asd and vaccines

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Giovanni, Nov 12, 2014.

  1. Giovanni

    Giovanni Well-Known Member Supporter

    recently, we've got a couple people on this site promoting the idea that vaccines and autism are linked. typically, the "proof" is a youtube video, or a discredited study.

    in the interest of sanity, and to show how much evidence exists, i decided to start this thread, detailing evidence.

    i have three boys, ages 5, 3 1/2, 3 months. the 3 1/2 year old has been diagnosed with asd. i will not even consider changing the vaccination schedules of my children. this is not a faith-based statement, or taking someone's "word" for it; this is an evidence-based statement. if one were to actually look into the science of this issue, the lack of a link far outweighs any supposed linkage between vaccines and asd.

    anyway, here you go....with a very short blurb that does not do justice to the pieces in question.

    denmark study, strong evidence against a link
    http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134

    uk study, no causal link
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673699012398

    japan study, unlikely link
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01425.x/full

    critical review of published studies, no demonstrable link between thimerosal and asd
    http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/793.short

    there are many, many more studies that looked at this supposed link. i only posted four.

    please feel free to post supporting or opposing studies, not youtube videos.
     
  2. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    From Ben Goldacre, who is more articulate than me.
    (I've bolded the dumbest part about believing the autism-vaccine claims)
    http://www.badscience.net/2005/11/comment-the-mmr-sceptic-who-just-doesnt-understand-science/
    Here is the link to the Cochrane study http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004407.pub3/abstract

    If you don't vaccinate for MMR then you are a plain idiot and I don't wish you any of the ills in the world because you are more susceptible to causing an outbreak.
     
  3. Giovanni

    Giovanni Well-Known Member Supporter

    in that vein zaad, what kinds of tools can journalists, or normal people, use to better understand these types of studies? is it really just understanding basic statistics first?
     
  4. Moi

    Moi Warriors live forever x

    I think it's nice to be in the position to get the separate jabs done but without that luxury the standard is better than the consequence
     
  5. Kframe

    Kframe Valued Member

    Isnt part of the argument regarding vaccines and ASD related to the use of mercury in them? While I believe in the good of vaccines, I do find it somewhat concerning that mercury is in it. TBH I don't care that the mercury is part of a compound, the mere fact that is in there at all bothers me..

    That said, I still am a staunch supporter of vacines due to the overwhelming good they do.
     
  6. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Why? Your food contains compounds of potassium and sodium, both of which are every bit as toxic as mercury if not more so.
    Also you can make all the arguments you want, if they're demonstrated to not cause the end result they claim then they're unfounded.
     
  7. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    The book Bad Science by Ben Goldacre teaches you how to understand studies in an entertaining and informative way (it got me to understand significance values properly, which 3 years of university didn't).
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science...F8&qid=1415832773&sr=1-1&keywords=bad+science
     
  8. philosoraptor

    philosoraptor carnivore in a top hat Supporter

    I don't mean to mock you or sound rude, but this is akin to complaining about all the chlorine in your table salt.
     
  9. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Why? There's no demonstrable benefit and you have to have 3 injections. I should also point out that various childhood immunisations contain MORE vaccines than MMR and nobody makes a peep.
     
  10. Kframe

    Kframe Valued Member

    Have they though? Look im not a scientist but everything I learned in HS said that mercury is bad and to be avoided. The things you named as also bad are required by the body...

    I guess my issue is, while I support what they are trying to do with vaccines, and will continue to use them, I am uneasy with the poison that is mercury. I don't know if I trust many of these scientists, how do I know they were not funded by big pharma and thusly skewing the results in their favor?

    Have they not yet found a less controversial ingredient yet?
     
  11. philosoraptor

    philosoraptor carnivore in a top hat Supporter

    The problem is that many things that discourage growth of bacteria or fungus (which could be even more harmful if injected into the body) are also toxic to human cells. Many vaccines do not contain thimerosal, many others do. Regarding funding, I think that's a major tragedy in medicine, however, it happens on both sides; Andy Wakefield, the fellow who fraudulently made the claim that there is a link between vaccines and autism, was supplied with money from a vaccine manufacturer seeking to discredit mainstream vaccines and create support for their own.
     
  12. blindside

    blindside Valued Member

    In the US most of the vaccines have gone away from using thimerosal (the mercury based preservative you are talking about) for over a decade now. I think it still gets used in the annual flu vaccines, but not in the standard series that are given as a kid.
     
  13. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    The Danish study of half a million children showed no increased incidence of autism amongst children who've had MMR. It was a well constructed population study. That it's findings are in line with numerous other studies suggests it's reliable. To me, someone trained in statistical analysis of biomedical research, this is as close to proof as you can get.
    Vaccines are not a big earner for pharmaceutical companies. They are typically cheap and you only need one course. New generation anti-depressants and anti-hypertensives are much better earners for them. They simply don't care enough to rig trials about vaccines. Indeed MMR must be out of patent now, so no-one's going to rig a study for an intellectual property they don't control.
    Most anti-MMR research comes from Wakefield and people from the institute he ran before he was struck off. Wakefield is a man who took money from lawyers to conduct an experiment to show that vaccines cause autism. Having taken that money he conducted UNNECESSARY INVASIVE MEDICAL PROCEDURES ON CHILDREN. He then knowingly falsified the results in a way that anyone who understood measles vaccine immediately saw. Rather than publishing his research he held a press conference, creating a media frenzy that DIRECTLY LED TO THE DEATHS OF CHILDREN. It got so bad that The Lancet published his study just so everyone could see how awful it was. It was subsequently revealed that he had taken out a patent for a single measles vaccine shortly beforehand.
    So, if asked to choose between trusting several large epidemiology departments who've published good research and trusting Wakefield I think you can guess who I'm going to go with.
    If you eat fish every week then you've ingested far more mercury than is in all the vaccines you've ever had.
    Something to consider. The rate of autism in the general population is roughly equivalent to the mortality rate for infant measles.
     
  14. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    the idea that corporate entities are faceless monsters is ridiculous.

    funding has to be declared and is one of the first things you should look at (declared at the end of a study) when you evaluate that study.

    after a scientist has spent a few years studying one tiny question, the last thing you want to do is have it shot down so you make sure the science is good.

    if anyone has any doubts they simply ask for the data or run their own study.
    this happens all the time which is why we have multiple studies on the same topic and rebuttals and arguments in science over the calculations performed.
    reaching a consensus is a monumental thing and usually means that we're on the correct course until new evidence presents itself.
     
  15. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Try 87 years.

    That's not a conclusive amount of time, but it's a relatively sufficient one.
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2014
  16. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    No, it's not. I think it's a fairly reasonable reading of human nature.

    That is why we need regulation. Which is working better now than ever before (not that it couldn't use improvement).
     
  17. Grass hopper

    Grass hopper Valued Member

    there's chlorine in your food. All of it.

    I don't care that it's in a compound (salt) I just don't want chlorine in my food.
     
  18. blindside

    blindside Valued Member

    From: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Thimerosal/thimerosal_faqs.html

     
  19. Ros Montgomery

    Ros Montgomery Valued Member

    Even though thimerosal is now rarely used in vaccines, I think it's important to clear a few things up. People tend to think 'OMG MERCURY!!!!' when they hear about thimerosal but it's a bit more complicated than that.

    Methylmercury is the kind found in the environment that can build up in the body and cause health problems.

    Ethylmercury is formed when the body breaks down thimerosal. It does not build up in the body and is cleared very quickly.

    They are two different compounds that the body processes very differently.

    Let me leave you with a quote from a paediatrician, Dr Brown:

    Although the names may sound the same, methylmercury and ethylmercury are very different. An analogy is the difference between methyl alcohol and ethyl acohol: methyl alcohol is antifreeze and ethyl alcohol is a Bud light.
     
  20. Southpaw535

    Southpaw535 Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    True, but its more the direct "a corporation is involved so its automatically bad" thing that's silly.
     

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