Autism/vaccine debate

[draggonlaady]

I'm way behind on my reading, as usual. This article is from Newsweek, published in February 2009. It's a fairly decent explanation of the whole MMR/thimerosal/autism thing. Some key points:

1: MMR (Measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine does NOT contain thimerosol
2: Thimerosal does contain mercury, and had been used in vaccines since the 1930's. The U.S. Public Health Service made a statement urging a change in preservative because even though there are "no data or evidence of any harm" from thimerosal, children's cumulative exposure to mercury from vaccines "exceeds one of the federal safety guidelines" for mercury. This is mostly because the number of vaccines recommended has increased steadily as new vaccines are developed and approved.
3: The initial study claiming to find a connection between MMR and autism had nothing to do with thimerosal; there are 2 separate issues that people keep mashing into one. (NEITHER of which has been shown in further study to have a correlation with autism.)
4: The initial MMR/autism study included only 12 children.
5: In 2002, a Royal Free (UK) study of 473 children had found no difference in the rates of autism between those who had received the MMR and those who had not. Scientists in Finland, studying 2 million children, reached the same conclusion in a 2000 paper. So did scientists at Boston University, studying the medical records of 3 million children, in 2001. In 2004 a study of the medical records of 14,000 children in Britain found that the more thimerosal the children had been exposed to through vaccines, the less likely they were to have neurological problems.

Comments

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

As the parent of an Aspie, I can tell you that there are a lot of desperate, pissed-off parents of autistic kids hunting for any target they can find.

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

Hey there :) I was wondering if you'd weigh in. You're a lot closer to the center of these debates than I am, whether you want to be or not.

The pissed-off bit is a huge part of what I take issue with. I know, logically, that many people have this need to blame someone or something. But I can't grok that need, you know? Things happen, and they aren't always someone's fault. In the case of diseases, they almost exclusively are NOT someone's fault. As far as I can see, nobody causes autism any more than they cause colds or chicken pox.

I can't see the purpose in ranting and raving and throwing millions of dollars after something that all the evidence says is unrelated. I want straight logic and fact, and there are huge mounds of evidence saying that vaccines have nothing to do with it except a coincidental timing. I am a firm believer in "correlation is not causation".

I am much much more concerned with finding what the actual cause(s)/predisposing factor(s) are than in hanging on tooth-and-nail to something that is obviously (to me anyway) not the reason.

It strikes me as much the same sort of unreasoning hatred as people who blame their S.O.'s ex for every damn thing. I just don't get it. I can't deny that it happens, but I don't understand why they can't just look at the facts and say "well, it was an idea, but I guess that wasn't it, why don't we investigate this next?"

Like I said; I'm not human. People being emotional just makes me want to run away, and scare-tactics just piss me off.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I don't get it much better than you do. Calling what the thimerosol maniacs are doing a "tactic" dignifies it too much. Nobody will gain anything from it except emotional gratification.

And don't get me started about how hardly anyone in this country knows what "preliminary" and "N=12" mean.

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

Hah. Yeah; I usually don't get much into human medical debates, because I just don't do human stuff, but I've had 2 clients now refuse to vaccinate their puppies because of this whole debacle. And they just won't listen to logic.
Get the same problems with people who are terrified of microchips...