Vaccines don't cause autism

http://kottke.org/10/09/vaccines-dont-cause-autism

by bkudria • 16 years ago

80 109 16 years ago

gte910h10• 16 years ago

So if you knew someone who never washed their hands after using the restroom, would you let them in your home? Out and about socially with you?

In my opinion, anti-vaccine people should be tossed out of everyone's homes, circles of friends, and businesses. This is for people who them OR their children aren't properly vaccinated. Even IF autism or any of the plethora of things were caused by vaccines, the diseases themselves which are prevented by them are much worse, all causing death or maiming.

Vaccinations aren't 100% effective, usually more like 70-85% effective. This means EVERYONE needs to be vaccinated for the disease to not continue to find hosts to pass along to.

We should safeguard the people who are willing to get stuck by ostracizing those who are foolish enough to not vaccinate.

mattmaroon5• 16 years ago

Unfortunately many vaccines (TB for instance) are only effective in children, and children don't exactly get to make enlightened decisions about whether or not they get a vaccine. By the time they're old enough to decide for themselves it's too late.

It wouldn't be right to ostracize people simply because their parents can't tell the difference between a stripper and a doctor and took medical advice from Jenny McCarthy.

isleyaardvark• 16 years ago

It would be even more unfair to increase the risk of exposure to other children. I think there is a role for public shaming and peer pressure with respect to vaccination.

Qz2• 16 years ago

The stripper comment is unnecessary and rather derogatory.

gte910h10• 16 years ago

The point isn't to absolutely protect against every disease. Vaccinations don't do that. The point is protect against walking disease vectors. Once they get all the vaccinations they can, they're much like you or I: fully vaccinated.

CWuestefeld6• 16 years ago

This means EVERYONE needs to be vaccinated for the disease to not continue to find hosts to pass along to.

This is not correct. In an extreme case, if there is only 1 left unvaccinated, the disease won't spread. If there are two left unvaccinated, the chances of one having the disease and the other being initially uninfected and then subsequently infected by the one possible vector is astonishingly small.

In reality, for a vaccine to be effective, the portion of the population that needs to receive that vaccination is significantly less than 100%.

Moreover, vaccines based on attenuated vaccines (e.g., the polio vaccine) actually infect the recipient with an impotent version of the virus. This virus will be transmitted to others in the community through normal contact, thus conferring immunity to many that did not receive the vaccination directly.

(this isn't intended to be an endorsement of those who refuse to get vaccinated)

trunnell4• 16 years ago

In reality, for a vaccine to be effective, the portion of the population that needs to receive that vaccination is significantly less than 100%.

Irrelevant. In reality, for a vaccine to be effective, public policy must target 100% vaccination.

(this isn't intended to be an endorsement of those who refuse to get vaccinated)

You may not be endorsing it, but it's important to point out that this argument is ethically dubious.

My favorite ethical test is Kant's categorical imperative, which is briefly that an act is ethical if everyone else can act the same way. For example, if you're wondering whether it's ok to slip onto the subway just as the doors are closing, delaying the train by just a second, you can ask: what if everyone boarded the train that way? Of course, the train would never depart, being constantly delayed by each as-the-doors-close boarder.

If everyone thought that vaccines are ok for others but not themselves, then no one would be vaccinated. Thus this argument is unethical. Let's go beyond "not endorsing" it-- let us all actively condemn it.

shajith• 16 years ago

"In reality, for a vaccine to be effective, the portion of the population that needs to receive that vaccination is significantly less than 100%."

I'm curious to know if there have been results that show what sort of percentages of vaccination are needed to be safe from specific diseases. I presume this will vary between diseases as well as demographics.

gte910h10• 16 years ago

"In an extreme case, if there is only 1 left unvaccinated, the disease won't spread."

Vaccines don't necessarily grant immunity. They give you a 70%-85% chance to gain immunity. So even if 0 are left unvaccinated, 30% of the population has no immunity.

It is unlikely to infect a large portion of the population, but especially for vaccines which are only 70% effective, it's highly likely 1 or 2 others will get infected who were vaccinated but it didn't take. In addition to the 30% of people who do not have immunity, immunocompromised people often time can lose immunity to certain viruses based on their condition. They are the 1 or 2 people our society has chosen to be effectively infectable in spite of vaccination. That's why its very important everyone else gets vaccinated.

The likelihood of a huge outbreak is still relatively small, but you're wrong on the statistics of the small infection, as you'd see from a friend coming by or out to dinner with you or going to day care. Roughly 15% to 30% will get many of the diseases when "intensely exposed". The chance of a small outbreak is moderately large with 70% vaccines and even moderate lack of vaccinations.

Your argument, in addition to be attempted technical nitpicking which is wrong, is very dangerous as other posters have made. The effect of one additional unvac on a given population is extremely noticeable on small populations, such as groups of friends and daycares and businesses, aka the very places I suggested ostracizing people from.

carlrice• 16 years ago

How about those who can't afford it? It's also truly a personal and private choice. I don't judge you because you are insane about getting shot up, thats your choice. Mine is to question face value headlines, see what's happening and make an educated choice.

Furthermore vaccinating the most of the world is not going to happen until they are made strictly for all people and not for profit. Patenting medicine and vaccines and distributing it to only those who are "deserving" sound a bit off no?

_delirium• 16 years ago

I'm sympathetic to poor people not paying for expensive vaccines, and if that were the only problem, it'd be at least partly the fault of our public policy for not doing something about it (a lot of the benefit of vaccination goes to society as a whole rather than solely to the person being vaccinated, making it a fairly classic case for public subsidy). And that probably is a pretty big part of the story in the developing world.

In the U.S., though, we do actually have quite a lot of free vaccination clinics, and many people have health insurance that covers vaccinations. It's possible there aren't enough free clinics, and if studies show that a large % of people not being vaccinated are skipping it due to the expense, then that's something we should work on. But I don't believe that's currently the case--- a large proportion of the people skipping vaccinations could have had them completely paid for, either by their health-insurance plan, or via free vaccination clinics, but deliberately chose not to get them.

edit: Actually, are there good studies on the primary causes of non-vaccination? It'd be interesting to see estimates of the numbers of people who fall into categories like: 1) fear of autism/etc.; 2) fear of allergic reactions; 3) religious objections; 4) too expensive; 5) too inconvenient / never got around to it.

frossie• 16 years ago

Childhood immunization uptake exceeds 95% in many countries. So vaccinating "most of the world" is clearly do-able. In the situation where uptake is low, the issues revolve around supply, access and parental ignorance, and not the cost of the vaccine.

Eg.

http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?pid=S0042-968620080006000...

gte910h10• 16 years ago

>How about those who can't afford it?

I honestly feel as a matter of public health it should be free. If it was someone I saw every day who alleged this reason, I'd take them to the doctor right then for the shots, paying for it.

GrandMasterBirt• 16 years ago

This is ridiculous. There have been less "alleged" cases with vaccine caused autism than there are deaths by swimming pool accidents in kids. The greater good must be served, EVEN IF IT DID CAUSE AUTISM in a super ultra rare instance.

Vaccinations are important. End of story.

kabuks• 16 years ago

I totally agree with you. That is, until my son was born, and people started sharing horror stories for both sides of the argument.

As a father, some other part of me kicked in that wasn't very logical. This is much harder decision than it seems.

My mother in law shared with me her first-hand experience of 'watching-the-lights-go-out' in a healthy 3-year old minutes after she was vaccinated. It's not autism, and it's anecdotal evidence, but it made me dig deeper, and doubt any certainty on either sides.

Studies are NOT conclusive. Dozens of studies where done defending the use of mercury in amalgam fillings for example, and just now the dentist community is coming around to admitting that it does negatively impact patients' health. Years after many people were saying that, and were called naysayers.

I didn't vaccinate my son. It wasn't an easy decision. And I'm not certain of it. He will receive a shorter list of vaccines, on a longer less-stressful schedule than the one recommended by the govt.

Anybody who assumes certainty for either side of this argument hasn't given this enough thought imho

Semiapies• 16 years ago

I wish I could believe this would change anything.

pavel_lishin• 16 years ago

No, but perhaps when non-vaccinated kids start dying of things that sounds hilarious because we've eradicated them - things with names like "dropsy", "whooping cough" and "cholera" - people will start thinking. It'll be a terrible price to pay, though, for parents who just wanted to do the best for their kids.

I wonder if truth-denial is genetic.

cabalamat• 16 years ago

I suspect it has genetic components.

billpg• 16 years ago

I wonder if this will persude Jenny McCarthy and co.

(holding breath)

sabat• 16 years ago

You're going to turn blue waiting for that. In their world, facts != 'truth'.

ewjordan• 16 years ago

Based on the limited set of reactions I've seen so far (for instance, http://www.autismweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=23104)?

No. This won't change a damn thing.

When you're that committed to a cause, every scientific result that comes out against your cause is easy to dismiss as either wrong, a deliberate lie, incomplete, not 100% proof, etc.

This is especially troublesome in areas where the True Believers invert the burden of proof: rather than asking for proof that vaccines cause autism, they'd only be satisfied with proof that they don't, which is a much more difficult task (and don't get me wrong - I have no doubt whatsoever that even if rock solid proof was offered, they'd still reject it outright).

mattmaroon5• 16 years ago

It wasn't logical, scientific reasoning that brought them to that conclusion in the first place, so why would it change their minds?

hugh3• 16 years ago

The point of stuff like this isn't to convince Jenny McCarthy, it's to convince fair-minded yet ignorant parents who might have heard Jenny McCarthy talking on Oprah and lack any other information.

(I don't know whether Jenny McCarthy has ever talked on Oprah, but she must be talking somewhere.)

CamperBob2• 16 years ago

My understanding is that McCarthy has actually recanted.

Very, very quietly.

camworld2• 16 years ago

I am not anti-vaccine. However, my toddler had a very severe reaction to a vaccine she was given at two years of age. This led my wife and I to decide to not allow our daughter to have all of the vaccines at once. She is not completely vaccinated but will have them all before she turns five. We feel that staggering the vaccinations out as much as possible allows her immune system to respond better without severe reactions that cause very high temperatures, which could lead to brain damage and/or death.

carbocation3• 16 years ago

I'm sorry that this happened to you. However, the question that you pose is empirical and has been studied extensively. To my knowledge, no benefit has ever been shown from spacing out vaccinations.

Staggering vaccinations is unlikely to be helpful or harmful, but in general would reduce adherence, so should be discouraged on a population scale without evidence supporting it.

Poiesis• 16 years ago

Our pediatrician recommends spacing the vaccinations. It turns out that when you give them very early, many require a booster later because the infant immune response isn't as strong. If you give it a bit later, no booster needed. So then if there are risks they are less by virtue of having only one immunization.

Never been thrilled with the insistence of infant immunization of Hep B either. Main vectors: sewage an sexual contact. I think we an safely rule those out for a few years at least.

tokenadult2• 16 years ago

To my knowledge, no benefit has ever been shown from spacing out vaccinations.

Correct.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=333

mturmon2• 16 years ago

And to go farther with that point, multiple vaccines like MMR are standard across the population, so they are better tested and better understood than multiple spaced-out single vaccines.

Here's a review of Dr. Bob's schedule from the journal Pediatrics:

http://www.immunize.org/concerns/offit_moser2009.pdf

lukev2• 16 years ago

This is a legit concern. My wife also had reactions to some of the vaccines given her as a child, putting her life in danger, as did some of her siblings. So when we have kids, we'll definitely be very careful about that and do a lot of research beforehand.

The autism concerns are almost certainly overblown, and the benefits of vaccines are enormous, as has been pointed out.

But I think its also a mistake to unreflectively get every vaccination possible. Side effects can and do happen. As with every medical procedure, responsible parents should know what they're getting into, and what the pros and cons are. Even though the answer SHOULD be to get vaccinated in 95% of cases.

ars2• 16 years ago

BTW, most likely she had a reaction to P in DTP.

P is no longer used, and now it's aP (acellular pertussis, DTaP), which doesn't cause those reactions.

gte910h10• 16 years ago

Modern vaccines have almost no side effects beyond mild fevers. Talk with your pediatrician, most will promise you that you'll see nothing like the things your wife's generation saw.

ryanwaggoner• 16 years ago

The autism concerns are almost certainly overblown

I don't mean to pick on you, but this is exactly the kind of thing so many here have a problem: that some people still equivocate and hedge because they think "hey, who knows?" in spite of all the evidence being on one side. How many studies will it take to convince you that there is no link at all between autism and vaccines?

dmm4• 16 years ago

I'm completely fine with this. We just need to internalize the externality. You not vaccinating your child harms not only your family but potentially many others around you.

We need some sort of legal construct that would hold those who do not vaccinate responsible if there is an outbreak in the area. For example, you don't vaccinate your daughter for whooping cough and my daughter(too young to vaccinate) catches it. My daughter has to suffer months of terrible pain and discomfort in addition to potential long-term consequences. I should be able to seek compensation from you.

Of course there are other social alternatives, such as lychings.

As a side note, you probably don't know shit about vaccines. What makes you think spacing them out will improve her reactions to them?

kevindication• 16 years ago

Provided that most everyone else does get vaccinated, it should be fine to avoid vaccinating the small percentage of people with natural allergic reactions to the vaccine.

I don't think you should find the allergic culpable in your scheme, because if the reaction is bad enough, you're asking them to either endure suffering or die so that there is no possibility that they can harm you.

camworld2• 16 years ago

"As a side note, you probably don't know shit about vaccines. What makes you think spacing them out will improve her reactions to them?"

For the same reason that I let my toddler eat dirt if she wants to. The longer her immune system has to build up a defense, the better it will defend against something in a vaccine that causes her medical or allergic distress.

If your kid was allergic to peanuts, would you be allowing your neighbors to force her to eat peanuts?

patrickgzill7• 16 years ago

How exactly would you be able to prove that your daughter caught a disease from any particular person?

For instance, if someone with whooping cough coughed hard, then left the room, and 10 minutes later your daughter walked through the room on the way to meeting the other person's daughter, how exactly could you tell that?

I think that there ought to be a law against people who think "there ought to be a law against X" ...

kd0amg• 16 years ago

What makes you think spacing them out will improve her reactions to them?

The thinking probably goes something like, "If A and B each individually cause severe symptoms, A and B combined will probably be worse." This accurately describes most things.

kevinpet• 16 years ago

This is the reason why the anti-vaxxers are such a big problem. If everyone who is healthy gets vaccinated, then the diseases can't spread, and even the kids who can't get a vaccine for legitimate medical reasons will be safe.

I'd like to see schools required to disclose any children who have not been vaccinated without a valid medical reason. (I'm in California -- you can get into school without vaccination if you state a personal belief.)

patrickgzill7• 16 years ago

May I ask if you reported the reaction to your doctor and to VAERS? http://vaers.hhs.gov/ .

igrekel2• 16 years ago

My 4 year old had a very strong reaction to a vaccine this year and had to be transferred by ambulance. We have an appointment to special center where they test the vaccine's different components separately. Maybe that could be another option in your case too.

His next vaccine is only at 12 so we could just do nothing but we want to know if tetanus shots could be the culprit because they are often administered following an accident.

gte910h10• 16 years ago

You are getting vaccinated though. You get they are important and are going through a very harsh trial (high temperatures are very scary in young children, especially to them) to get them all. You should be given a medal.

moron4hire2• 16 years ago

When the 9/11 truthers were spreading their bull and it finally managed to touch a few of my coworkers, I found my indignant attitude that anyone could believe something so obviously false was far better at convincing people of the truth than reasoned argument. Unfortunately, people are pack animals before they are rational beings. Probably the best way to respond to such claims as "vaccines cause autism" is to just say, "Wow, I didn't realize there was anybody left who still believed that." It's mean, but it's for their own good, and it works quickly. They don't get as upset as you think they would.

patrickgzill7• 16 years ago

They probably just put you on their internal "bozo" list and will quietly killfile your views and opinions in the future, which is the price you pay for expressing a strong opinion on another person's POV in that fashion.

mattmaroon5• 16 years ago

Yeah, I think he likely made them shut up about it rather than changed their minds.

patrickgzill7• 16 years ago

I can't believe the fascists on HN that would be fine with shunning, punishing, or even suing the un-vaccinated.

There are risks to being vaccinated, and risks to not being vaccinated.

That (from the article) : --- "The last result is a bit of an anomaly in that it implies that exposure to TCVs from birth to 1 month and birth to 7 months actually protects against ASD. The authors quite rightly comment on this result thusly:

"In the covariate adjusted models, we found that an increase in ethylmercury exposure in 2 of the 4 exposure time periods evaluated was associated with decreased risk of each of the 3 ASD outcomes. We are not aware of a biological mechanism that would lead to this result." ---

Should tell you that this cannot be said to be a completely conclusive study.

evgen2• 16 years ago

This is the sort of moronic ignorance that should be shamed. The anomaly noticed by the researchers is one that does not have a known biological explanation but that does not mean that exposure to a small amount of mercury in infancy does not actually protect against ASD. It just means that the study confirms previous studies that found no risk from these vaccines and suggests that there might actually be an irony-laden protection provided by these vaccines.

This study is, to date, the most complete and conclusive study available. It shows that vaccines, and particularly those that used ethylmercury as a perservative, do not cause autism or autism-spectrum disorders, just like EVERY OTHER FUCKING STUDY OUT THERE!

patrickgzill7• 16 years ago

Do you deny that there are risks to being vaccinated?

patrickgzill7• 16 years ago

It has been very interesting over the course of the afternoon to watch the score the parent post (about "fascists on HN") by me has been getting.

I have seen it rated as high as 4 and as low as -1 (as of this moment it gets a 0, which is a downvote from 1 person).

Would seem to indicate that there is a lot of disagreement over the POV I posted.

lotharbot2• 16 years ago

I agree with much of your previous post. However, I chose to downvote because you expressed yourself in a way that invites hostility and discourages reasoned exchange of ideas. Both the use of the derogatory term "fascist" and the implied assumption of unworthiness from "I can't believe" gave me the impression that you weren't interested in engaging those who expressed alternate views, only in insulting them.

Had you instead stated "there are risks to being vaccinated as well as to being unvaccinated. We should not punish or shun those who have decided the first set of risks outweigh the second" I'd have upvoted you instead. The ideas are the same, but the expression invites discussion.

EDIT: compare to your response to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1702199 . Downvotes are the price you pay for "expressing a strong opinion on another person's POV in that fashion."

rmk2• 16 years ago

I just watched this documentary yesterday: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/vaccines/view/?utm_c...

An eye-opening documentary.

Vaccinating a child is not a matter of choice, but compulsory, because unless the parents of an un-vaccinated child can guarantee that their kid will not spread a terrible illness such as polio/whooping cough/ whatever, they should be quarantined. If you watch the documentary, you will understand what I am saying.

Also, the hope is that vaccination will become unnecessary in the future, for example, smallpox vaccines are not being administered anymore, because it has been eradicated completely. That is not the case with many other preventable diseases (there are many areas in the world where they still occur, and so it is necessary to exercise caution).

There might be some legit concern as far as simultaneous vaccination for several diseases goes, though, but that is not sufficient reason to endanger the larger population until the (possible) causal relationship between vaccines and brain damage is firmly established.

carbocation3• 16 years ago

A related article about the resurgence of pertussis in California:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/17/california.whooping.cou...

pradocchia2• 16 years ago

So what's the prevailing wisdom today about the Hannah Poling case?

...the government’s Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation concluded that five shots Hannah received in July 2000, when she was 19 months old, “significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder” and resulted in a brain disorder “with features of autism spectrum disorder.”

http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/stories/2008/03/06/...

Records were sealed at the time. Don't know if they have since been released.

EDIT: Summary of latest news, 2010-09-11:

US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) will pay over $1.5 million to the family of a child whose parents allege acquired autism after routine vaccinations in 2000....However, the payment does not acknowledge a vaccine-autism link.

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/09/us_vacci...

The 27 August 2010 Decision Regarding Damages: http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CAMPBELLSM...

EDIT 2: You can't make this stuff up:

Then-director of the Centers for Disease Control Julie Gerberding (who is now President of Merck Vaccines) stated: "The government has made absolutely no statement indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism. This does not represent anything other than a very specific situation and a very sad situation as far as the family of the affected child."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html

mattmcknight2• 16 years ago

It was not classical autism, just some overlapping symptoms. Her condition could have been triggered by any fever. The link to vaccines is tenuous. The vaccine court is being widely lambasted for paying them off.

pradocchia2• 16 years ago

It was not classical autism, just some overlapping symptoms.

This sounds like a dodge, frankly. I am not encouraged.

EDIT: I am further discouraged by the voting here. I see an instance of potentially non-conformed data. What do you do with non-conformed data?

As best I can tell, nothing can be done with this data right now, since details of the court's decision have not been released. The most you can do is reserve a measure of judgement till further information is available.

Instead, I see a strong desire to dismiss the data. This is poor epistemological form. This is not encouraging.

Two questions, for now:

* What symptoms of classical autism were not present?

* More to the point, why would classical autism be the standard, rather than autism spectrum disorders?

jerf• 16 years ago

Just as I would not trust the court to decide that vaccines don't cause autism, I don't trust the court to decide that vaccines do. The science decides, and pretty much has decided.

I'm not closed to the idea that vaccines could conceivably have some subtle detrimental effect, in fact I have some other non-mainstream beliefs about health issues, but the evidence just isn't there. When you're reduced to citing the fact that people are trying to discourage you from believing X as one of the primary reasons you believe X you are firmly in conspiracy nut territory.

something• 16 years ago

put best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo

Vaccines don't cause autism

Related Stories