Originator of vaccine autism link faked data

[Braggi]

Originator of vaccine autism link faked data.

Did the founder of the antivax movement fake autism-vaccine link? | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Will this stop the nonsense posts on Waccobb.net that promote the supposed link?

-Jeff

[MsTerry]

I suppose you consider this unbiased and scientific;

they claim Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who started the whole "vaccines cause autism" garbage,

Will this stop the nonsense posts on Waccobb.net that promote the supposed link?

-Jeff

[Braggi]

I suppose you consider this unbiased and scientific;

Unbiased, never, scientific, yes: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/588033

Who could be biased toward children dying horrible, preventable deaths?

Oh, yeah. The anti vaccine crowd.

-Jeff

[Braggi]

Try this: Doctor Fixed Data on Autism-MMR Shot Link | Cleveland Leader

-Jeff

[MsTerry]

No try this

Sunday Times - Sinks To New Low With Yet More MMR Junk Journalism « Child Health Safety

Try this: Doctor Fixed Data on Autism-MMR Shot Link | Cleveland Leader

-Jeff

[Sylph]

It’s not about facts. The anti-vax people will continue to support shady Doc Wakefield.
It might be time to throw him out, if they (the anti-vax crowd) want to try to maintain any credibility at all. I mean... REALLY!
White Coat Underground : The anti-vaccination movement---rotten to the core

From White Coat Underground:
Wakefield:

1) Was paid by a lawyer to come up with specific results.

2) The majority of children were provided by the lawyer (ever hear of random sampling?)

3) The study was only twelve children (ever do sample size estimates?)

4) The medical records were misrepresented in the paper, it was claimed that most of the children changed after the vaccine when in fact many had been identified with issues BEFORE the vaccine, and some several months afterward.

5) One of the researchers doing the PCR data came to Wakefield an told him the data was contaminated and that there were FALSE positives, but Wakefield continued on using the bad data (Chadwick testimony in the Autism Omnibus hearing).

Or the fact that the MMR vaccine has been used in the USA since 1971, and there is no data to suggest a big increase in neurological issues starting at that time. Also of the over 20 studies show no relationship between the MMR and autism.

Add to that an attempt to replicate Wakefield's findings by those who were once paid by SafeMinds (the mercury mice grooming through skulls travesty), with over twice as many children and guess what! The results found nothing, zilch... nada. See:
Mady Hornig, Thomas Briese, Timothy Buie, Margaret L. Bauman, Gregory Lauwers, Ulrike Siemetzki, Kimberly Hummel, Paul A. Rota, William J. Bellini, John J. O'Leary, Orla Sheils, Errol Alden, Larry Pickering, W. Ian Lipkin, Mark R. Cookson (2008). Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study PLoS ONE, 3 (9) DOI:
PLoS ONE : Publishing science, accelerating research

Another good perspective:Science-Based Medicine » Antivaccine hero Andrew Wakefield: Scientific fraud?

[MsTerry]

It’s not about facts.

Not when you use sentences like this;

by such brainless ideologues as Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Jenny McCarthy.

you probably prefer this

aided and abetted by useful idiots in the media,

Even on wacco this would be considered ad hominem attacks.

[Sylph]

by such brainless ideologues as Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Jenny McCarthy. you probably prefer this

Robert and Jenny don't have medical expertise, last time I checked. I think Jenny's sincere, but I don't know about Robert.
Quote:

aided and abetted by useful idiots in the media,

Even on wacco this would be considered ad hominem attacks.

Are you worried about the feelings of unnamed 'idiots' in the media?
You think the media can't be manipulated, or don't publish what might be considered 'controversial' just for ratings?

What's your point?

[Sylph]

This is why Wakefield and his supporters invoke so much anger. Because of his ridiculously flawed study that was taken up by the media, parents got scared, kids didn't get the vaccines, the diseases are coming back, and children are dying:

Measles coming back:
HPA - MMR plea as North West tops measles table

Europe exporting measles to poor countries:
Europe 'exporting' measles to poor countries - health - 10 January 2009 - New Scientist

Feb 5, 2009, Crissier, Vaud, Switzerland (24 Heures, Fre) - The Ecole Rudolf Steiner near Lausanne Tuesday reported 17 cases of measles to the cantonal doctor’s office, bringing to 22 the number of cases reported in two days, according to 24 Heures. Dr Eric Masserrey, who heads the office responsible for overseeing epidemics, called the outbreak “unprecedented” as his team moved into action to control the spread of the potentially deadly disease. A previously healthy 12-year-old French girl died 29 January of encephalitis, a complication provoked by measles, at the University Hospitals (HUG) in Geneva.
GenevaLunch » Blog Archive » Vaud measles outbreak “unprecedented”

[MsTerry]

What's your point?

If you need to call your opposition brainless and idiots, surely your evidence must be lacking

[MsTerry]

This is why Wakefield and his supporters invoke so much anger. Because of his ridiculously flawed study that was taken up by the media, parents got scared, kids didn't get the vaccines, the diseases are coming back, and children are dying:

Children have died from vaccines.
Children with vaccines have died.
There will always be children that die.
Please don't turn this into a tearjerker.

If Wakefield' study was that fundamentally flawed, why did it take 10 years for the media to figure this out.
Do you think it is a conspiracy?

[phooph]

This is why Wakefield and his supporters invoke so much anger. Because of his ridiculously flawed study that was taken up by the media, parents got scared, kids didn't get the vaccines, the diseases are coming back, and children are dying:

Measles coming back:
HPA - MMR plea as North West tops measles table

Europe exporting measles to poor countries:
Europe 'exporting' measles to poor countries - health - 10 January 2009 - New Scientist

Feb 5, 2009, Crissier, Vaud, Switzerland (24 Heures, Fre) - The Ecole Rudolf Steiner near Lausanne Tuesday reported 17 cases of measles to the cantonal doctor’s office, bringing to 22 the number of cases reported in two days, according to 24 Heures. Dr Eric Masserrey, who heads the office responsible for overseeing epidemics, called the outbreak “unprecedented” as his team moved into action to control the spread of the potentially deadly disease. A previously healthy 12-year-old French girl died 29 January of encephalitis, a complication provoked by measles, at the University Hospitals (HUG) in Geneva.
GenevaLunch » Blog Archive » Vaud measles outbreak “unprecedented”

So - maybe you have some insight into what happened to my next door neighbor's kid. They had a healthy, active and interactive infant who was scoring high on the Apgar tests and like good parents they took him in for his vaccinations. That evening he went into seizures and went downhill from there. They now have a four year old who doesn't talk.

Just coincidence?

Seizure Risk with Vaccination

[kpage9]

Keith Olbermann had Wakefield tonight as one of his "Worst Persons in the World". It doesn't take a conspiracy to get away with faking data, especially when the theory is so welcome. Autism drives us crazy--we REALLY WANT to be able to protect our kids, to control this beast--so when something appears to be a likely culprit, one that we can avoid, you can almost hear the massive sigh of relief. And Ms Terry, more children will die without vaccines. It IS a tearjerker.

Children have died from vaccines.
Children with vaccines have died.
There will always be children that die.
Please don't turn this into a tearjerker.

If Wakefield' study was that fundamentally flawed, why did it take 10 years for the media to figure this out.
Do you think it is a conspiracy?

[MsTerry]

. And Ms Terry, more children will die without vaccines. It IS a tearjerker.

More children will die from malnutrition
More children will die from bad hygiene
More children will die from lack of fresh water
More children will die from dirty needles used for vaccination.
and the list goes on.

[Braggi]

... They now have a four year old who doesn't talk.

Just coincidence? ...

Yeah, probably. But doesn't it make sense to investigate what the cause actually is rather than wasting time and resources following a white rabbit down a hole? One thing that's been well proven is that vaccines do not cause autism. Some forms of autism have markers that show up prenatally. That means the cause is much more likely genetic or gestation timed. Last I heard vaccines aren't usually given until after birth.

Pooph, flagging careers are relaunched by novel and maverick theories and treatments. Oprah has made many millionaires by having the authors of books on her shows. Books that restate the status quo rarely become bestsellers. It's the oddball, the freak that goes against 99% of scientists and doctors and comes up with a notion like HIV doesn't lead to AIDS ... these are the people Oprah has on her show. And then it take years or decades to undo the harm, if it can ever be undone.

The phony link between vaccines and autism has made a lot of millionaires and has killed and injured a lot of kids. It's also cost society billions of wasted dollars.

It's really time to drop the nonsense and get back to the "herd immunity" needed to eradicate these diseases that kill and injure so many.

-Jeff

[kpage9]

Wait a minute. dirty needles used for vaccination??? That aside, I have no argument--lots and lots of people die from the totally preventable causes you list here.

Autism: we keep hoping it is preventable. Some hope to the point that they make stuff up. Some exploit this hope in the cruelest way (e.g. Wakefield). And--I have to say this, having worked closely with parents of children with disabilities--I have heard from more than one parent, whispered, that their kids are suffering so much that death would seem preferable.

But they don't die, for the most part. They live on in a world of strangers, without that bond of human connection that feeds our souls.

So let's not minimize the craving for explanation.

What IS preventable--and this may be a new thread--is the brain damage that comes from prenatal alcohol exposure. Symptoms overlap with autism in part, with lots of AD/HD thrown in, and trouble managing time and money. One out of 25 of us have some degree of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Our jails, homeless shelters and welfare rolls are loaded with this stuff. And the rest of us stumble along, tripping over our glitchy nervous systems, with real difficulty and a good measure of shame.

ok, end of rant, but glad to carry on if anyone asks....

More children will die from malnutrition
More children will die from bad hygiene
More children will die from lack of fresh water
More children will die from dirty needles used for vaccination.
and the list goes on.

[Sylph]

Autism: we keep hoping it is preventable. Some hope to the point that they make stuff up. Some exploit this hope in the cruelest way (e.g. Wakefield).

Well said.

Children have died from vaccines.
Children with vaccines have died.
There will always be children that die.
Please don't turn this into a tearjerker.

So, because “there will always be children who die” we shouldn’t worry too much about vaccine preventable diseases?…hmmm.

If Wakefield' study was that fundamentally flawed, why did it take 10 years for the media to figure this out?

They’ve (scientists and some of the media) been ‘on to him’ for years, but the issue just got more coverage recently with the details of the first study children’s records coming out and the investigation of Wakefield by the General Medical Council in the UK of his unethical practices.
The Anti-Vaccination Movement (Skeptical Inquirer November / December 2007)

In 1998, researcher Andrew Wakefield and some of his colleagues published a study…
Although the study was small and the evidence was considered preliminary, this article sparked a firestorm. As a result of the study and the media coverage that followed (and continues to this day), MMR compliance in Great Britain plummeted, resulting in a surge of preventable disease (Friederichs 2006).

Subsequent to the seminal article in the Lancet, many follow-up studies were performed testing the autism-MMR vaccine correlation. As the follow-up studies began to be published, however, it became increasingly clear that there was no link between MMR and autism. For example, a study in the British Medical Journal found that autism rates continued to climb in areas where MMR vaccination rates were not increasing (Taylor 1999). Another study found no association with MMR and autism or GI (gastrointestinal) disorders (Taylor 2002). Other studies showed no difference in the diagnosis rate of autism either before or after the MMR vaccine was administered (Honda 2005), or between vaccinated and unvaccinated children (Madsen 2002). Most recently, a study found that there was no decrease in autism rates following removal of the MMR vaccine in Japan (Honda 2005).

[Sylph]

If you need to call your opposition brainless and idiots, surely your evidence must be lacking.

MsT, you are confusing my words with the links I posted. If we go mining each other’s links for “ad hominem attacks” we could waste a lot of time!
The link MsT posted defending Wakefield seemed to spend a lot of effort in attacking the journalist in an ad hominem way instead of focusing on the facts:

..yet more junk journalism by an unethical unprofessional freelance journalist to revive a seemingly flagging career [more of which below].
The Sunday Times’ freelancer who authored the stories, was once described… as “mercurial”, and appears to have plumbed a new low. As a professional this journalist appears obsessed. etc

Andrew Wakefield, John Walker-Smith, Simon Murch. General Medical Council Fitness to Practice Panel - Charge Sheet. 2007-07-16
I had no idea how creepy and dangerous this doc really is. He was and still is doing unwarranted colonoscopies on little kids, (requiring IVs and sedation probably, not to mention the horrible cleaning out preparation beforehand.) And lumbar punctures? I wonder if these poor kids have PSTD from all these procedures, while in the hospital for 9 days?

Between 1 September 1996 and his discharge on or about
9 September 1996, Child 2 underwent a colonoscopy, a barium meal
and follow-through, an MRI scan of his brain, a lumbar puncture, a
Schilling test, an EEG and other neurophysiological investigations, and
a variety of blood and urine tests…he did not qualify for the research study as he failed to meet the inclusion criteria…

One complication of colonoscopies, is bowel perforation, especially in kids. Here’s a child who almost died and was left severely disabled due to complications. His bowel was perforated 12 times! This child was referred by Dr. Murch, Wakefield's associate.theory he was obsessed about and continues to make re. autism/bowel disease/MMR.

An autistic boy has won a £500,000 payout after the hospital at the centre of the MMR scandal carried out an operation that was ‘not clinically justified’.

Jack Piper, then five, was left battling for life after the procedure, which his parents claim was carried out to establish links between his condition and bowel problems.

[phooph]

Yeah, probably. But doesn't it make sense to investigate what the cause actually is rather than wasting time and resources following a white rabbit down a hole? One thing that's been well proven is that vaccines do not cause autism. Some forms of autism have markers that show up prenatally. That means the cause is much more likely genetic or gestation timed. Last I heard vaccines aren't usually given until after birth.

Pooph, flagging careers are relaunched by novel and maverick theories and treatments. Oprah has made many millionaires by having the authors of books on her shows. Books that restate the status quo rarely become bestsellers. It's the oddball, the freak that goes against 99% of scientists and doctors and comes up with a notion like HIV doesn't lead to AIDS ... these are the people Oprah has on her show. And then it take years or decades to undo the harm, if it can ever be undone.

The phony link between vaccines and autism has made a lot of millionaires and has killed and injured a lot of kids. It's also cost society billions of wasted dollars.

It's really time to drop the nonsense and get back to the "herd immunity" needed to eradicate these diseases that kill and injure so many.

-Jeff

Autism has gone from a very rare occurrence to being an epidemic. This does not suggest genetics as a cause.
This is not to say that vaccines are the major cause of autism, but the alarming growth of a once rare condition has not gone unnoticed by the medical community. Japan phased out the MMR vaccine when autism rates climbed but after a short decline, the autism rates again began to climb. They had not ceased vaccination but had stopped using the triple dose MMR and replaced it with single dose vaccinations.

What happened to my neighbor's baby is fairly identical to the now famous case in which the court awarded damages in a vaccine case. In both instances the child went from healthy to unhealthy in a 24 hr. period on the day the vaccine was administered.

Is Autism on the Rise?

[Braggi]

Autism has gone from a very rare occurrence to being an epidemic. This does not suggest genetics as a cause. ...
What happened to my neighbor's baby is fairly identical to the now famous case ...

The much ballyhooed payout you mention means nothing. Don't fret about it.

When I was a kid there were a whole lot of "retards." Mental retardation was a common situation and there were advertisements on the TV and radio for charities that helped people with their retarded kids. Now there are no retards. There are autistic kids. And the ads on TV ask for donations to help people with their autistic kids. It's not that the numbers have skyrocketed. It's that the definitions have changed. Every stupid kid is now a victim of "autistic spectrum disorder." That's why it's now an epidemic. The definitions have changed and now there's someone to blame. Before it was just the way it was. Now there's the evil Big Pharma making everyone stupid.

What you didn't show was a chart showing the decline of childhood diseases and how the numbers there have dropped to nearly zero. Put up a chart showing the numbers of kids saved from death and paralysis, oh, and mental retardation, because that's one of the things childhood diseases can cause.

-Jeff

[Zeno Swijtink]

It's that the definitions have changed. Every stupid kid is now a victim of "autistic spectrum disorder." That's why it's now an epidemic. The definitions have changed and now there's someone to blame.

Studies raise questions about increase in autism cases
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
By Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When the Centers for Disease Control announced last year that an average of one out of 150 children had autism, it convinced many people that America was seeing an explosion of autism cases.

Before the 1990s, the official estimates were one autistic child out of every 2,000 to 5,000 children. Several autism advocacy groups took that as proof that some environmental toxin, such as mercury preservative in vaccines, had caused a huge spike in the autism numbers.

But there are now intriguing indications that most if not all of the autism increase is the result of broadening the criteria for the diagnosis and identifying children with autism who would have been labeled with a different diagnosis in the past.

A 2006 study in the journal Pediatrics found, for instance, that the national increase in identified autism cases in elementary schoolchildren between 1984 and 2003 had been paralleled by a similar decrease in the number of children labeled as retarded or learning disabled.

Paul Shattuck of Washington University in St. Louis, the lead author of the study, wrote last year that "in 44 of 50 states, the increase in autism was completely offset by a decrease in the prevalence of children considered 'cognitively disabled' or 'learning disabled.' "

In an interview this week, Dr. Shattuck said that because of changes in the definition of autism and how it is measured, it is impossible to know how much it may have increased from past years.

But his study certainly suggests that "diagnostic substitution" -- labeling someone as autistic today who would have been labeled as retarded 30 years ago -- is a substantial part of the picture.

Dr. Shattuck's study isn't the only one showing this trend.

In a 2004 study, Lisa Croen of the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute in California and her team found that the increase in children diagnosed with autism in that state between 1987 and 1994 was almost exactly paralleled by a decrease in those diagnosed with retardation.

Nancy Minshew, the director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Excellence in Autism Research, said last week, "I used to think there were more cases [than in past years], but I don't think so any more." She is now convinced that the higher numbers are "not an increase in the number of cases, but are an improvement in recognition."

In past decades, she said, it was often hard to get doctors or schools to diagnose higher-functioning children as having autism. They were often labeled as having "behavior difficulties."

Dr. Shattuck said other epidemiological studies have shown that the rate of severe autism has stayed steady at about one to two children per 1,000, so that the main part of the increase to an estimated six to seven children per 1,000 has come in the milder, higher-functioning forms of the disorder.

That points partly to the broader definition being used for what are called Autism Spectrum Disorders today, he said.

"When we talk about autism spectrum disorders," he said, "we're talking about kids who have very different symptoms. Some are severely retarded; some have high IQs; some have pathological shyness; others want to have contact but are socially awkward."

And when people say they don't remember seeing so many autistic children when they were growing up, or ask where all the adults with autism are, there are two possible explanations, Dr. Minshew said.

One is that many autistic children in the past were never sent to school. In what she called the "Forrest Gump era, you didn't even go to school, or you went to a totally separate school."

The other phenomenon was that some autistic children were labeled as schizophrenic, and many may have ended up in state hospitals or other institutions, she said.

There is even a kind of logic to that, Dr. Minshew said, because some of the hallmarks of schizophrenia -- behaving oddly, a lack of facial expressions, poor eye contact, speaking in a monotone and using fewer gestures than normal -- are "essentially the same" in both autism and schizophrenia.

David Mandell, an epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, recently surveyed the adult patients in Norristown State Hospital in Eastern Pennsylvania, nearly all of whom are labeled schizophrenic, and found that about 20 percent of them meet the behavioral criteria for being autistic.

While he believes misdiagnosis in the past explains a part of the increase in autism numbers, Dr. Mandell also believes the growth has been too great to be accounted for just by continuing genetic abnormalities.

"The increase is probably too fast to be genetics," he said, "so there probably is something that is environmental, but there is nothing to suggest it's the vaccines."

Mark Roth can be reached at [email protected] or at 412-263-1130.

First published on February 6, 2008 at 12:00 am

***

Title:
The contribution of diagnostic substitution to the growing administrative prevalence of autism in us special education.(Disease/Disorder overview).
Author(s):
Paul T. Shattuck.
Source:
Pediatrics 117.4 (April 2006): p1028(10). (7560 words)

Abstract:

OBJECTIVE. Growing administrative prevalence of autism has stirred public controversy and concern. The extent to which increases in the administrative prevalence of autism have been associated with corresponding decreases in the use of other diagnostic categories is unknown. The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between the rising administrative prevalence of autism in US special education and changes in the use of other classification categories.

METHODS. The main outcome measure was the administrative prevalence of autism among children ages 6 to 11 in US special education. Analysis involved estimating multilevel regression models of time-series data on the prevalence of disabilities among children in US special education from 1984 to 2003.

RESULTS. The average administrative prevalence of autism among children increased from 0.6 to 3.1 per 1000 from 1994 to 2003. By 2003, only 17 states had a special education prevalence of autism that was within the range of recent epidemiological estimates. During the same period, the prevalence of mental retardation and learning disabilities declined by 2.8 and 8.3 per 1000, respectively. Higher autism prevalence was significantly associated with corresponding declines in the prevalence of mental retardation and learning disabilities. The declining prevalence of mental retardation and learning disabilities from 1994 to 2003 represented a significant downward deflection in their preexisting trajectories of prevalence from 1984 to 1993. California was one of a handful of states that did not clearly follow this pattern.

CONCLUSIONS. Prevalence findings from special education data do not support the claim of an autism epidemic because the administrative prevalence figures for most states are well below epidemiological estimates. The growing administrative prevalence of autism from 1994 to 2003 was associated with corresponding declines in the usage of other diagnostic categories.

Key Words
autism, prevalence
Abbreviations
ASD--autism spectrum disorder
MR--mental retardation
LD--learning disabilities
OHI--other health impairments
CDC--Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
OR--odds ratio
TBI--traumatic brain injury
DD--developmental delay
Full Text :COPYRIGHT 2006 American Academy of Pediatrics

[phooph]

Zeno,

The article I linked to in the last post said similar things, but then just as this one, in the end, says that reclassification and improved diagnosis does not explain all the increase.

Is Autism on the Rise?

Studies raise questions about increase in autism cases
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
By Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When the Centers for Disease Control announced last year that an average of one out of 150 children had autism, it convinced many people that America was seeing an explosion of autism cases.

Before the 1990s, the official estimates were one autistic child out of every 2,000 to 5,000 children. Several autism advocacy groups took that as proof that some environmental toxin, such as mercury preservative in vaccines, had caused a huge spike in the autism numbers.

But there are now intriguing indications that most if not all of the autism increase is the result of broadening the criteria for the diagnosis and identifying children with autism who would have been labeled with a different diagnosis in the past.

A 2006 study ...

[Zeno Swijtink]

Zeno,

The article I linked to in the last post said similar things, but then just as this one, in the end, says that reclassification and improved diagnosis does not explain all the increase.

Is Autism on the Rise?

I think it's more fair to say that while it may not explain all the cases reclassification and improved diagnosis goes a long way as Paul Shattuck argues in his 2006 Pediatrics analysis. At the edge of the evidence the issue becomes so subtle and dependent on fine details of statistical analysis that it becomes hard to discuss here in Wacco land.

[phooph]

I think it's more fair to say that while it may not explain all the cases reclassification and improved diagnosis goes a long way as Paul Shattuck argues in his 2006 Pediatrics analysis. At the edge of the evidence the issue becomes so subtle and dependent on fine details of statistical analysis that it becomes hard to discuss here in Wacco land.

I am posting below a blog from Newsweek and a couple of comments to that blog.

Debating over Vaccines and Autism

Monday, October 27, 2008 7:37 PM
By Kurt Soller

NEWSWEEK took on the anti-vaccine debate this week by profiling Paul Offit, a vaccination doctor whose new book, "Autism's False Prophets," challenges the notion that vaccines cause autism. Offit's critics left hundreds of comments on our Website asserting that vaccination isn't safe and urging NEWSWEEK to re-investigate. You can't prove a negative in science, but you could show this is an issue readers certainly care about.

But after many posts insisted that vaccinations lead to autism, others fought back:

"I am trying to understand the anti-vaccine argument," writes one reader. "If vaccines cause autism, how come all children who have their regularly scheduled vaccines do not have autism? Both my children had their regularly scheduled vaccines. My son was also a participant of the retrovirus study. They have not been diagnosed with autism. Are we allto believe that this was caused by vaccines? How do you explain children who were autistic before vaccines were readily available. I think parents are looking for something to blame, which is a common reaction."

Others took this one step further, calling it "irresponsible" to refuse to vaccinate children, even calling it bad parenting:

"Bottom line -- if you want a child, then you have to be aware of everything than can go wrong (i.e., autism, etc.) and be prepared for the consequences of your choice. Don't issue a blanket statement on vaccines, or anything else, without proof positive of cause and effect. It's irresponsible parenting to waste time blaming something, when that energy could be used to get treatment/therapies for the actual problem. However, it's much easier to blame. If pharmacotherapy is to blame for these illnesses, then the industry could be sued to gain money to "care for" all affected parties. You want kids? Know the risks, be prepared to accept them, and provide financially for the any care necessary."

Among readers who reported having autistic children of their own, their sentiment was a bit gentler: "As I read the comments I am amazed the venom of some comments," writes one mother. "My son is 22 years old and was diagnosed at 2 years of age. At that time, autism was an unknown disease. I struggled on my own trying to figure out what to do. I could not tell you if it was the shots or not... I would rather have my son like he is than risk him dying from a preventable disease. Every parent must read, research and make a educational choice about whether to give their child the shots or not."

Even those who contributed first-hand to our coverage of autism this week wanted to weigh in. To go along with the story, NEWSWEEK's video team produced a series of segments that included Offit, families on both sides of the issue and lawyers like Robert Krakow who represent families of kids who feel vaccinations made their children autistic. After reading our story and discovering that we focused on Offit, he emailed us his final take:

"Although my interview was captioned, 'At Odds With Offit' I was asked but one question about him or his views: “What do you think about Dr. Offit?” I was not asked to address Dr. Offit’s assertions about the science underpinning our claims. I was, revealingly, asked specifically about “threats” by parents – a side issue that has been pressed by Dr. Offit that I did address, but without reference to Dr. Offit’s remarks on this subject. I do not believe that the issue of “threats” by parents is a major concern nor do I feel that this subject warrants focus by journalists, unless the purpose is to unfairly demonize parents as irrational or dangerous.

...My comments were meant to emphasize the legitimacy and credibility of parents' observations. There exists substantial scientific evidence that corroborates and amplifies parents’ first person accounts of what happened to our children."

Member comments:

Posted By: dawnc (November 19, 2008 at 7:21 PM)

My infant and I were injured by vaccines in 2007. If people want to remain ignorant on the vaccine subject and still blindly follow the "crowd", that's fine with me, but leave my family out of it. Nobody in my family will ever receive a vaccine again.

Yes, certain individuals are more susceptible than others to vaccine injury. With what other medication does the phrase "one size fits all" apply? The CDC and FDA think that everyone can tolerate whatever vaccine schedule they come up with? That is insane! Not everyone can take penicillin. How on earth can everyone be o.k. with every recommended vaccine? Some people argue that vaccines are not drugs. Well, who approves vaccines? The FDA. What does FDA stand for? The food and drug administration. So, yes they are drugs and no the FDA does not test them. The companies that make them do. And why is it that every infant, child and adult receives the same dose of vaccine? .5 ml!! That is also insane! What other drug can you do that with? Furthermore, these drugs are only tested individually before the FDA approves them. Why on earth are they given with numerous other vaccines on the same day? Where are the long-term studies on the health effects of these vaccine subjects? Never been done. I guess that's why every vaccine carries the following disclaimer: Cancer, Altering of DNA, and Impairment of Fertility: No studies have been done. That is truly appalling. Again, that disclaimer has been on every vaccine for YEARS.

You have to be a total idiot to think that these diseases are deadly and that vaccines are safe. Where do I get my info? The CDC's own reported disease data and the manufacturer's package inserts. Oh, and the FDA recently held a workshop calling on all scientists for their input. Apparently, the FDA still cannot figure out how to keep bacteria, fungi, and animal viruses out of vaccines (but don't worry they renamed these problems for humans and gave them a medical textbook name so as to not alarm the public). They need help in how to better screen them!! I'm sorry, but how long have vaccines been around? To think that our tax dollars pay their salaries. Sick.

---

Posted By: Kangasanna (November 19, 2008 at 2:28 PM)
The reader who argues that most children do not develop autism from vaccines, fails to understand the new scientific paradigm. What the new scientists propose is that certain genetic vulnerabilities (and probably not just one) predispose children to autism during the early years of brain development. The environmental insult pulls the trigger resulting in autism.
There is a subset of children, and we don't yet know how to identify them, who will develop autism from vaccinations, or from mercury exposure, or from pesticide exposure or ....

We want the public health community to stop vilifying parents and start scientific hypothesis testing as soon as possible.

The parents whose children have remained normal even after 36 vaccines containing mercury should consider it a gift from God, and not blame the parents who are struggling. But considering the big chemical soup we are all increasingly swimming in, they might reflect that it is in their interest to figure out this scientific puzzle of "environment and autism" before even their own vulnerable genes succumb to some neurological degenerative disease. Really, we are all in this together.