Science: 1, Antivaxers: 0
Swift
Written by Jeff Wagg
Monday, 19 January 2009 00:00

Hooray! Newsweek reports that Alison Singer, executive vice president of communications and awareness at Autism Speaks, has determined that the question of whether or not there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism has been answered. And that answer is no. Faced with disagreement from others in the organization, Ms. Singer chose to step down from her post. There are a few things to discuss here. Congratulations to Ms. Singer for looking at the evidence and coming to a conclusion. For those unware of the controversy, many parents of children with autism believe that childhood vaccines, specifically the MMR vaccine, is responsible for their child's condition. The theory is that mercury in the preservative Thimerasol, which used to be used in vaccines, caused brain damage in young children. Today, vaccines contain very little if any of this perservative, but there was never much evidence to implicate it anyway. It's possible that since autism is first noticeable at about the same time kids receive their vaccines, that parents assumed a causal link out of the correlation.

Many studies have been done to confirm this causality, but the overwhelming evidence is that vaccines are unrelated to autism.

So enter Ms. Singer, who has a child with autism. She joins a fledgling organization determined to do some good against this condition. She examines the evidence, and comes to the conclusion that autism research needs to move in a new direction. Her reward? She has to step down, because others in the organization want more money spent on research into vaccines and their relationship to autism. The anti-vaccination movement won't be swayed by facts or analysis. They're convinced vaccines are the cause, and won't consider any evidence to the contrary.

Parents concerned about autism refuse to vaccinate their kids, which puts them at risk for diseases that were once commonplace, but are now rarely seen.

Ms. Singer is doing the right thing. She is trying to devote scant resources to where they can do the most good. It's a shame that the community around her can't see where she's coming from, and it's a bigger shame that they're losing such an advocate. I hope Ms. Singer will continue the fight, and I have no doubt that she will.

I wonder what made her come to that conclusion? There haven't even been any real studies done to prove or disprove this theory and there probably wont ever be. If vaccines were found to be related to autism they would be found to be related to other conditions as well. How do you think people would react to know the pharma has been poisoning us all along and the government has been allowing it to happen? I don't think it would go over well. They can keep saying these vaccines contain little mercury if any too, but the fact is mercury is toxic in any form and it should have never been in vaccines to begin with. Besides that they fail to mention the vaccines it was removed from are still being given out until they expire in late 2009 or they run out. Anyway, what about all those other toxic ingredients vaccines contain? http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm If people really knew this would they allow themselves and their children to be injected with this sh*t?
When I was a child the schedule was 10 vaccines before I started school. Now most children are given 36 before they turn 2. The first one is now given within 10 hours of birth. Doesn't that seem a little extreme? Is there not a such thing as too much? Maybe some of these kids immune systems aren't strong enough to handle all of those shots. Maybe their systems can't excrete all the chemicals like other kids. The fact is autism has went from around 1 in 10,000 in 1994 to as much as 1 in every 53 now. It is beyond epidemic. When will more people start questioning things? I'm convinced it's not all genetic. Genetic disorders don't increase like this and thats a fact. I think theres a genetic predisposition, but there has to be something triggering it. Rather it be vaccines, pesticides, chemicals in the air I'm convinced it's something....Children don't just quit talking and quit doing things they once did overnight.
The autism increase is not all children being over diagnosed either. Sure there are some are diagnosed with aspergers that shouldn't be, but doctors are obviously wrong sometimes anyway. Besides aspergers there has still been a several 100% increase in autism rates in the last 15 years. Whats the explanation for those?

Anything you wanted to add on a personal note???


As to autism, and innoculations....


what a crock of sh*te....

the high number of diagnosis of autism, especially Aspergers is because the parameters of diagnostic evaluation has changed.

I suspect that most of these apparent asperger's diagnoses are nothing more than higher evolved gifted people..

I've read somewhere that the age you start poppin' out kids is a rather strong indicator as to whether or not they'll end up autistic. In short, the older you have kids, the more likely they'll have autism and related issues.

Well on a personal note I have a friend his daughter has autism, she is very bright in certain ways (by bright I mean capable she is not a savant), but socially cannot really deal with reality.

When I had heard that some people believed vaccines where a cause this troubled me, so I sought out my friend, he had done some research and found studies that did not show such a correlation.

It pretty important considering whats vaccines have done for us as a race.

If even only a paranoid few are opting to not get vaccines this reduces our "herd" immunity, which can cause severe set backs for the annihilation of these deadly diseases.

I wonder what made her come to that conclusion? There haven't even been any real studies done to prove or disprove this theory and there probably wont ever be. If vaccines were found to be related to autism they would be found to be related to other conditions as well. How do you think people would react to know the pharma has been poisoning us all along and the government has been allowing it to happen? I don't think it would go over well. They can keep saying these vaccines contain little mercury if any too, but the fact is mercury is toxic in any form and it should have never been in vaccines to begin with. Besides that they fail to mention the vaccines it was removed from are still being given out until they expire in late 2009 or they run out. Anyway, what about all those other toxic ingredients vaccines contain? http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm If people really knew this would they allow themselves and their children to be injected with this sh*t?
When I was a child the schedule was 10 vaccines before I started school. Now most children are given 36 before they turn 2. The first one is now given within 10 hours of birth. Doesn't that seem a little extreme? Is there not a such thing as too much? Maybe some of these kids immune systems aren't strong enough to handle all of those shots. Maybe their systems can't excrete all the chemicals like other kids. The fact is autism has went from around 1 in 10,000 in 1994 to as much as 1 in every 53 now. It is beyond epidemic. When will more people start questioning things? I'm convinced it's not all genetic. Genetic disorders don't increase like this and thats a fact. I think theres a genetic predisposition, but there has to be something triggering it. Rather it be vaccines, pesticides, chemicals in the air I'm convinced it's something....Children don't just quit talking and quit doing things they once did overnight.
The autism increase is not all children being over diagnosed either. Sure there are some are diagnosed with aspergers that shouldn't be, but doctors are obviously wrong sometimes anyway. Besides aspergers there has still been a several 100% increase in autism rates in the last 15 years. Whats the explanation for those?

I think it is the vaccines

For decades after Kanner's original paper on the subject was published in 1943, autism was generally considered to be a rare condition with a prevalence of around 2-4 per 10,000 children. Then, studies carried out in the late 1990s and the present century reported annual rises in incidence of autism in pre-school children, based on age of diagnosis, and increases in the age-specific prevalence rates in children. Prevalence rates of up to 60 per 10,000 for autism and even more for the whole autistic spectrum were reported. Reasons for these increases are discussed. They include changes in diagnostic criteria, development of the concept of the wide autistic spectrum, different methods used in studies, growing awareness and knowledge among parents and professional workers and the development of specialist services, as well as the possibility of a true increase in numbers. Various environmental causes for a genuine rise in incidence have been suggested, including the triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR]. Not one of the possible environmental causes, including MMR, has been confirmed by independent scientific investigation, whereas there is strong evidence that complex genetic factors play a major role in etiology. The evidence suggests that the majority, if not all, of the reported rise in incidence and prevalence is due to changes in diagnostic criteria and increasing awareness and recognition of autistic spectrum disorders. Whether there is also a genuine rise in incidence remains an open question. MRDD Research Reviews 2002;8:151-161. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

I have two friends that have autistic boys. One of the boys is so bad that he lives in an institution and the other boy is in a special school. There is a girl in my child's class that is autistic. She has been held back a grade and receives tutoring help but she has been integrated into the classroom.

I don't think there is enough proof that justifies us not getting the vaccines.