Marley’s coming up on her 18 month immunizations (well, she’s actually past-due for them now) and someone brought up the topic of the risk of autism with the 18 month immunizations. I checked out a few resources, and wanted to thrown them up here for anyone else interested.
- The 18 month scheduled immunizations don’t actually introduce anything new i.e. that Marley hasn’t been exposed to before
- The furor about a potential link between autism and vaccination concerned the MMR vaccination, based on a study published in the Lancet in 1998
- Dr. Andrew Wakefield authored the study
- The MMR vaccine is administered to infants in BC at the ages of 12 and 18 months
- Symptoms of autism manifest before the age of 3 years old
- Wakefield’s study has been debunked as “nonsense”, and medical professionals today are still battling the FUD he generated
- 10 of Wakefield’s 12 collaborators have retracted the Lancet study (2004)
- Wakefiled was discovered to have large conflicts of interest
The doctor was doing paid research for a group of parents of autistic children who were trying to mount a class action suit against the makers of the MMR vaccine. Later it was revealed Wakefield had taken out a patent on a new vaccine while publicly challenging the safety of the existing one.
- Another vaccine that caused concern about autism was the Hepatitis B vaccine, due to mercury content (thimerosal)
- The dosage administered in Canada is far below the levels in the US (in 2001), and both are below the safe exposure levels
- Thimerosal is now only present in influenza vaccines. It was removed due to public perception, not safety concerns (the power of consumerism!)
- No connection has been found between thimerosal and autism
As a person with a degree in Microbiology and Immunology, I’ve always been a proponent of vaccines. I’ve had to re-evaluate my stance now that I actually am a parent and have to make decisions for someone other than myself. My position though hasn’t changed – the risks introduced by vaccination are far less than those of not vaccinating against these diseases.
Many people believe that we’ve managed to get these diseases under control, and that vaccinating is no longer necessary and introducing the children to these vaccination risks is now riskier than the chances of actually contracting the disease. Bollocks I say! Today we live in a society that should be considered global – and this means our children will be coming into contact with cultures and societies that do not have these diseases under control.
Take for example Ireland’s response to the MMR-autism scare:
Ireland saw measles soar from 148 cases in 1999 to 1200 cases in 2000 when MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) immunization rates dropped to 76% in response to concerns of a link between MMR and autism. Several children died in this outbreak. When enough people stop immunizing, there is more disease and children may die.
Medical experts believe the magic number is 95%, by the way: 95% of a population must be resistant to a disease before it can be considered under control.
Vaccinations seem to be a fire-and-brimstone topic for parents and microbiologists. There’s a lot of money involved in the industry which naturally leads to people doubting the intentions of the players. One could argue though that this is where Canada’s health care system helps clarify things – making money is not the ultimate purpose of a publicly funded health system.
Medical experts all seem to be agreeing with one another here – vaccinations are the safest bet for our children right now.
Resources:
One thought on “Immunizations And Autism – A Little Research”