think.

I also agree that vaccines are VERY important. I am NOT against them. However I am against that many in one day. I believe these vaccines need to be broken up into smaller dosages so that these children are not getting OVER vaccined. The amount of Toxins in these vaccines are mind blowing. All we want is to make them safer and remove the toxins. Thats all Jenny wants. She is simply saying lets clean them up and test our children to see if their little bodies can handle that many vaccines.

There is no need to name call Jenny. She just wants what every other mom wants. To have a happy and healthy child.

@Kristyn

“I am a proud mom of a 6 year old son with Autism. I also believe that CONTAMINATED vaccines caused my sons Autism. I know alot of you dont agree with that theory. But until you see a completelty normal child go from healthy and normal to autistic in a matter of days of recieving so many vaccines at once. You will NEVER understand what us mothers feel. We are not trying to Blame anyone. But when your child goes from fine to having a life long disabilty, it makes you think.”

We don’t agree with the theory (and, frankly, this whole line of thinking does a great disservice to the noble word ‘theory’), because there is no evidence to support it.

No amount of anecdote is evidence. Evidence comes in the form of studies that control for other variables that could have caused the observed effect, which anecdote absolutely does not do.

“However I am against that many in one day. I believe these vaccines need to be broken up into smaller dosages so that these children are not getting OVER vaccined.”

What you believe is irrelevant. All that matters is what is true. There is no evidence that multiple vaccinations is harmful. End of story. When this evidence is proffered, I will change my opinion. This is the way rational people think; let the evidence guide your opinion.

“She just wants what every other mom wants. To have a happy and healthy child.”

No doubt. But what she is doing, in reality, is making things worse by diverting attention (and, most importantly, money) from those people who wish to find the real causes of autism. She is doing active harm. When she is able to provide evidence to back up her point of view, we will take her seriously.

“If you really care about the origin of autism and various encephalopathies, why are you wasting your time praising this ridiculous, debunked hypothesis? Go and spend your time and give donations to organizations that look for the real causes of these issues.”

Because it’s hard to garner sympathy as the mother of a victim of an oppressive regime if there isn’t a regime to rail against?

@thinkformyself: Please be sure to write your memoirs and tell-all exposés. In the future, parents of whatever disease will then be used by the pro-pseudoscience anti-vaccine lobby will appreciate a manual on how to win fame and celebrity on the back of their child’s illness.

By the way, I know you’re busy bandying anecdotes around (the same kind the tobacco lobby used to repress the link between smoking and cancer for decades), but in the interest of honest disclosure you really should thank the creationists for your screen name. Styling oneself “IThinkForMyself” in an attempt to posit yourself as some sort of outside-the-box free-thinker (when you’re really no more than a run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorist with a sob story) has been a hallmark of their strategy of deceit for years.

Nobody wants their child to get a horrible disease, but there are harmful toxins that are in these vaccines that some children are not able to excrete efficiently.

Evidence for this assertion, please?

(crickets chirping…)

How sad that a celebrity wants to harm children by working against vaccinations.

But posting this is a wate of time because responding to the crazies to point out their bad judgement makes them think they’re ‘onto something’ or that you’re attacking their children.

Pathetic. Liz Finn especially.

It is amazing to me at the amount of people talking smack. A lot of you are slamming Jenny because she simply wants to GREEN our vaccines and take out the uneeded toxins. She does NOT want to do away with any vaccines. She understands how important they are!

Really? Even though the dose makes the poison and there is no evidence that at the doses given anything in vaccines is harmful?

In any case, if Jenny isn’t antivaccine, why is it that she has repeatedly said that she would never, ever vaccinate again if she has another child. Why is it that she refuses to define what a “green” vaccine would look like or specify what it would take in terms of “greening our vaccines” in order to persuade her to vaccinate? It’s because she is antivaccine, pure and simple. Her “we’re pro-safe vaccine” stance is nothing more than a disingenuous justification for her antivax stance.

The bottom line is that, no matter what is removed from vaccines, she will still never consider them “green enough.” That’s because she is antivaccine, her claims otherwise notwithstanding.

I have two autistic sons, but I have no desire to walk in McCarthy’s shoes of ignorance. Angry mob indeed. McCarthy and Jim Carey get my vote for the Golden Douche-Nozzle Award.

What Tom said:

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2008/09/30/jenny-mccarthy-strikes-back-at-amanda-peet-over-child-vaccinations/#comment-144325

What is a “dirty” vaccine? What is a “green” vaccine? What is a “toxin”?

“Vaccine skeptics” seem to raise more questions than answers.

You idiots claiming your kids were cured: autism is a developmental delay disorder, not one which halts development entirely. Therefore, any improvements you may biasedly observe may be due to nothing but time.

Carolyn,

Amanda Peet speaks from experience as a parent with a child without autism.

Let me explain in detail….

She gave birth to a beautiful little girl. Got her vaccinated. Then she was fine.

Why is this not equally valid experience? Why does Jenny have the right to form an opinion based off of her experience with her child while you dont give Amanda the right to form an opinion based off of her experience with her child? Amanda has exactly the same amount of experience as Jenny. Yet you value the opinion of one and discard the opinion of the other.

@Carolyn

“She gave birth to a beautiful little boy. Got him vaccinated. Then he started having a serious medical issues (seizures etc) that resulted in autism.”

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Do you not see the flaw in this? No doubt you believe that the sun rises because the rooster crows.

“Autism is a medical issue not merely a developmental disability. Any parent with a child with autism can inform you of the many maladies that autism presents itself (asthma, immune disregulation, sensory disregulation, heavy metal toxicity, cerebral inflammation etc etc)”

Ok.

“Amanda Peet is speaking from no experience at all.

Simply put. If you don’t KNOW autism. You have no right to speak on behalf of it. PERIOD.”

Wow. I’m a cancer researcher, but I’ve never had cancer; should I stop now?

I know evidence, and the evidence tells me that there is no association between MMR and autism, or thimerosal and autism, or anything-to-do-with-vaccines and autism.

“Her actions and words speak volumes to a group of parents that work tirelessly to give their children the best life possible.”

No one is questioning her desire to help her kids and to help other kids. No one. But when you divert attention and money from efforts to find the real causes, you are doing active harm to the people you are hoping to help.

“Our children are not going away. 1 in 150 A child is being diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes.”

Ok, so let’s put our heads together and try to find out why. Let’s not get bogged down in pseudoscience and woo. Let’s let the evidence take us where it will.

“(Peet) has a lot of [nerve] to come forward and be on that side, because there is an angry mob on my side.”

Are they going to beat Amanda Peet over the head with their strippers’ poles?

I cast my vote for Amanda Peet, because our kids deserve good health care and immunization from vaccine preventable diseases.

Simply put. If you don’t KNOW autism. You have no right to speak on behalf of it. PERIOD.

Corollaries to this fallacious argument:

I’m not black; so I have no right to speak about issues affecting African Americans, PERIOD!

I’m not a woman; so I have no right to speak about issues affecting women, PERIOD!

I’m not a banker, so I have no right to speak about the current financial crisis, PERIOD!

I’m not a politician, so I have no right to speak about politics, PERIOD!

You get the idea…

“wiseone”:

“They have been trained from an early age to do what the man in the white coat says for he is wise and science is God.”

Actually, no, science is way more reliable than God. Furthermore, science is precisely the opposite of what you seem to think it is: it’s approaching observations and opinions with absolute skepticism, not with blind faith.

“What is real is that doctors are simply human and make terrible decisions all the time…”

No shit. That’s why there’s practices such as double-blinding, randomization, placebo controls, and peer-review. That’s why unambiguous data always trumps personal observation. It is precisely because people are fallible and prone to error that science is necessary.

“…science has been polluted by money and politics since the beginning on this issue”

So? So that means any scientific findings on the issue are automatically wrong?

“Please try to use your own minds and learn to think for yourselves.”

Indeed, but don’t willfully ignore the cold, hard evidence. If I was abandoned on an island at birth and somehow survived to this day, I’d probably think the yellow thing in the sky was just a big dot on some firmament, or maybe a big flaming sky-turtle – who knows. But that’s where thinking for myself would get me without the chastening of science. As it is, however, I have all sorts of other people’s evidence to inform me, and I owe it to them and to the rest of humanity to consider it.

I wouldn’t wish autism on anyone. But, I wonder how you’d feel if your perfectly normal, healthy child went in for routine vaccinations and had seizures and became completely non-verbal right after receiving them? What would you think? What would you believe? Because there are literally thousands of us that see this every day. And we and our innocent children, siblings and families will live with it for the rest of our lives.

You are all entitled to your opinions as we are to ours. We never had the chance to walk in your shoes, nor you in ours.

Feel lucky you don’t have to.

orac,
this is what i’m talking about… you say:

“I want to know specific vaccine ingredients you consider to be toxins, along with evidence showing that they are toxic AT THE DOSE GIVEN IN THE VACCINE.”

I don’t have to give you evidence that potential toxic ingredients (let’s start with mercury and aluminum) are toxic. You have to give me evidence that they are SAFE AT THE DOSE GIVEN BEFORE injecting. That’s YOUR job, not mine.

Wow, I didn’t think there were so many people who bought into what we are spoonfed to be truth. I would assume that there are some free thinkers out there who actually do their own research and don’t always believe the things that are “scientifically proven”. I hope that there are others out there who realize that all the “scientific evidence” is made to be in favor of the the companies making the profit–Pharma companies and the like. Money,not our health, is more important to the powers that be. Until more individuals like Jenny McCarthy stand up for what is right, everyone will continue to get sick and stay sick. Isn’t this the kind of thinking that we try to teach our kids not to follow–well everyone else is doing it so it must be ok??? Wrong!!!!

…Jenny McCarthy demonstrates the arrogance of ignorance …

Ignorrogance?

hey all you science shits who wrote me nasty notes?

i’m going one steop further. she should have learned after having her FIRST child vaccinated and getting autism to think twice before doing it to the second child. I bet it was the same doc who administered the shots. Yet *I* get yelled at for getting on her case? GO READ THE COMMENTS ON THIS BOARD FROM DOCTORS and parents whose children have autism as a result of vaccines. there is plenty of medical evidence to back this up. I’ve seen it happen first hand. What kind of crazy insane mob would close their minds so tightly that they wouldn’t even look at the info?

Also Jenny McCarthy was on front of CNN today in an interview where she said she is into green vaccines. yes I was vaccinated but they were different back then and the schedule was different. do your homework people.

don’t take your anger out on ME. Take it out on big pharma. take it out on parents who don’t listen and continue to over vaccinate their kids with these ridiculous schedules. and then end up with what? 2 ? 3? kids with autism.
take some responsibility!

LIZ

Please all, take a moment to read a book called “Demon Haunted World” by Carl Sagan. Anti-science is much too accessible in this day and age, and sadly too many people mistake it for something rational because they just don’t understand basic principles. With a country that is only 28% scientifically literate if you have a college degree, and only 7% without one, you’d think that people who actually knew what they were talking about should decide these issues, not uneducated talking heads…

Wow there’s lot of responses, and so much passion behind them all! I wonder if there is a middle ground that can be reached? From my understanding no one knows what causes Autism in all cases, so who is to say that some children may have an adverse reaction to vaccines while most do not? I believe that vaccines are beneficial and have prevented a lot of disease, but I also think that by using science things like mercury can be removed without making the vaccins less effective. I also think there is no harm in spacing out vaccines instead of following the routine schedule. Instead of being so difinitive on this issue, McCarthy is right no no Peet is right, Science vs. Emotion etc., maybe we can accept that different people react to vaccines differently both medically and emotionally. If the amount of vaccines given at one time is what is going to prevent parents from adminstering them, instead of yelling at one another maybe we can look at alternative schedules that will still vaccinate children, but in a way that will not expose the immune system to so much at one time. I know some doctors are looking at alternative schedules to spread vaccines out over a longer period of time, here’s a link that discusses that if anyone is interested. http://vaccinations.suite101.com/article.cfm/alternative_vaccination_schedules

Brownian said:

“Besides, don’t you know vaccines cause AIDS, not autism? At least, that’s what your contemporaries in Africa are using to ensure polio remains a debilitating killer there. You should read their heart-warming stories about plucky mothers standing up to the man and his ’science’. And if personal experience and anguish count for so much, as you and Jenny seem to think, well, then they must be right. In terms of deeply felt suffering, the parent of a child with AIDS beats the parent of a child with autism any day.”

YEAH FOLLOW THE MONEY $$$$$$ the rich white man is trying to keep the black man down by putting aids in the vaccines!!!!

Hell it least that is remotely possible, though totally absurd.

“The universe is not a kumbaya sing-a-long. Meteorology is an actively-researched field, but that doesn’t mean that the guy who thinks it’ll rain because a low-pressure system is forming in a region with moist air and the guy who thinks it’ll rain because he stepped on a spider are both ‘a little bit’ right.”

What is wrong with spreading vaccines out over a longer time frame if the vaccines happen? How is me proposing an alternative schedule the same thing as someone beleiveing an old wives tale?

”
YEAH FOLLOW THE MONEY $$$$$$ the rich white man is trying to keep the black man down by putting aids in the vaccines!!!!

Hell it least that is remotely possible, though totally absurd.”

And as a result, governments in Africa spend tons on public health campaigns trying to convince people that No, the White Man didn’t bio-engineer HIV/AIDS and spread it via polio inoculations to keep Africa poor and servile.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of people like Jenny McCarthy, those of us in public health get to spend valuable time and resources undoing damage so we don’t end up dealing with REAL epidemics of rubella that kill or disable millions.

So, Jenny McCarthy “has an angry mob” on her side? Well, that certainly settles that! After all, everybody knows how rational and well reasoned an “angry mob” is, when they come to their anger and rage (and then, when they decide to act out against those who they perceive as having angered them in the first place). Really, one does not have to be an idealogue of any stripe to feel for Ms. McCarthy, because I would not wish autism on anyone, or on anyone’s child. The grief,anger, guilt, etc. that must run through a parent in those circumstances must be incalculable. Nevertheless, that is no reason to allow Big Brother bullying (in the form of an angry mob or otherwise) to dictate public policy. Let the science be known, and act accordingly.

(Same as aboe, but without the typos)

I don’t have to give you evidence that potential toxic ingredients (let’s start with mercury and aluminum) are toxic. You have to give me evidence that they are SAFE AT THE DOSE GIVEN BEFORE injecting. That’s YOUR job, not mine.

Nice try shifting the burden of proof. However, you’re the one making wild claims about “toxins,” not me, and I simply asked you to back up what you said. Obviously you can’t.

I, however, can. Here’s a primer:

http://vaccine.chop.edu

That’s just to start. There’s lots more where that came from, straight from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, if you like, but I’m starting simple.

Feel free to demonstrate to me that the data there is incorrect. Again, please show your sources.

There are three important points which I failed to make earlier.

1. DO SOME RESEARCH. And for the record, “I read on a blog”, or “someone quoted part of a study”, or “a celebrity said” is not research. If you see a study which reports something, get information on the full study. Completely different meanings can be obtained by seeing statements out of context, which is how a lot of these counter-claims appear credible at first glance.

2. This can be inferred from what I just typed, but get the full details about whatever anomaly that you’re stating. For example, seeing how autism was diagnosed in kids before and after the spike, which vaccines have or don’t have whatever suspect elements (like thimerosal), what studies have been done on it, what links have been investigated, the results of all relevant research, etc.

3. For every choice, there’s consequences. Decide the real risks of the vaccines, AFTER RESEARCH? What risk of permanent organ damage and/or fatalities can occur as complications of what the vaccine fights? In my case, mumps led to damage to the pancreas, which caused the development of juvenile diabetes, which itself has led to failing kidneys, retinopathy (which led to the necessity of getting vitrectomy and cataract surgery), the requirement of regular heart medication, and the likelihood of future amputation due to circulatory issues. If the mumps vaccine was ready in time, I’d have had none of those worries, since there is no family history of diabetes. But I was lucky, Some kids who get measles, mumps, and so forth die before they get better.

In short, don’t go with a mob. There are mobs for Holocaust deniers, flat earthers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and so on, so don’t assume that you don’t have to think if there are others spouting the same thing. It’s the lives of children that you’re arguing about here, so do more than just believe that you’re right.

@Bob

“There was a time those most educated in “science” ridiculed those who didn’t believe the world was flat…”

And how, exactly, did we learn that the world wasn’t flat? Was it pseudoscience and woo that convinced us? Of course not; it was science, doing what science does: refining the body of knowledge when new data comes it. Once again, this is how one thinks rationaly. I’ll be happy to admit vaccines increase the risk of developing autism, just as soon as the evidence shows this to be the case.

“I ask you smug know-it-alls to do this: look at who is doing the talking and follow the money. There is so much money being made on vaccinations that there plenty to spread around to keep a lid on the true facts. There is also plenty to spend on biased “scientific” studies to “prove” that there is no link between vaccines and Autism. I live with proof every day.”

Even if every autism researcher were getting gold-plated toilets from the drug companies, that, in and of itself, would not invalidate the data. You would still have to show WHY the data are poor. For instance, is there a variable that is not being looked at or controled for properly?

Science? Really? You’ll put your lives and the lives of your children in the hands of science? Science is great, but scientists make mistakes too, just like the rest of us.

I don’t have a kid with autism. Both of my children are nearly up to date on their vaccines. Despite this, I know vaccines aren’t as great as these supporters of “science” are making them out to be. I was vaccinated against Typhoid and still came down with the disease. That’s the only vaccine problem I’ve experienced, but it’s enough for me to know that vaccines aren’t perfect.

Let’s be reasonable adults and quit acting like they are.

There was a time those most educated in “science” ridiculed those who didn’t believe the world was flat…

Really? And when was that? Educated people have known the world was not flat since the time of the Ancient Greeks. What we call “science”, as a specific field of education, is not nearly that old.

It’s telling that you’re so wrong, you can’t even get your analogies correct.

@Hillary

“Science? Really? You’ll put your lives and the lives of your children in the hands of science? Science is great, but scientists make mistakes too, just like the rest of us.”

Fair enough.

If you ever wind up in the emergency room, be sure to tell the physicians to avoid using science at all costs, ’cause you don’t trust it.

You could tell that to the air ambulance pilot too on the way to the emergency room.

Science has been wrong; and science right itself by accepting new facts. If you show the evidence that vaccines cause autism, I’ll believe it. You’ll be using the scientific method to show it, and I’ll believe it.

Like Orac, I await the evidence…

you know this dovetails nicely with my advocacy group, Fathers Against Recalcitrant Turtles. I had a turtle years ago, and it was fine. Then, I stepped on a nail, and it became incredibly hard to deal with, refusing every request. It’s obvious that stepping on nails makes turtles difficult to deal with. The Big Nail lobby in Washington doesn’t want you to know the truth!

I’d still like to know exactly what “michael” was getting at with his “Oh, snap!” comment. Is he in favor of angry mobs attacking people?

Amanda Peet kicked butt in “Saving Silverman.” I’m not about to vote against her.

Follow the money? How about we follow the money that was being paid to Andrew Wakefield, the researcher who first published claims of an MMR-autism link? How about we follow all of the money David Kirby’s gained and stands to gain from book sales and speaking engagements?

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/09/22/autism/index.html

But you know what? That’s unfair. It doesn’t matter that Wakefield was being paid for his research. It DOES matter that his research was unethical and his results tainted and biased.

It doesn’t matter that Kirby made money off his book. What matters is that he’s wrong, and won’t own up to it.

And please, “everyone’s entitled to their own opinion”? Yes, of course that’s true, but it doesn’t give your opinion any validity.

“Science? Really? You’ll put your lives and the lives of your children in the hands of science?”

As opposed to the alternative? Fuck yes.

Hey anti-vaxers -

I’ll be laughing when you’re screaming as your kid dies of measles. Your kid doesn’t deserve to die, but you deserve a mocking.

“My angry mob makes me brave AND right?’

Dear god, is JM trying to satirize herself or is she simply that outrageously, belligerently stupid?

I’m sorry her kid has autism but lashing out like an uneducated knuckle-dragger at one of the most important innovations in medical science and public health worldwide, using stupidly emotional rhetoric and making veiled threats about mobs and all in defence of a thoroughly debunked idea – that vaccines cause autism – isn’t going to help her child or those like her child one whit.

Amanda Peet is right. Unless you like iron lungs, kids dead from encephalitic measles and recurrences of other diseases that used to kill and maim – and are now thought of as ‘harmless’ or ‘mild’ because of vaccination – *vaccinate your children*.

“Biomedical Mom” (oh the irony!) says “If you are vaccinated, why are you so worried about the people who aren’t? Is it because you know the efficacy of the vaccines is poor?”

It is because we understand that individual vaccines are not perfectly efficacious but that a greatly increased protection comes through “herd immunity”. That you don’t understand such a fundamental aspect of this makes it crystal clear that you are simply not informed enough on the issue to be making such important decisions for anyone. And, as it happens, you are not only making ignorant choices about your own children’s health, you’re also putting the health of all of our children at risk.

Hey my son was vaccinated and is developmentally advanced (despite being a premie). Does that mean vaccines helped him?

It’s the same logic as the anti-vac crowd is using…

@Jennifer Scalia

“There are no 10 year double blind placebo studies to prove it.”

There are no RCTs to prove that parachutes save lives during free fall.

Here’s a meta-analysis: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1459

“All we have are statistics from both sides. Julie Gerberding, Head of the CDC, did state on a live CNN interview, that vaccinations are known to trigger Autism in certain children.”

Once again, opinion is not evidence. Show me a single longitudinal study, beside Wakefield’s original 12 person “study”, that shows that autism risk is correlated with vaccination of any kind.

I await the evidence…

“However, it is safe to say that we are witnessing an epidemic that needs to be properly addressed. Ruling out vaccines as a possible accessory would be counter productive.”

We are witnessing a revolution in the diagnosis of autism and autism-like disorders. What is the evidence that, given equivalent diagnostic parameters, that autism rates have increased in the last, say, 20 years?

So sad to see the hate on this board. Until your child becomes sick, you’ll never understand what autism families have gone thru. Fact – Autism is on the rise, didn’t exist in medical literature before 1940. Big Pharma, Gov’t and AAP are covering their tracks because they can’t afford to be wrong. Good luck in your choice.

Jennifer Scalia wrote:
“There is no scientific evidence that the current amount of vaccinations are safe.”
There’s a lot of evidence that polio and measles aren’t safe though.

By the way, you don’t have to hear from both sides. That’s not how science works. Someone does a study to see if the vaccines and/or the additives cause autism and publishes results. You have to analyze each study individually. No one of any repute (which is the reason that people are telling you guys to ignore blogs that reinforce your own personal feelings about something) picks a “side” and then tries to prove it or disprove it. This isn’t a legal thing or Fox “News”, it’s how chemicals affect the body. Like it or not, real studies have shown that there is no connection. Physiology doesn’t rely on a mob consensus.

MICHAEL:

I have been following your dialogue with the Pharyngulistas, and I just wanted to thank you for being open minded enough to realize that reliable education is a very valuable tool, and for considering that, both sides of an argument may not have equal weight.

I have managed, with considerable difficulty, to watch Jenny McCarthy being ‘interviewed’ on national news broadcasts this week as she promotes her book and her ‘mother warrior’ meme. So far, none of these ‘serious journalists’ have challenged her views very much, nor have they even brought on a health professional or biomedical researcher to counter her unscientific arguments. As a professional scientist, this saddens me greatly. The scientifically intractable nonsense she is spouting is sickening and harmful. For example, she clearly sates in the CNN interview, that any parent with an autistic child would ‘gladly take the flu or the measles over autism any day of the week’. This is a chilling pronouncement, and I fear that it will not be long before the fruits of her self-promoting labors will allow many parents to become more familiar with the deadly and disabling consequences of preventable diseases reappearing in epidemic proportions.

Anyway, thanks again for your commitment to objectivity.

Hey anti-vaxers -

I’ll be laughing when you’re screaming as your kid dies of measles. Your kid doesn’t deserve to die, but you deserve a mocking.

Trolling like that was really utterly unnecessary and vile.

“Until your child becomes sick, you’ll never understand what autism families have gone thru.”

So? Whether or not vaccines cause autism is a matter of fact. Facts are not dependent upon the emotional experiences of the beholder.

“Fact – Autism is on the rise, didn’t exist in medical literature before 1940.”

Fact – the rate of autism diagnosis is on the rise. That this is due to an increase in autism is speculation, and rather uninformed speculation at that.

Fact – prior to 1940 autistic people were described in the medical literature as schizophrenic, retarded or mentally ill. What changed is how they were described, not their condition. A rose by any other name…

Oh P.S. How many families did you know growing up that had schizophrenic, retarded or mentally ill children? Not the current rates.

“Then, go get your flu shots, boosters and the new Gardisil and see how you feel. Helpless infants can’t make that choice…”

How is that an argument against vaccination? Helpless infants can’t strap themselves into car-seats either, that is why informed adults take steps to protect them. In exactly the same way informed adults protect these “helpless infants” from dangerous disease by getting them vaccinated.

I’m confused. Why would McCarthy claim that any parent with an autistic child would “gladly take the flu or the measles over autism any day of the week” when she also claims she can cure autism with her Flintsone chewables?

Geez, sure rather have an autism epidemic than a measles outbreak. The latest ‘outbreak’ was under 200 people, half of them unvaxxed. Oh – that means half of them were vaxxed. hmmm…
Once again, we are not anti-vax – most of our kids are fully vaxxed. We are for a safer schedule, and safer ingredients. And stop bullying parents, if my child has a seizure after a serious of shots – don’t tell me not to worry and bully me to have more without looking at this child’s health. That is what is happening. And if parents are not vaccinating because of what Jenny is saying – she’s not to blame. The establishment (gov’t, CDC, industry) are – they all lost our confidence. If they all were straight with us from the beginning (as they were in Japan when they pulled the MMR after a jump in autism after it’s introduction) then we would have a little more confidence in ‘them’. But in the US there is just a little too much butt covering that has to happen given our litigious nature.

@KM

“Oh P.S. How many families did you know growing up that had schizophrenic, retarded or mentally ill children? Not the current rates.”

What is the evidence that, given identical diagnosis parameters, that autism rates have increased in the last 20 years? Don’t obfuscate any further. Just point me to the evidence that suggests that there has been a real increase in the rates of autism over that time.

Good for Jenny.

@Mike, D.C. Sessions

Regarding Cindy’s comment of “Just go with your gut instinct about your child”, to her credit, also said… “Search everything out first. Talk to parents on both sides and let your instincts guide you.” That’s also what Amanda Peet did, according to her interview in CookieMag.

@Cathy R.

It looks like you didn’t do any research into why there are more cases of autism being diagnosed. The doctors are just getting better at finding it. The American Association of Pediatricians changed their screening criteria shortly before those numbers went up, and as a result, kids with autism were less likely to be classified as being behaviorally different for other reasons.

Multiple studies have also already been carried out, comparing autism rates between vaccinated versus unvaccinated, the onset and severity of autism between the two groups, and so forth. And in all cases, no difference was found between those with and without vaccinations.

Unless you want to argue that this is such a super massive conspiracy as to involve all scientists and medical labs contacted on all matters of the issue in all parts of the world, evidence to the contrary is needed to argue against vaccinations. Science is not about reaching a predefined conclusion, it’s about gathering the evidence to support an argument. And so far, the argument is against those who decry the perils of vaccinations.

@juryisout

Actually, yes we do. It’s the exact same certainty we have the the Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Genetics is true.

@CathyR

Scienceblogs has a such a high turnout because people who like science also tend to hate bullshit stupidity.

Just because your child is autistic it doesn’t give you the right to be a complete dumb ass. That right, you get free with being Jenny McCarthy.

HidariMak:

Really, I am not trying to provoke anyone or inflame this debate, but if you do some research you will see that you are not correct. There has not been even one study comparing fully vaccinated to completely unvaccinated children.

What I think you are confusing (and many people do, so you are not alone) is that there have been studies (a lot of them)that looked at children who did and did not get the MMR, and there have been studies that looked at the various amounts of thimerosol children got in their shots as compared to their neurological outcomes. Thimerosol and the MMR have been looked at from many different angles, but in all these cases, all the children in the studies were vaccinated with many, many vaccines. That is completely different from looking at kids who got all the shots as compared to kids who got no shots. Do you see the difference?

Let’s just assume for argument’s sake that there is something else going on. Suppose there is something about giving a newborn baby a Hep B shot when they are only a few hours old, for example, that causes a problem. Well, then you could exhaustively study every angle of the MMR and thimerosol and you won’t pick that up because all the kids in your study will have had the Hep B at birth, as is currently mandated.

The whole purpose of Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s bill is to mandate that this vaccinated/unvaccinated study be done because it has never been done. Do some research and you will see what I am saying.

There have been many studies so far but they have only focused on two specific areas. The extent of the mainstream research thus far has not touched on the many other possibilities. If the right studies aren’t getting done, then there is no way to gather the evidence to support the argument.

Vaccines do not cause autism. If you want to run a site dedicated to praising those that do good for others and shame those that do wrong, standing up to the anti-vax nutballs should be a prime issue for you.

Just because McCarthy et al. claim to want to “green” vaccines, that doesn’t mean what they are trying to do is actually beneficial.

THERE IS NO REPUTABLE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE SHOWING VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM.

This is anti-science quackery.

Has anyone have information on the role calcium plays in autism. Many Kids improve when they are taken off dairy products and milk replacements. It is common to hear that many of the children with autism are huge milk drinkers. My kids were addicted to it. They haven’t had milk in over a year or calcium supplements and their calcium is checked regularily and is normal now. They started eating better too when we eliminated milk. They gained weight and grew after 18 months of no weight gain.
I know of kids that have Timothy’s syndrome and autism. When they were treated with caclium regulation drugs for arrythmia their cognitive function improved and the autistic behaviours went away.

Has anyone have information on the role calcium plays in autism. Many Kids improve when they are taken off dairy products and milk replacements. It is common to hear that many of the children with autism are huge milk drinkers.

There’s no good evidence that casein-free (milk-free) diets help autistic symptoms:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/09/peta_even_more_impossible_to_parody_than.php

Jenny McCarthy don’t say no to vaccination, she asks for safer vaccines, and they are not safe! Some of them contain many times more mercury (Thimerosal) than the amount acceptable, and if you cumulate the vaccines received by a child, this amount cumulates also, which can trigger Autism (not the only cause). There should be no heavy metal in the vaccines.

Big Pharma Ties Want to Shut Down Vaccine ‘Conspiracy Theories’
Very important article about this vaccination controversy and you’ll understand a little bit more what lies behind – If you want to know if something is really the truth, just look who exactly is saying it…

@Julie

“Very important article about this vaccination controversy and you’ll understand a little bit more what lies behind – If you want to know if something is really the truth, just look who exactly is saying it…”

Once again, if you’d been paying attention, you would have learned that even if all of this were true, it would not invalidate the longitudinal studies that have conclusively shown effect of vaccination on the risk of developing autism.

We’re still waiting for the evidence, by the way. I promise you that as soon as you can provide the evidence, all of the scientists and science supporters on this site will rush to your defence, and take up this cause. If vaccines are causing autism, we should eliminate them and look for alternative methods of protecting ourselves from measles, mumps, and rubella, each of which is incredibly harmful.

Of course, without that evidence, we should be doing absolutely nothing, because vaccines do their job nicely.

So the ball is in your court. Don’t obfuscate; don’t blame drug companies. Just show us the evidence that makes you think that vaccines cause autism. That way, we can all see it and evaluate it rationally.

why are you all so angry at moms who love their children and do not want to see the same thing happen to others? What do you say to moms who witness their children immmediately regress right after their shots? I saw my son hospitalized the day after like so many others, what do you expect me to think????I do not get to talk about autism and then go to lunch, it is 24-7 nightmare, and these “autism false prophets” are the only ones who have give my son hope. And he is amazing us everyday. So shout on in your own world…we will continue to fight for our kids. I am not angry, simply determined to heal my son…and you have nothing to offer me!!!!

@Christy

“I saw my son hospitalized the day after like so many others, what do you expect me to think????”

We expect you to use the same rational thinking you use in every other area of your life. We expect you to not to active harm by promoting a hypothesis that is demonstrably false.

“And he is amazing us everyday. So shout on in your own world…we will continue to fight for our kids. I am not angry, simply determined to heal my son…and you have nothing to offer me!!!!”

I’m thrilled that you’re so determined. You are precisely the kind of person we need to help fight this. But why waste your time and energy on something that is simply false? Why not support research into the real causes of autism? Do you want real hope, or do you simply want to make yourself feel better?

Science time! For those of you who don’t know, there are no genes for brain development (or skeletal either). Genetics prescribe a pattern of cell division, biochemical production, cell migration, and cell death. The development of neurological structures is, in effect, congenital (i.e., not directly caused by genes). Now, bear in mind that there are billions and billions of neurons in a brain. The neurons may have hundreds of connections across the entire organ. Think about that for a second. The number of connections may outnumber the number of atoms in the known universe. Moreover, connections are added all the time.

In order to have a functioning brain (in the way we understand) all of those connections need to be made and function correctly. In some ways, it’s a wonder that it works at all (except we have billions of years of evolution to weed out the worst problems).

Now…someone mentioned regressions of their autistic child after a shot. I mentioned neurological development for a reason. Autistic people do not think or process information in the same way that non-autistics do. They have a qualitatively different experience of the world. That means even simple stimuli like pain would elicit a different result than in normal people. Heck, my non-autistic son cries for more than a few minutes after he gets a shot.

Until your child undergoes a double blind study that compares vaccination against saline solution, you cannot say the vaccine causes a “regression.” There’s also bias in your observations as you may be looking for that behavior, so ambiguous responses you may interpret as “regression.”

FYI: I’m a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology.

Please vaccinate your children. There is *plenty* of evidence measles can kill or disable – and no evidence a vaccine can.

If vaccines are the cause of autism, why have autism rates continued to rise even as *less* parents are vaccinating their children?

All truth goes through three stages:

1) First it is ridiculed
2) Then it is violently opposed
3) Finally it is accepted as self-evident

There is sure a lot of ridiculing going on here!

It took over 2,000 years for humans to give up the practice of bloodletting, even though it kill more than it helped. They would just blame the death on the disease instead of the bloodletting.

The doctor who introduced handwashing to hospitals was ridiculed and died as an outcast within his profession.

Don’t believe the autism studies sponsored by drug companies or the government. It is all about the money to them. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/03/01/recent-autism-studies-do-not-actually-vindicate-vaccines.aspx

Check out the information on smallpox vaccinations provided by Dr. Blaylock at http://poisonevercure.150m.com/vaccines2.htm . He uses a lot of data & statistics. Do you know we killed a lot of third world people with our forced smallpox vaccinations? 1/3 of the vaccinated died in the Phillipines.

“From the only complete series of official records in Europe, the diminished smallpox mortality parallels to that of decreased use of the vaccination. One of the most severe epidemics occurred after the use of compulsory vaccination. Not before.”

How can injecting mercury, aluminum, and other toxins into our kids be good for them?

There is one doctor, pediatrician I believe, who was totally pro-vaccinations and had his first 3 children vaccinated on schedule. They all developed autism. The fourth was not vaccinated and did not develop autism. He is finally a convert. I cannot find the article about him now. If anyone else finds it, please post it.

Also, many think that the only Amish who are autistic were vaccinated – http://www.whale.to/vaccine/olmsted.html .

Don’t be blind, angry sheep. Read “A Shot in the Dark” if you dare and try to put holes in his logic. The government thinks it is much more important to find out what is happening to our bees, than what is happening to our children!

For those who say, but I know thousands of kids who have been vaccinated and not developed autism. What kind of argument is that? Even with the bee colony collapse disorder going on, some bees are surviving. Some kids are more susceptible, obviously. That’s why it is becoming more and more common for families to have multiple kids with autism.

For those of you with autistic children (and not all are caused by vaccinations, there are many toxins in this world), I want to recommend the reversingautism yahoo group. This group provides inexpensive things to try that have helped many people, even parents who had literally tried everything before with no results and gone bankrupt in the process.

Despite everything I said, I am not a big fan of Jenny. But I did vote for her over Amanda, as I am less a fan of her. At least Jenny is fighting for her kid and for everyone’s kids. Her son is not truly ‘cured’ of autism, btw, he is just better able to learning from his therapy now — which is a very big thing and great.

@Tracy

“I am not a doctor nor in the medical field but it makes sense to me that since peanut allergies are very real to some individuals that we wouldn’t want to give those who are a vaccine with peanuts in it. That doesnt meant they arent safe for everyone else. So consider if there were a chance that these vaccines contained even a trace of a substance that would cause a severe problem with even a small amount of kids.”

I agree. Peanut allergies are real, insofar as we have evidence that peanut antigens can cause massive immune responses (i.e. the a priori reason to test the hypothesis) and we have epidemiological and clinical evidence that peanuts can cause potentially life-threatening anaphylaxis.

So what is the analogous evidence that these vaccines are harmful, even to a small subset of the population? Give me that, and I’ll be on your side.

The landmark Danish study that all pro-vaccine Dr. point to does not apply to the US or UK because the they do not use the same chemicals in there vaccines. Futher more no study in the last 10 years has stated that there is no link between vaccines and autism, they have said that more studies are need to prove or disprove it.

Beyond that, we are a society that thinks we know everything, but can’t cure the common cold? I think asking for safer, chemical free vaccines is not alot to ask. Ms. McCarthy isn’t asking for this to save her own son, the damage has already been done, she is trying to help protect OTHER people’s children. I think that is something that should be admired and NOT attacked!

(I am ingnoring Prunesquallor, since I have no time or respect for people who cannot disagree respectfully – and that goes for everyone who has behaved so disgracefully on this board. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.)

Mike:

You are right. There are millions of things you *could* study but why do so if there is no good reason? It would be a waste of time and money. But what makes you think there is no good reason here?

The fact that the rates of autism have dovetailed with the increases in the vaccine schedule is reason enough to study this. Yes, I know you can argue that the increase is due to broader definition and reclassification, and it may be, but that too is just a theory. What if it is the other way around and the broader definition is simply coincidental to an actual increase?

Many studies have come about when people start noticing corelations. Then from a corelation, you go after causation. The government has always insisted thimerosol was safe and there was no evidence to the contrary, but yet it went and did several thimerosol studies to try to prove its safety. There is a strong (and no longer small) contingent of people and even some doctors (albeit doctors not in step with the mainstream) who are very vocal in saying they see or suspect a correlation. But to question vaccine safety puts such fear in the hearts of the medical establishment (for very good reason) that these reports are not taken as seriously as those of people who said “I took thalidomide and now my baby has problems. Could the two be related?”

For everyone concerned about falling vaccination rates (and I am one of those people, by the way) a large, objective, independent, replicated, well-designed study showing no statistical difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated kids would put the issue to rest, or would certainly go a long way toward doing so for many people. And in my book, that would be time and money well spent.

Now, having said that, I recognize that this is very difficult to study on many levels so i don’t know that I am hopeful that we will ever know the answer. First, no one wants to ask for volunteers to be double-blind vaccinated or given a placebo. Regardless of the study outcome, you would be endangering one of the two groups. But we could look at older children. Compare those with philosophical vaccine exemptions (to weed out confined gene pool issues) to those who have been fully vaccinated. You could do this anonymously through school or HMO records.

Finally (and I think this is the real reson this hasn’t been done): The vaccinated/unvaccinated study would tell you whether there seems to be some involvement with the vaccines – but even if the answer was yes, that study would not inform us about what the issue is (is it an ingredient, the combination of shots, the timing, vaccines combined wiht some other environmental risk factor, etc.). There are too many variables. And so, what if we found from that study that there is some involvement, what then? Without knowing what the problem is, no one would want to vaccinate and these diseases really would come back. And I think that is exactly why this study hasn’t been done.

I am not one of those people who sees conspiracies everywhere. I have to believe there are many good and real scientists at the NIH and the CDC who would very much like to see this question really get answered. But, I think they see the risk to the public health as being too steep if, in fact, the answers are not what we all hope and vaccines are not as safe as we have always been told they are.

So, back to the point of my original post: when the scientists say that this has been exhaustively researched and no link has been found, I say that is misleading. It is true no link has been found in their resarch to date, but there is much that has been excluded from their research. And you’re not going to find it if you aren’t standing where you can see it. Now, that doesn’t mean there is a link; but it does mean we do not yet know.

You may not like Jenny, but she is helping parents become more incharge of THEIR child’s health by encouraging them to ask questions and research what is IN each vaccine INSTEAD OF ACT LIKE SHEEP AND DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD WITHOUT THINKING FOR THEMSELVES. Most doctors only know what they are told by the pHARMaceutical companies about each drug or vaccine they buy to administer to children and adults. And those medical professionals that DO know the truth don’t vaccinate themselves or their family – they just won’t openly admit it b/c vaccines are BIG $$$.

Believe what you want, but when it comes down to it, those that don’t vaccinate aren’t childishly name-calling those that do vaccinate.

What science? There is no study that compares the unvaccinated to those that recieved the 1991 mercury loaded schedule, where infants recieved 100 times the Epa’s safe daily dose in a single day.

On top of that 3 studies show that autistic kids have abnormal urinary porphyrin showing a specific pattern of mercury poisoning.

Add to that Dr. Lewitson and 11 other scientists injected monkeys with the same thimerosal load into monkeys, all monkeys became brain damaged, while the controls didn’t.

All these people rely are mostly European studies where they never recieved such high doses of mercury, and the Autism rates were so low, that epideimological study wouldn’t catch it.

In America there was never a recall on thimerosal vaccines or enforcment of the CDC’s reccomendation, it wasn’t a law, so there is no clear date when mercury was removed. Nobody’s done a random sample of Doctors offices in say 2003 to compare the rate of Thimerosal containing vaccines vs Thimerosal free vaccines being administered.

I don’t see how this is a “green” issue, nor why it’s on Ecorazzi.

Moving the goalposts? That’s funny! The parents who all believe that vaccines caused their children’s autism have always claimed that one thing is the cause; vaccines. You talk about moving goalposts when you inept people claim that it is old sperm, drunk mothers, too much TV, refridgerator moms…the list goes on and on and on.

So what would happen if we started a vaccination for Autism?

@jury is out

“The fact that the rates of autism have dovetailed with the increases in the vaccine schedule is reason enough to study this.”

But they haven’t. Show me the data that shows that, given identical diagnositic parameters, that autism rates have increased. Show me the data that shows that, despite an overall DECLINE in vaccination rates, that autism rates have followed suit.

As always, all we’re asking for on the science side is the evidence. Show me the evidence.

“Many studies have come about when people start noticing corelations. Then from a corelation, you go after causation.”

I’m not even asking for causation studies here; I’m not asking for evidence from a randomized trial. Even a single large, well-controlled cohort or case-control study showing an effect would suffice. But you don’t even have that.

“The government has always insisted thimerosol was safe and there was no evidence to the contrary, but yet it went and did several thimerosol studies to try to prove its safety. There is a strong (and no longer small) contingent of people and even some doctors (albeit doctors not in step with the mainstream) who are very vocal in saying they see or suspect a correlation.”

And if that were true, it would be borne out in the studies. It is not.

“For everyone concerned about falling vaccination rates (and I am one of those people, by the way) a large, objective, independent, replicated, well-designed study showing no statistical difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated kids would put the issue to rest, or would certainly go a long way toward doing so for many people. And in my book, that would be time and money well spent.”

I’m sorry, are you asking for a randomized trial of vaccinations vs. placebo, with autism rates as an outcome? That’s completely unethical. We cannot randomize people to the non-vaccinated group, because that would be subjecting them to undue risk of measles, mumps, or rubella. It’s the same reason we cant do a randomized trial of cigarette smoking with lung cancer as an outcome.

The alternative would be a large prospective cohort study, where you follow a large group of people over time and look at autism rates in those vaccinated vs. those unvaccinated. Unfortunately, the number of people who do not get vaccinated is (thankfully) very small, so you wouldn’t get useful results (i.e. you can’t detect differences with small sample sizes).

So, we do prospective cohort studies on different populations. Thimerosal vs. thimerosal-free vaccines, for instance:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14519711?ordinalpos=9&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Alternatively, you do a retrospective study, where you look at correlations between vaccination rates and autism in populations:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15877763?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16818529?ordinalpos=3&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

So I’ve given you three studies, one of which is a prospective cohort (probably second only in quality to an RCT) that test this hypothesis. All of them report the same thing. All I’m asking from you is for a single large study that shows the opposite. That wouldn’t overturn the mountain of evidence against the hypothesis, but it would be a start.

Any way you slice it, you come to the same conclusion: there is no link between vaccination and autism.

“Compare those with philosophical vaccine exemptions (to weed out confined gene pool issues) to those who have been fully vaccinated. You could do this anonymously through school or HMO records.”

You’d have massive sample size issues with a study like this. Autism is rare (relative to the size of the population), so you’d need a very large sample size to get meaningful data. You’d need to recruit virtually every non-vaccinated child in a country the size of the United States. All this for a hypothesis that isn’t supported by a lick of preliminary data.

“So, back to the point of my original post: when the scientists say that this has been exhaustively researched and no link has been found, I say that is misleading. It is true no link has been found in their resarch to date, but there is much that has been excluded from their research.”

But don’t you see that there are things that SHOULD be in the preliminary data if the hypothesis is true, but aren’t seen? I agree with you; the best study would be vax vs. non-vax. But there is no reason to think that a real relationship between vaccination and autism, should one exist, would NOT be shown in the other studies (particularly in the large prospective cohorts).

“And you’re not going to find it if you aren’t standing where you can see it. Now, that doesn’t mean there is a link; but it does mean we do not yet know.”

But this is true of virtually everthing. You’re asking us to prove a negative. We’ve given you study after study of high quality data that all points in the same direction. How much negative data is enough before you conclude that there is no link?

@IThinkforMyself

“The parents who all believe that vaccines caused their children’s autism have always claimed that one thing is the cause; vaccines. You talk about moving goalposts when you inept people claim that it is old sperm, drunk mothers, too much TV, refridgerator moms…the list goes on and on and on.”

Science never moves the goalposts. We simply ask to see the evidence.

We can demonstrate that the diagnostic tools used to identify autism and autism-spectrum disorders have changed dramatically in the last 25 years, and we can demonstrate that the increase in the diagnosis of these diseases is almost enitely due to this effect (that, and better access to care).

Where is the evidence that autism is caused by vaccines. I have yet to see a single person on this thread be brave enough to come forward and present the data and explain why it is consistent with the hypothesis. I’ve referenced several studies showing the opposite, all with different designs, carried out in different parts of the world by different researchers. That is a hallmark of the scientific method: reproducibility.

So it seems the no-link side has plenty of data to support it.

I ask again: stop obfuscating and show us the data.

Autism vaccines for everyone!!!!!

@CJ

Once again, a reply with an unnecessarily snarky tone….what is up with the people on this board?

I am not moving any goalposts. There are no inconsistencies in my posts – my point has always been that we simply don’t yet know the answer because the studies have not been done. That doesn’t mean there is a link – but to make statements that science has answered this question is just plain wrong.

This is more complex than some of you want to acknowlege. If the studies have not been done that might get to the answer, then of course there is no scientific evidence. That is very different from saying that comprehensive studies have been done and we can confidently say there is no link. It is also very different from saying there is a link. We just dont know.

You’ve obviously made assumptions about me so it will probably surprise you to know that I have 2 small children and I have fully vaccinated them, because I err on the side of science and, like you, I have not seen conclusive studies showing a link. But, I am not ignorant enough to think we can assume there isn’t one based on the extent of scientific evidence that is available to date. If you aren’t looking in the right places, you won’t find anything.

So, I go on the only hard evidence I have today, which is that shots keep the illnesses away. But I cross my fingers when my kids get their shots and I wonder and worry because, as a believer in science, I realize that this question has NOT been answered by a long shot. And I find it disturbing that the government, and anyone claiming to be a believer in science, can’t acknowledge that we still don’t really know the answer.(Bernadine Healy, the former head of the NIH has recently called the government out on this and she was right.)

When so many people are so passionate about this issue (as evidenced by these inflamed posts on this board) and when something as critical as the public health rides on this debate, I think the government should want to do more. As I said the last time, I doubt we will ever have this answer in my lifetime because there is no solution should the govenrment get an answer it doesn’t want.

PS: both my kids are on the spectrum. Were they affected by vaccines? I simply don’t know – and neither does anyone else.

@jury is out:

“PS: both my kids are on the spectrum. Were they affected by vaccines? I simply don’t know – and neither does anyone else.”

The government has done an enormous amount already to investigate this and to then attempt to address the public health issue surrounding it. We could argue all day about the kind of job they’ve done, but they have certainly spent enormous time on this issue. I try my best to be dispassionate about this matter in order to assess properly: In all scientific probability, your kids were NOT remotely negatively affected by vaccines. The fact that you have two children on the spectrum should already be leading your thinking in another direction entirely. I think your argument is with yourself.

I’ve tried 4 times now. So I will try to post it in pieces and see if it makes it this time.

How about the Hanah Poling case?

How about this study?
http://www.jpands.org/vol11no1/geier.pdf

http://www.autismwebsite.com/ari/vaccine/thimerosalreferences.htm – Partial list of studies linking thimerosal to Autism

http://www.autismwebsite.com/ari/vaccine/MMRreferences.htm – Partial list of scientific studies linking the MMR vaccine and autism

Alan C:

And Orac’s hate site and all of the other places that you and the rest of the vaccine mafia go to never act like this? Oh, wait…that’s right, you can’t act like that because you’re “science.” Hypocrisy; got some?

To Mike:
Science never moves the goalposts? OMFG, I’m in tears over her. Thanks for that laugh. You gotta give it to the pro-safe vaccine crowd; they’ve said it was vaccines from almost day one, and they’ve stuck with it. You guys can’t get your damn story straight. Which is it? Old sperm? Drunk moms? Refridgerator moms? Lead paint? TV? Which goalpost is it?

And none of your “studies” you supplied prove that vaccines are innocent of the damage. Not 1.
These epidemiological studies you claim are “irrefutable proof” were said to be essentially useless by Gerberding, that the data was misleading.

So, again I say this. Hypocrisy: Got some?

Hey, erin, I am anti-vaccines. I was just pointing out that the FDA is going to investigate tattoo inks for safety and will put several years into that. I wish they would put that much time and effort into investigating the safety of vaccines.

What if they conclude that tattoos aren’t safe because of the thimerosal? Then it definitely isn’t good in our vaccines!

IThinkforMyself:
1. I don’t know anything about Orac’s site,

2. I do not condone trolling (including your own) on ANY site,

3. I have never been involved in this issue until this poll came up. My only concern is that people act in accordance with the scientific evidence, not dubious anecdotal evidence. At the moment it seems to indicate that the vaccines do not cause autism. If it turns out that the opposite is true then I will change my opinion, so I am not one of your “Vaccine Mafia”, but it is clear that no amount of evidence will convince you that you are wrong.

@jury is out
“What I think you are confusing (and many people do, so you are not alone) is that there have been studies (a lot of them)that looked at children who did and did not get the MMR, and there have been studies that looked at the various amounts of thimerosol children got in their shots as compared to their neurological outcomes.”

At most, that is a rather minor point though. What about the multiple other points raised by myself and others, including that…

- Autism diagnosis rates went up after the screening method for autism stopped dismissing now-accepted signs of autism

- Autism diagnosis rates didn’t drop when vaccination rates dropped

- Outbreaks in measles, a disease which can cause permanent harm and even death in children, has gone up, likely in connection with vaccination rates dropping (http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/08/21/measles.outbreaks.ap/index.html)

- Outbreaks in mumps and other diseases which could be cured by vaccinations, which can lead to permanent organ failure or death, will increase (if they haven’t already)

- Dozens of scientific studies from various health and medical groups around the world have looked specifically for a connection between vaccinations and autism, without a single one yet being found

- The overwhelming large number of professional doctors and scientists who have studied the data, and are claiming that there is no link between vaccines and autism (http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp?id=84662) (http://www.aap.org)

- The lack of support BY THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE towards the anti-vaccination movement, unexplained short of “one super massive super secret conspiracy”

- Proof that endangering and even killing children is called for, through a single solid connection between vaccinations and autism (and no, “after this… therefore because of this” is only proof of a logical fallacy)

Power to the sheeple!

Ignorance is bliss.

I hope everyone here is happy with there heads in the sand.

OBEY!

Beleive what you are told with out question. Do not do your own research!

Vaccines are not safe. Babies die every day.

Vaccines are not effective. Science shows this.

Before vaccines were introduced there was no Autism.

Amish people do not vaccinate. Amsih people don’t have kids with Autism.

who pays for scientific research? Pharmeceutical companies do.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

Wow, such vitriol – and Orac being surprisingly gentle, and almost respectful. Certainly not the insolence I’m used to.

That said:

@HidariMak, of the dozens of studies you purport to disprove the link between austim and vaccines, how many of those are epidemiological? Epi studies will not exonerate the role of vaccines in autism.

Can you please provide me one, only one, double blind, randomized vaccine study that proves that vaccination prevents the spread of disease. Simply because vaccinated people don’t present the way unvaccinated people do, doesn’t mean they aren’t equally capable of spreading disease and ALSO sick. Asymptomatic carriers of disease mingling about the herd might be just as dangerous to those “compromised” persons that can’t be vaccinated don’t you think? At least unvaccinated people show symptoms so you know they are sick, which, of course, is awfully helpful when applying epi spin.

What diseases do vaccines “cure”? And exactly how are you able to determine that those that fall ill from a vaccine available disease (and were not vaccinated), wouldn’t have gotten sick even if they had been vaccinated? There are very many well documented instances of vaccine failure, primary and secondary, and that said – it’s a bit of strawman, and quite specious.

Thanks in advance,
AA

Karen. My apologies. I read way too many posts on here (with these pro PHARMA people spamming our board (yes, as far as I’m concerned it’s spam. You’ve never posted here before or on other threads. Spam spreading sheep.

Anyway, Sorry Karen I see now you were pointing out that the FDA is investigating the tattoo ingredient also in vaccines. Even all the MORE reason for the sheep on here to wake up and say wow, maybe i shouldn’t be shooting up my babies with killer drugs.

“Jury is out” – thank you so so much for your calm and thoughtful posts. All the best to you and your family. And Biomedicalmom, and a few others too…

It seems that quite a few vaccine defenders posting here believe that epidemiology is the only valid form of science. Epidemiology has an important role to play in looking for causes of illness, but results of these studies can vary widely based on study design – e.g. statistical methodology and selection criteria.

Some of the autism studies seem to be based on very simplistic assumptions, as if there is only one cause of autism, and as if this cause will cause autism in everyone.

I don’t know why those who are so opposed to the “post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy” are so enamored of epidemiology, which can only show statistical correlation (or lack thereof) not causation (or lack thereof). Epidemiology only gives a clue, e.g. “everyone who got sick had eaten raw tomatoes” – which is enough to prompt further investigation.

Throughout history, science has also been based on empirical observation, not just number crunching.

There seems to be an assumption that we parents should not think for ourselves and not make decisions for ourselves if we are not scientists. We should just allow doctors and scientists make decisions for us, and put our own minds and eyes on hold.

If you looked out the window and you saw that it was raining, would you say, “Gee maybe I should bring my umbrella,” or would you say, “Well to me it looks like rain, but what do I know – I better wait until a meteorologist tells me the weather.”

Likewise, we observe our children, and we see how they react – positively or negatively – to various foods, drugs, activities, therapies… Thousands of parents witness their children with autism functioning better on the GFCF diet, but so many “experts” keep saying, “Don’t try the diet because it has never been proven effective.” So we should sit passively and do nothing until we receive instructions from scientists, who are not even paying attention?

Oddly, many of those on this blog who claim to have a higher understanding of science express themselves in rude, crude, hostile, emotional, thoughtless ways which seem incompatible with rational open-minded thought processes.

@Twyla: Studying medicine and disease is a bit more involved than looking an clouds. My god, what a dumb analogy.

Let’s see what the antivax movement suffers from:
anecdotal evidence
belief bias
confusing association and causation
denialism
conspiracy mongering

There is an interesting study by a nobel prize winning scientist in 1913 who did some cruel experiments injecting various substances into dogs http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1913/richet-lecture.html.

He wrote: “Phylaxis, a word seldom used, stands in the Greek for protection. Anaphylaxis will thus stand for the opposite. Anaphylaxis, from its Greek etymological source, therefore means that state of an organism in which it is rendered hypersensitive, instead of being protected.

“To make this plain, we will consider the example of a subject that has received a poison.

“Let us suppose the dosage to be moderate and that after a few days the subject is, or at least appears to be, normal. If, at this point, a further injection is given of the same dosage of the same poison, what will happen?

“There are three possibilities.

“The first and simplest is that there has been no change in the organism and that in receiving the same dosage as one month previously, exactly the same phenomena will result, in exactly the same conditions. Naturally this is what happens most of the time. Specialists and doctors work on this assumption when they repeat the intoxication at one month intervals.

“The second possibility is that the subject has become less sensitive. In other words, the preceding intoxication has produced a certain condition of tolerance or non-sensitivity. This will mean that a stronger dose is necessary at the second injection to give the same results…

“These two cases, of unchanged sensitivity or stability, and of diminished sensitivity or habituation, have been known since long. Now I have shown that there is a third possibility, frequently to be observed in certain conditions which I have specified: this is of heightened sensitivity. The first injection, instead of protecting the organism, renders it more fragile and more susceptible. This is anaphylaxis…”

“We are so constituted that we can never receive other proteins into the blood than those that have been modified by digestive juices. Every time alien protein penetrates by effraction, the organism suffers and becomes resistant. This resistance lies in increased sensitivity, a sort of revolt against the second parenteral injection which would be fatal. At the first injection, the organism was taken by surprise and did not resist. At the second injection, the organism mans its defences and answers by the anaphylactic shock.”

This scientists found that individual animals varied greatly in their responses.

What does this have to do with autism? The point is, injections of various substances can cause a variety of immune system reactions. And these reactions varied in individual animals, just as vaccines tolerated by one child can over-sensitize the immune system of another.

He mentions work of other scientists: “Rosenau and Anderson, two American physiologists, demonstrated in a noteworthy piece of work that the phenomenon of anaphylaxis occurs after every injection of serum, even when the injection is minute, for example of 0.00001 ml which is an infinitely small amount but nevertheless sufficient to anaphylactize an animal. They quoted examples of anaphylaxis from all organic liquids: milk, serum, egg, muscle extract.”

No wonder kids today have so much asthma, allergies…

@Prunesquallor

The minute you name call and speak so disrepectfully, you negate anything you say to people who are behaving rationally and politely (and you actually embarras yourself). Your rantings and name calling are the opposite of how a scientist would approach this discussion. Your behavior is disgraceful. Good luck to you; I suspect you will need it.

@everyone else:
Lots of interesting points all around and much to think about….I wish all our children well…. Signing off now for good…

@Patti

“who pays for scientific research? Pharmeceutical companies do.”

Not mine. I have been a cancer researcher for nearly 10 years, and I don’t receive a dime from pharma. Virtually all grant money for basic and clinical research comes from government and charitable sources. So almost all of the preclinical research (which is the bulk of research in most fields) is completely free from pharma money.

That said, large phase III and IV clinical trials are, indeed, sponsored by drug companies. They have to be; they cost hundreds of millions of dollars to run. So you might think that would be a conflict of interest, yes? Thing is, all clinical trials have to be registered; the questions that will be answered have to be logged BEFORE the trial starts, and the methods to be used are completely laid out. This has two benefits: (a) it allows us to look at trials and pre-judge the quality of the data that will come out of them (and fix the trial if it needs fixing), and (b) it means that the results will not get shoved in a drawer; the results have to be reported.

Now this is all for randomized clinical trials. Drug companies are involved, and there certainly have been instances of deception and out-and-out fraud. But that is not the norm at all.

On the other hand, most longitudinal epidemiological studies (which consitute all of the evidence against the autism/vax hypothesis) are carried out by academic researchers who do not have ties to pharma.

Moreover, I should point out that even if all research was paid for by pharma, that would not, in and of itself, invalidate the results. The onus would still be on you to provide evidence to that end, and merely saying “pharma paid for it” does not refute the results one iota.

Here are two things to consider:

(1) Generation Rescue did a survey comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children. The survey was done by a reputable market research firm and used the same methodology that the CDC used to determine the 1/150 rate of autism. The sample size was not small.

http://www.generationrescue.org/survey.html

They found a correlation between autism (and other neurological conditions) and vaccination in boys in several age groups. They did not find the same correlation with girls. They are not a research institution and, to their credit, they point out themsleves the various ways in which the study results might be challenged. But that doesn’t mean the results are flawed for sure. They might be…but they might not be.
This survey does not prove anything but it does indicate that further research should be done.

(2) There are likely many autisms. Regressive autism may very well be completely different from infantile autism (where kids do not regress but rather manifest delays from the beginning.) Perhaps vaccines are implicated in some cases of autism but not all of them. If that were the case, a lot of the studies done to date would fail to tease that out. The autistic kids in most of the studies (maybe all the studies…I don’t know about that) are all lumped together, so the kids whose autism was not triggered by vaccines would be diluting the pool results. You could even have a significant percentage of kids who were vaccine injured but, because you also have a significant number with a different kind of autism who were not vaccine injured, your studies would not pick up the risk to the first group.

I think Bernadine Healy hit it on the mark when she said we need to study the kids who got sick.

All natural health websites have that type of disclaimer. Check the bottom of mercola’s website or naturalnews.com. They have to or they get in trouble.

@More to Consider

“1) Generation Rescue did a survey comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children. The survey was done by a reputable market research firm and used the same methodology that the CDC used to determine the 1/150 rate of autism. The sample size was not small.

http://www.generationrescue.org/survey.html”

These people need to learn to spell “methodology”.

First, this study has not been peer-reviewed. I’m not an epidemilogist by training, so I would like to see some real epidemiologists have a crack at this. That having been said, there are some fundamental flaws here.

Did the researchers control for other possible confounding variables? For instance, did they correct for geographical location, income, exposure to other agents, possible genetic factors at play in founder populations (such as the Amish), etc? There is no indication of this that I can see. This is a serious flaw.

Did the researchers control for a possible recall and sampling bias? That is, have they controlled for the fact that people who already believe that their child’s autism is caused by vaccination are more likely to (a) participate in this study, and (b) tell their personal medical histories to an automated polling service? The PROPER way to do this study is to use medical registries; you avoid polling people altogether, because, frankly, people misremember and have selective memories.

I am not at all against this type of study; in fact, I think it would be reasonably easy to do. You look at population registries for vaccinations and autism, and ask if the rates are different between those who got vaccinated and those that did not.

Oh wait, it has been done, and has been published in a peer-reviewed journal (indeed, one of the best peer-reviewed journals): http://tinyurl.com/3ujexn

Can you explain why this study is not sufficient. It has a large sample size, properly controls for variables (other than just gender), and doesn’t involve interviews.

This has also been done for thimerosal vs. non-thimersoal vaccines: http://tinyurl.com/4mcaoh

Given the massive methodological issues with the “study” you published, and given the two excellent, peer-reviewed studies I’ve just given you, where, exactly, does the controversy lie?

@Twyla

“I grew up at a time when everyone came down with measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, mumps, and the flu, and I never knew anyone who suffered a lasting effect.”

Measles: 345000 deaths worldwide in 2005

Mumps: generally not lethal, but causes severe encephalitis; over 160000 cases per year in the US prior to the development of the vaccine

Rubella: again, not generally lethal, but causes severe childhood morbidity, and, prior to the vaccination, affected nearly 1/100 live births

Chicken pox: I could actually go either way on the varicella vax; probably not necessary due to lack of common and serious mortality or morbidity, and possible increase in morbidity of adult-onset varicella in vaccinated individuals.

Flu: Up to 500000 deaths worldwide every year, in non-pandemic years, along with severe morbidity in millions

All of these things can be prevented with vaccines. The evidence of this is enormous. Without very strong evidence to suggest that vaccines are having harmful off-target effects, they should not be stopped.

So once again, I ask for the peer-reviewed studies that show the link.

Go team McCarthy! I do hope that Amanda’s vaccine ignorance did not harm her daugher. Isn’t her daughter like 19 mo. old and not talking? Amanda got her “info” from a vaccine-patent holder who receives money from MERCK! I feel sorry for her. By the way, with scientists being the biggest polluters these days, what the heck are they doing on a “Green” website other than causing some trouble?

@More to Consider

“First of all, I said myself that the Generation Rescue survey was proof of nothing.”

I agree. Then why post it, except to further obfuscate?

“Second, “oh wait, it’s been done”…well read more carefully. The first study you put forth looks exclsuively at kids who did and did not get the MMR.”

So can we at least agree that this study provides strong evidence that the MMR vaccine does not increase the risk of developing autism? Even that would be a huge step forward.

“The sceond study is looking at thimerosol amounts. Again, it does not and could not get to the question fo whether there is a genetically vulverable subset of kids who are harmed in some other way from vaccines.”

I concur. But once again, can we at least agree that this study provides strong evidence that thimerosal-containing vaccines do not increase the risk of developing autism and ASD?

There may well be a subset of individuals who are genetically predisposed to a sensitivity to vaccines. If that were the case, large twin studies would be the way to go. But if the predisposition is rare, you would need enormous sample sizes to see it. It would simply get lost in the noise of the data.

Another good study design would be to genotype (i.e. DNA fingerprint) vaccinated autistic/ASD children, their parents, and their siblings versus non-vaccinated autistic/ASD children, their parents, and sibling, and look for genetic markers that are associated with vaccine-related autism (if such a thing exists) vs. sporadic (i.e. non-vaccine related) autism. This would require far fewer individuals, and could answer the question. Though, if there was no common genetic component identified, would that put the question to rest? What amount of negative data would be enough?

All that having been said, I’ve still yet to see any a priori reason for suspecting there is any predisposition at all.

@myself

Before correcting people’s spelling of “methodology”, I should learn to spell “epidemiologist”.

jmho, childhood diseases are part of God’s design to boost our immune system and good food & sanitation will help any country much more than jabbing them with chemicals and toxins. The smallpox global vaccination program killed many children worldwide. I don’t want to fight, just stating my opinion.

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/07/22/forced_vaccination_ordered_by_uk_court.htm

He allowed two “expert witnesses”, Dr. Conway and Professor Kroll, supporting the vaccine industry, to turn the hearing into an advertisement for vaccination. Sumner was very impressed with the committees that the two served on and regarded them as leading experts in the field. Amongst Kroll’s statements was “… before 1988 when the MMR jab was introduced, research shows that that more than half of the acute measles death (sic) occurred in previously healthy children who had not been immunised.”

VACCINE REALITY

No research supports the above statement: there are NO cases where any healthy child has been killed or permanently damaged by measles. The deaths which have occurred have been in children who were severely malnourished, previously ill and who had their measles badly managed, ie suppressed, by the medical orthodoxy.

There is NO evidence that any vaccine is safe or effective: the only large-scale scientifically valid trial concerning a vaccine, the BCG, resulted in more TB in the vaccinated group than in the controls.

The basis for the world wide multi-billion dollar vaccine enterprise is the myth that the smallpox vaccine was a health measure. The shot was an unmitigated disaster, causing tens of thousands of deaths world wide and a colossal legacy of late onset disease conditions: it should have seen a permanent ban on any and all vaccines. None of the relevant graphs show any benefit from vaccination as to disease declines.

ALL vaccinated children are vaccine damaged: it is merely a question of time, location and degree. Vaccine side effects, as recorded on warnings included in the drug packaging, include severe diarrhoea, encephalitis, anorexia, anaphylaxis, arthritis, fever, seizures, Guillain Barre Syndrome, SSPE and death.

Measles, mumps, whooping cough are NOT dangerous diseases. They rather are Nature’s way of clearing inherited and acquired disease tendencies and of providing immunity to the child and, subsequently, to her children.

All of this is totally at variance with the testimonies given by Conway and Kroll, whose views were praised by Sumner as being “based on learning and research”: unlike the views of Dr Jayne Donegan, acting for the mothers. The highly learned male judge and his equally eminent male advisors were in agreement that no alternative anti-Establishment nonsense on the subject of God-given, life saving vaccines had any place in that courtroom. “… I was rather taken aback by the rudeness and personal comments made by Dr Conway in his answer to my first statement. I can see now that it was part of a basic strategy: if the witness can be discredited then what they say can be discounted”, said Dr. Donegan.

Over 2,000 cases of UK litigation, concerning the MMR vaccine alone, are now pending. The damage caused includes Crohn’s Disease, epilepsy, autism, ME, MS, diabetes, hearing and sight defects etc etc.