More Evidence That Vaccines Don't Cause Autism

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mick Wright on September 13, 2010 at 4:04pm

Scienceblogs' Orac wrote a great piece about this.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/09/the_big_pharma_conspiracy...

Yes, the title's sarcasm, thank fuck.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on September 14, 2010 at 12:43am

I have one friend who is an anti-vaxer. I don't know if she ever bought into the causes-autism routine, but now she simply says the mercury can't be good for you, ergo no vaccine for her kid.

So perhaps they just change the 'why' as each "don't vaccinate your kid because _____" gets soundly debunked.

Permalink Reply by Richard Healy on September 14, 2010 at 1:48am

Apart from knowing how flawwed the original Andrew Wakefield study is, how loopy the anti-vaxxers are, how utterly false all of the individuals claims made turn out to be, I still reckon on of the best bits of evidence that measles vaccines don't cause autism is this study from Denmark.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134?ck=nck&;

They studied a population of some half-a million children who received MMR and didn't go on to develop autism. The statistical correlation for this hypothesis was less than 1%

This almost never gets reported or referred to. The study isn't perfect but it is comprehensive. So read it and keep in the armoury.

Permalink Reply by Dean Jones on September 14, 2010 at 6:21am

We don't actually need any more evidence that vaccines don't cause autism; the claims that they did have been discredited.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on September 14, 2010 at 11:56am

We don't actually need any more evidence that vaccines don't cause autism; the claims that they did have been discredited.

So have the claims that there is a god. Yet some people still need more convincing.

Plus, like climategage, the original vaccines-cause-autism report got massive media coverage and water cooler gossip. The quiet retraction of said report ... not so many headlines.

Permalink Reply by Ann on September 14, 2010 at 7:33am

When the fuss over vaccines and autism dies, another similar begins:

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/H1N1+vaccinations+suspended+over+n...

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on September 14, 2010 at 12:07pm

Ann - wow. Seems the hysteria has certainly gone from "OMG! MMR Vaccines cause Autism!" to "OMG! All vaccines are bad for you!"

Normally, I care little if an adult refuses treatment for themselves based on whatever their guru of choice tells them. But the scary thing here is A) it's usually kids that suffer because they're the ones not getting vaccinated and B) we're talking highly communicable diseases. If you don't vaccinate your kid and he gives *me* whooping cough, I'm going to be majorly pissed.

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on September 14, 2010 at 7:22pm

If you have been vaccined you shouldn't have a problem.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on September 14, 2010 at 11:59pm

True, but aren't there new strains of some of these diseases coming out?

Perhaps I'm on yellow-alert right now as we're studying evolution in Anthropology class, and in particular how quickly and easily diseases can mutate to bypass the drugs we make. It's a wonder our species survived!