Vaccine Cleared Again as Autism Culprit

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Yet another panel of scientists has found no evidence that a popular vaccine causes autism. But despite the scientists’ best efforts, their report is unlikely to have any impact on the frustrating debate about the safety of these crucial medicines.

“The M.M.R. vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and the evidence is overwhelming that it doesn’t,” Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, the chairwoman of the panel, assembled by the Institute of Medicine, said in an interview. She was referring to a combination against measles, mumps and rubella that has long been a focus of concern from some parents’ groups.

The panel did conclude, however, that there are risks to getting the chickenpox vaccine that can arise years after vaccination. People who have had the vaccine can develop pneumonia, meningitis or hepatitis years later if the virus used in the vaccine reawakens because an unrelated health problem, like cancer, has compromised their immune systems.

The same problems are far more likely in patients who are infected naturally at some point in their lives with chickenpox, since varicella zoster, the virus that causes chickenpox, can live dormant in nerve cells for decades. Shingles, a painful eruption of skin blisters that usually affects the aged, is generally caused by this Lazarus-like ability of varicella zoster.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/health/26vaccine.html

[McCamy Taylor]

1. May I suggest that they investigate Hep B vaccine? The rise in autism

occurred when they started vaccinating all infants for Hep B---in the late 1980s. The reason they decided to do this? Studies in inner city, charity hospitals where there were a lot of drug addicted women giving birth showed that it was cheaper and more effective to give ALL infants born at those facilities Hep B ( a series of 3 starting at birth) than to test and treat those who needed it.

Giving Hep B vaccine to infants whose mothers do not have the disease is basically a waste of medical resources. Hep B is like HIV---you get it through blood and body secretions. So, your baby is extremely unlikely to be exposed until adolescence when he becomes sexually active. And here is the kicker. Vaccine given at birth does not give lasting immunity. Your child will need a dose around age 12 anyway.

I am much more suspicious of vaccines given early (such as Hep B, DPT) because the early immune system is not the same as an adult immune system---or even the toddler immune system. New borns are prones to a host of diseases and infections that they stop getting after 6 months. They have their mother's antibodies floating around in their blood, which can further complicate the response to vaccines or infections. Their brains are rapidly forming in the first few months of life and therefore insults that a more mature brain---like that of a toddler---might shrug off can have a greater impact.

I think that folks blame MMR because it is given around a year---and that is when the kids with CNS damage start to show problems with milestones such as talking and walking and socialization.

There is no good reason for Hep B for infants. I say abandon it and see what happens to autism rates. When my son was born, I delayed Hep B until he was 12. Now parents are required to do it before school, but you could still wait until the child is older---say 4.

[Javaman]

2. Please. stop it. please? nt

[McCamy Taylor]

3. Sorry, no can do. Giving a vaccine that does nothing to an infant violates "first do no harm."

Even without the autism epidemic, I would still say wait on Hep B the same way we wait on HPV. What good is 12 years of immunity to a disease a child is extremely unlikely to get? It would be like yellow fever vaccines for everyone. Kids at risk---say, mentally challenged ones---should get it before being sent to school where the other kids may bite or do other dangerous behaviors, the same way that travelers to areas where yellow fever is endemic should be the ones getting yellow fever vaccine.

I am a physician and when I first heard the rational for Hep B in newborns--its cheaper than testing high risk women or trying to track down homeless mothers when their test comes back positive after they leave the hospital---I said to myself that might not be an appropriate reason to give it to the infants of low risk women who have had prenatal care including Hep B testing and whom you can track down without any difficulty if their Hep B turns positive at delivery because they all have medical homes---i.e. private doctors.

In the US, there is a lot of money to be made from patent meds and vaccines. Look at how quickly they rushed to start the Rotavirus vaccine---the one that caused intestinal problems and death? Note that Hep B, while made by several companies under different names, is all patent---like the HPV that Rick Perry of Texas wanted to force all Texas girls to get the very moment it came onto the market because its manufacturer was his donor. Money plays a tremendous role in vaccine recommendations just as it does with FDA drug approval.

MMR is a different story. It treats serious disease that kids will actually get---and give to their non-immune parents who will get even sicker. MMR is analogous to influenza vaccine which is a very good idea.

More info about Hep B and autism here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/new-study-hepatitis-b-vac_b_289288.html

Note that studies have shown increased risk of autism in male infants who got the vaccine in the first month of life.

[InkAddict]

4. Thank you for your insight on these issues about vaccines,

McCamy Taylor. I am currently reading "POX - An American History" by Michael Willrich - 2011 by The Penguin Press. I've not finished it yet, but so far it's a fascinating look at, yes, the military combat taken up against smallpox before/during/after the Civil War and thereafter and how the individuals that fought that disease shaped the creation of a US Public Health Agency and CDC in order to protect troops around the globe and at home. The author has presented the history in an easily read narrative fashion which he's documented well. Clearly, citizens were even then concerned with what, by accounts, amounted to a feared police state of mandatory immunization, impure vaccines, ethical conflicts, as well as who should pay for the immunization process among those most likely to be struck down, though mostly in the end to prevent costly interruptions of commerce and war by infectious disease.

One continues to ponder on seemingly slow adaptation to their environments and the seemingly more easily adaptable "bugs" to which we may be exposed and even for which we "normally" play host/hostess and what emerges from laboratories for good or for ill, then as now.

[HuckleB]

7. So you've read a book, and now you think you can ignore science?

:shrug:

[McCamy Taylor]

14. No, actually I decided newborn immunization (unless necessary) was a bad idea on my own

based upon what I had learned about the development of the brain in medical school and my own observations that infections and medications which have little effect on older children can have much more severe effects in the newborn. And yes, two months (the time at which a child normally starts getting all those childhood shots) can make a world of difference in both the infants brain and its immune system.

Here are some more folks who have the same concerns.

http://www.naturodoc.com/library/bio-war/HepB.htm

[HuckleB]

16. Based upon the propaganda you read.

You did not base your decision upon the actual science of the matter.

Try again.

[HuckleB]

8. David Kirby?

Do you any other discredited anti-vaxers to offer up?

PS: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/03/tma-vaccines-autism-andrew-wakefields-wake.html

[McCamy Taylor]

11. Read the article. Kirby did not do the study. He reported on someone else's study.

[HuckleB]

15. He pushed a single, small, unrepeated study.

He is a propagandist who ignores the overwhelming evidence that vaccines are safe and help billions of people.

He is the definition of shill.

[HuckleB]

5. Are you saying it hasn't been investigated?

Goodness, but cut the crap, already. You have no idea what you are talking about, and you are pushing bullshit.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/monkey-business-in-autism-research-part-ii/

On edit, PS: Autism causation and the Hepatitis B vaccine: no link

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/09/autism-causation-and-the-hepatitis-b-vaccine-no-link/

Conspiracies kill! Stop the conspiracy nonsense!

Why Infants Should Receive the Hepatitis B Vaccine at Birth

http://shotofprevention.com/2010/05/06/why-infants-should-receive-the-hepatitis-b-vaccine-at-birth/

[Javaman]

6. Thank you!

I get so tired of this vaccine pseudo-scientists doing more to distract and spread false bullshit. jenny mccarthy did enough damage.

[FLAprogressive]

9. Doesn't matter how many times they do it......people will still endanger their children's health

simply because some idiot celebrity believes that the vaccines will give their child autism.

[McCamy Taylor]

13. And then there are the parents who do just what they are told---i.e. give their kids Ketek.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp078032

Read about how the FDA knew that clinical safety trial results were bogus but they ok'd the drug anyway.

My son's doctor prescribed Ketek for him twice. After the second time, he refused to take it again. It made him too sick (nausea and abdominal pain). In retrospect, I am glad he spoke up.

And don't forget Baycol---the drug that ate your muscles as it lowered your cholesterol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerivastatin

And Avandia and Vioxx and the rest.

http://consumerjusticegroup.com/drug-recalls/recalltimeline/

[McCamy Taylor]

10. Check out this study abstract. This is what Kirby was writing about.

J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2010;73(24):1665-77.
Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002.
Gallagher CM, Goodman MS.
Source

PhD Program in Population Health and Clinical Outcomes Research, Stony Brook University Medical Center, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York, USA. [e-mail]
Abstract

Universal hepatitis B vaccination was recommended for U.S. newborns in 1991; however, safety findings are mixed. The association between hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and parental report of autism diagnosis was determined. This cross-sectional study used weighted probability samples obtained from National Health Interview Survey 1997-2002 data sets. Vaccination status was determined from the vaccination record. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds for autism diagnosis associated with neonatal hepatitis B vaccination among boys age 3-17 years, born before 1999, adjusted for race, maternal education, and two-parent household. Boys vaccinated as neonates had threefold greater odds for autism diagnosis compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life. Non-Hispanic white boys were 64% less likely to have autism diagnosis relative to nonwhite boys. Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine prior to 1999 (from vaccination record) had a threefold higher risk for parental report of autism diagnosis compared to boys not vaccinated as neonates during that same time period. Nonwhite boys bore a greater risk.

[HuckleB]

17. And that small, preliminary study has been repeated how many times?

You clearly do not understand how science works. Nor do you understand the value of small studies. The value is almost nothing.

The overwhelming evidence is against the propaganda that you and Mr. Kirby and the other anti-vax, pro-disease pushers try to shove down the throats of people.

It's nothing short of disgusting.

[McCamy Taylor]

12. And for those who do not understand why some of us distrust vaccines: RotaShield

From the CDC:

In the United States, some infants developed intussusception (defined below) soon after RotaShield® was licensed in August 1998. At first, it was not clear if the vaccine or some other factor was causing the bowel obstructions. CDC quickly recommended that use of the vaccine be suspended and immediately started two emergency investigations to find out if receiving RotaShield® vaccine was causing some of the cases of intussusception.

The results of the investigations showed that RotaShield® vaccine caused intussusception in some healthy infants younger than 12 months of age who normally would be at low risk for this condition. The risk of intussusception increased 20 to 30 times over the expected risk for children of this age group within 2 weeks following the first dose of RotaShield® vaccine. The risk increased 3 to 7 times over the expected risk for this age group within two weeks after the second dose of RotaShield® vaccine. There was no increase in the risk of intussusception following the third dose of RotaShield® vaccine, or when three weeks had passed following any dose of the vaccine.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/rotavirus/vac-rotashield-historical.htm

Since we all know that the FDA will do whatever its former and future employers in Big Pharm want, the only way to be a safe medical consumer is to let someone else try it first.

Here is a link about intussusception for those who do not know about this rare but dangerous condition.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/intussusception/DS00798

[HuckleB]

18. No Benefit Seen in Delaying Infant Vaccinations

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2010/05/24/no-benefit-seen-in-delaying-infant-vaccinations