Posted on 05/18/2004 11:56:40 PM PDT by neverdem
An examination of scientific studies worldwide has found no convincing evidence that vaccines cause autism, according to a committee of experts appointed by the Institute of Medicine.
In particular, no link was found between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or vaccines that contain a mercury preservative called thimerosal. The committee released its eighth and final report yesterday in Washington.
Some parents of autistic children immediately protested. Mark Blaxill, the father of an 8-year-old girl with autism, said the committee's conclusions were premature. Studies are under way that should not be dismissed, said Mr. Blaxill, who is a director of the Coalition for SafeMinds, an advocacy group that finances research on the possible connection between autism and vaccines.
Representative Dave Weldon, a physician and a Republican from Florida who is an advocate for the parents, said the report was "based on preliminary, incomplete information and may ultimately be repudiated."
The report will not "put to rest the concerns of parents who believe their children were harmed" by vaccines, Mr. Weldon said.
Autism is a disorder of brain development that has been the subject of much publicity in recent years as parents and researchers hunt for its underlying cause or causes. The issue has been fueled by a rise in the number of children found to have autistic traits in the last decade, though experts disagree on how large the increase is.
Dr. Marie McCormick, a professor of maternal and child health at Harvard who led the investigation, said that most "parents should be reassured" and should not worry about getting their children vaccinated. In the meantime, she said, research on autism should focus on "more productive" areas, like genetic and environmental factors. The debate over vaccines and autism began five years ago when a British researcher, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, reported that a small number of autistic children had signs of measles infection in their intestines after getting the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.
A separate dispute soon broke out when researchers noted that many childhood vaccines contained a mercury preservative, though the measles formulation was not among them. Could an increase in the number of mercury-containing vaccines given to infants be an underlying cause of increased rates of autism?
The Immunization Safety Review Committee at the Institute of Medicine, which is affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences, was formed three years ago to examine those issues. The group, composed of expert physicians and scientists with no connections to the pharmaceutical industry, met nine times to gather evidence on the claims.
The committee emphasized that it carried out its mandate from a neutral position: the weight of evidence would indicate only whether it was possible to favor or reject a link between vaccines and autism. "You can never really prove a negative," Dr. McCormick said.
In 2001, the committee issued two reports. The first concluded that the measles vaccine was not likely to cause autism based on the epidemiological evidence. The second found that there was not enough evidence to reject or accept a causal link between vaccines with mercury and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism. To be on the safe side, it recommended that infants get vaccines without mercury preservatives. By 2002, mercury had been removed from most childhood vaccines.
The report released yesterday was based on previous evidence and new studies since 2001, and goes further than ever in discrediting claims that vaccines cause autism. On the subject of vaccines with mercury, five epidemiological studies worldwide show there is no evidence of a link with autism. Three studies found evidence, but the committee said the research methods were flawed.
As for the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, 14 epidemiological studies have shown no evidence of a link. The committee dismissed two studies that did show a link as flawed. The committee examined a number of possible biological mechanisms to explain how vaccines might cause autism, but said that all were theoretical and that there was not sufficient proof.
Fewer children today receive vaccines that contain mercury, Mr. Blaxill of SafeMinds said, so if the mercury hypothesis holds true, rates of autism should fall in the next couple of years. The number of cases in California, where autistic children are carefully tracked, declined slightly in the last six months, he said, but it is too soon to know if the drop is a trend.
Autism is notoriously complex, Dr. McCormick said. Many scientists believe that it may involve numerous genes that appear to interact with a variety of environmental factors and other nongenetic influences.
Duh, nevermind, it was one of the first sentences in the article. Thanks anyway.
shhh...as a new member you're probably unaware of the conspiracy to bump off scientists in your area. Not a Freeper conspiracy you understand. Check out some of the old threads.
Thimerisol is a vaccine preservative that contains a miniscule amount of mercury
It not been in any children's vaccines since 2002. It will be interesting to see if there are no more cases of autism diagnosed in kids born after the change was made.
Thimerosal is a mercury derivative and was included in most childhood vaccines prior to 2002, however current vaccines no longer contain thimerosal (some do still contain trace amounts). The only exception that I could find are flu vaccines, which still contain thimerosal.
ABA is behavior modification. If initiated very early (like age 2 or 2.5), it can be very effective at minimizing some of the major effects of autism. Technically, the child is still autistic (somewhere on the spectrum), but is now more able to focus and learn. When done properly and intensively, ABA has about a 60% effectiveness track record.
thimerisol = thimerosal (whoops!)
As a research virologist, Im very skeptical of this panels conclusions. The feds tell us that mercury emissions from power plants must be lowered, they are dangerously high. The feds tell us that pregnant women should not eat tuna fish because it contains dangerous levels of mercury. And yet, the feds will NOT admit that injecting, on average, 25 micrograms per shot (this is thousands of times higher amounts than could be found in tuna or the air) of mercury directly into the bloodstream of infants for the last 30 yrs just might cause health/neurological problems? Maybe, just maybe, the panels scientific conclusions are flawed, and the other studies showing a link between mercury and autism are correct?
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Sticking so many toxins and media (culture, preservatives, etc.) into the bloodstreams of infants with new immune systems sounds so suspicious, as does the onset of many kids' autistic symptoms.
Remember the Hippocratic oath?
It wasn't until our oldest son turned 4 that he was diagnosed with high functioning autism. Soon after that we enrolled him in the SECEP Program for Autistic Children here in VA Beach. This program has made a HUGE difference in our son. At 7 yrs of age he has the language skills of a 3 yr old and is writing at the kindergarten level. It takes a LOT of work but ABA has benefited us greatly.
Interesting, isn't it, that thimerosal has been in vaccines since the 40s, and yet we only see an increase in autism rates since the 80s? And earlier vaccines contianed much more of the preservative than did later versions.
Also,Denmark discontinued the use of thimerosal in 1992, yet autism rates have continued to climb.
Face it, there is no evidence linking autism to thimerosal.
Good post. I agree with almost everthing in it. My common sense just tells me that putting mercury directly into infants is NOT a good idea. Only time will tell whether it was related to the increase in autism or other neurological problems. We won't know the stats on this until around 2007-2012, 5-10yrs after they stop including thimerosal in childhood vaccines.
One increase for the number of diagnosed cases of autism is just that: more cases are being diagnosed. That is, more children who once were simply labeled "slow" or "difficult" or some other adjective are now diagnosed with autism, even though very little is known about autism itself. My wife teaches special ed at an elementary school, so I hear about this all the time. "Autism" has become a sort of catch-all for kids who have strange issues that do not respond to conventional treatements. That's not to say that there are not some genuine cases of autism, but many things that once were not labeled autism now are. That is one big reason that we see a rise in cases--not because more kids have it than used to, but because we are more liable to diagnose something as "autism" today than we were 20 years ago.
Aside from the Denmark survey, we also have the fact that thimerosal was already being removed from vaccines in this country as early as the mid-90s due to the increased use of single-dose containers. With the increased use of that dosing, we would have already seen the drop in autism cases, which we haven't.
All I'm saying is that it is a known scientific fact that:
1)mercury is a neurological poison, it is toxic
2)it is not good to inject large amounts (relative to body mass)of known poisons into infants
3)mercury was recently removed from vaccines (except for flu)due to scientific pressure
4)no conclusion relating mercury to ANY neurological disorder can be made, one way or the other....yet.
The conservative commentator Thomas Sowell has an interesting book on children who start talking late; he had such a child himself.
Thanks for your post. I will stand beside you on this issue.
Quackwatch rocks!
Good for your mom. Nowadays it's the other way around--a lot of parents my wife deals with WANT their kids to have the autism diagnosis, simply because they believe that this will enable them to get their kids some treatment and some medication. We are such a pill-centric society that many people believe that all solutions are found in a bottle of medicine. Parents can't accept the fact that their kid, for whatever reason, has a behavior problem, or a learning difficulty. They demand that they get a diagnosis of autism. It's really discouraging to watch this kind of behavior--even moreso, I'd imagine, for parents whose kids really DO have autism.
Didn't you read my post?
In Denmark thimerosal was removed from vaccines in 1992, and there has been no drop in autism rates. In addition, the use of the preservative in this country has been decreasing since the prevalent use of single-dose vials in the mid-90s, and autism rates continue to rise.
There is NO EVIDENCE of thimerosal causing aurtism.
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