The doctor that started the autism-vaccine connection has been stripped of his medical license by the UK after a 2 and half year investigation. In January, the General Medical Council ruled that Andrew Wakefield had acted in an unethical manner in regards to his 1998 paper claiming that the MMR vaccine causes autism (30 counts of unethical behavior ranging from paying the kids for blood samples without parental consent to conflicting financial interests and scientific fraud). Also early this year, the paper was officially retracted by The Lancet (finally) - the results have not been duplicated by other researchers despite more than a decade and and tons of money. Time and money that could've been spent finding real information out about autism.
In addition, the vaccine scare prompted decreased vaccination rates that have resulted in resurges in Measles and whooping cough, two very unpleasant and potentially fatal diseases that were nearly wiped out in the U.S. by the 1990s. Measles kills nearly 200,000 children a year worldwide. And this guy told parents to boycott the only thing that can protect them from this highly contagious viral infection for no reason except his own professional and financial gain.
Yeah, I don't have anything nice to say about this guy, so I'll just leave you with those facts. The BBC covered other details, including two colleagues who were also found guilty of professional misconduct in the case.
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Toby Beth Jarman
Dr. Evan Levine
Oryoki Bowl
Fay Paxton
lorianne
Mary Ann Sorrentino
Salon.com
Comments
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/index.html
In addition to that, even while vaccine use has gone down and mercury-related adjuvants were removed from the MMR vaccine as a precaution a decade plus ago, autism rates have gone up.
No, it's not a lynch mob, it's taking a look at the real facts instead of the ones made up by a quack. You're worried about how well science is addressing things, and yet when it actually addresses the issues within science (ethical conduct, proper research conduct) it's a "lynch mob" because it's a guy you support.
Yes, all medical interventions have side effects - you have to weigh the risks and benefits. For the MMR vaccine, there are far more benefits and very few side effects. For every 1000 children who get measles, 1-2 die. For every million children vaccinated, one has a serious or allergic reaction.
Questioning a new vaccine or drug is expected, but the MMR vaccine has been used and investigated for decades - its track record speaks for itself, but there is study upon study that wasted time and money taking your angle. Go peddle your uninformed fear somewhere else.
Clearly, autism is caused by cats.
Many, many studies have been done and no connection between vaccines and autism have been found, nor between thimerisol in vaccines and autism --- when the science has been done well.
When science has been done badly or fraudulently or not at all, then, yeah, all sorts of conclusions have been found.
I did a post on this, Good Science, Bad Science, No Science and Autism. You can read it.
By wasting money and resources on disproving a crackpot theory, we are not finding a cause or cure for autism.
As a naturopath, we naturally have a disinclination to doing the massive amount of vaccination going on today, but for most people it is totally reasonable to vaccinate because they are not going to keep their children isolated from others or the necessary 24/7 care that would be required for a sick child.
We do know that some kids have a strong immune response to vaccination, that may lead to subsequent behavior changes, though we haven't necessarily figured out the MOA. Understanding what a vaccine is for, when it's useful and when it's overdone is more important. Eating a healthy diet when you are pregnant may be as important as well, since that can go a long way to "priming" the child's immune system. Lots left to learn and studies can only be done retrospectively.