The skeptic blogosphere is all afire with a story from Times Online titled “MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism“. See, back in 1998 Wakefield published an article in Lancet which claimed that eight of twelve familes blamed their child’s developmental problems (most commonly manifesting as autism) on the mumps-measles-rubella vaccine (commonly known as MMR), and these problems only started within days of receiving MMR. Wakefield also claimed to have found a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.
Since then, anti-vaxxers have been all the rage. MMR and other vaccines have been blamed for the rise in autism. Unfortunately numerous studies have been done that show no link between vaccines and autism. Here are four as described by the CDC:
A September 2008 case-control study published in Public Library of Science (PLoS) was conducted in 2004-2008 to determine whether results from an earlier study that claimed to find measles virus RNA in the intestinal tissue of a specific group of autistic children could be confirmed. The results could not be confirmed, and no link between MMR and autism was found.
An April 2006 study conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of NIH and the CDC assessed data from 351 children with autism spectrum disorders and 31 typically-developing children. The study did not find a link between MMR vaccination and autism. The results were pubished in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
A February 2004 case-control study examined the possible relationship between exposure to the MMR vaccine and autism in Atlanta, Georgia. The results were published in Pediatrics.
A November 2002 study by CDC and the Danish Medical Research Council that followed more than 500,000 children over 7 years and found no association between MMR vaccination and autism. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In case you’re wondering about the third study, the conclusions read:
This study provides strong evidence against association of autism with persistent MV RNA in the GI tract or MMR exposure.
In the face of overwhelming evidence, anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Edit: I had John F. Kennedy Jr. here before. Obviously that’s incorrect.) continue to spout nonsense about vaccines. There’s a “Green Our Vaccines” campaign to “remove toxins from vaccines” which, as Mike Stanton points out, would remove anything useful from the vaccines, given they’re made up of weakened forms of the disease being vaccinated against.
Meanwhile, measles rates increased by 36% from 2006 to 2007 in England and Wales. Meanwhile, an unvaccinated teenager died from measles in 2006. Meanwhile, an unvaccinated teenager died from measles in 2008 (note that he had a weak immune system and probably wouldn’t have been vaccinated anyhow, but also note this quote: “he would have been protected if there had been high vaccination rates in the community.”)
A pseudo-scientific movem… no, I won’t even go that far. A quackery movement based on the suspected lies and falsifications of one person has led to more children getting sick and dying from a fatal disease. Sadly the anti-vaxxers have big mouths and big budgets, and haven’t let a lack of knowledge get in the way of their blustering, so the battle has not been won.
For more, read Bad Astronomy, Pharyngula, Respectful Insolence, and Science-Based Parenting.
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#1 by Chris on February 9th, 2009
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The argument that so many parents use, that their pure, unadulterated, unvaccinated child will be protected by all the evil parents who do vaccinate their children (first of all, hello hypocrisy), started to break down last year right here in San Diego.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5708a3.htm
Our little girl, who I might add has a perfectly normal name, just had her second round of vaccinations last week.
#2 by Brad on February 9th, 2009
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Yep, that’s one of the worst problems. Herd immunity kicks in when around 95% of the herd is vaccinated. In England this number is dropping to 75%, putting all kids, vaccinated and unvaccinated, at risk.
#3 by Samantha on February 25th, 2009
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Herd immunity is interesting. If you look at allergies, herd immunity applies to unvaccinated folks in “dirty” unindustrialized countries because they don’t have food allergies. The advanced folks in the industrialized countries are experiencing a mysterious epidemic supposedly because we are too clean. (Hygiene theory)
It is the young children who are getting vaccinated who are getting most of the food allergies. 8% of young children in many industrialized countries have food allergies.
Vaccinations have trace amounts of food protein in them that does not have to appear on the package insert due to trade secret protection. Vaccine adjuvants can contain a mixture of vegetable and animal oils. So we really shouldn’t have to wonder where the mysterious peanut, soy, sesame, or shellfish allergies come from. Vaccinations CAUSE them.
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#4 by Jacqlyn on July 19th, 2009
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evidentily you dont know where to look for your “studies”. many many people have done studies and proven that vaccines can and do cause many health risks. its insane to think that you can inject everything from embalming fluid(carcinogen)to beef,fish,peanut,egg,and human YES HUMAN(from aborted fetus’) and have no allergy to eggs,milk, peanuts, or whatever else you can think of. OH WAIT, millions of people have those! common sense should tell you that the diseases that they vaccinate for were once thought of as normal childhood diseases like we think of the chickenpox(which is now a so called deadly disease). its been proven over and over that having those diseases matures your immune system and improves it ten fold therefore healing faster and stronger later in life. dont be such an idiot of course the cdc is going to do their “own” study. pharacutical companies pay them millions to do so(and to come up with a “goog” outcome) i have not and will never vaccinate my son,oh and by the way, i myself suffer from an autoimmune disease directly liked to vaccines. did you know that in april of 2000 a woman who found a hard link between vaccines and autoimmune diseases asked for funding at a congressional hearing and was denied? why, they said her study focused to much on vaccines and according to the cdc, they have done enough studies on their own, there was no need for her conclusive results. yeah, they really care right?
#5 by Curtis Maybin on February 7th, 2010
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This is a serious blow to the autism community and the hope of cure. Hopefully the coverup that is going on will come out.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-34018-Anaheim-Autism–Parenting-Examiner