The new strategy of the antivaccination movement: Autism is a "misdiagnosis" for mitochondrial disease

I can just see what's next: autism as a "misdiagnosis" for ear infections.
Autism as a "misdiagnosis" for hot water burns.
Autism as a "misdiagnosis" for being punched in the face.
I wouldn't put it below these people.

Autism as a "misdiagnosis" for being punched in the face.

From the people who claim shaken baby syndrome as a vaccine reaction, that would be positively sane.

Given that it is, indeed, all about the vaccines, I wonder how long autism will remain the condition of choice. Will they continue shopping around for a vaccine-related cause, or will they eventually pick some other condition whose cause is poorly understood and start all over again?

Or maybe they'll just find another condition to latch onto as the One True (Side-)Effect of Vaccines... Tense, nervous headache? Vaccines. Can't get laid? Vaccines. Incurably stupid? Vaccines.

Oh, they're already retargeting, and this time, they're going to start blaming aluminum! Or any other adjuvants. Or the "pus" or "aborted fetal tissue" or *any* ingredient in vaccines.

The first salvos have already been launched over on Usenet in misc.health.alternative. But I think we can look for "highly toxic aluminum" as the next culprit.

It would be nice if these people woke up and realized that their efforts and money would be better spent on actually helping people with autism, rather than running around like headless chickens searching for the cause.

I'm just curious what "minor" intervention will be touted as the treatment for "mitochondrial disease". What will they do to make money off distressed and naive parents now? I hope it will be less harmful than what they're doing now. Should we be hoping for something homeopathic? (After all, drinking water or rubbing wax on your forehead shouldn't kill children.)

On CNN they just said two things which maybe interesting:

1) The father of the girl who settled this case is a neurologist.

2) The family will be on Larry King Live tonight.

We shall see...

Wait...Charles Wallace was autistic????

It is quite obvious from your ignorant commentaries that none of you idiots have had to speak with a doctor (who is subsidized by the pharmaceutical companies) and your "scientific" evidence of harm is purely based on "quackery", and there is no possible evidence that the worst nightmare of the drug companies, CDC, etc is to have actual proof of the harm caused by these injections containing heavy metals ... of course not, it would be the largest class action in the history of law. Parents of children with Autism are not in the business of reintroducing Polio, Mumps, Rubella, etc ... what we are heavily invested in is acknowledgement from the drug induced government of their stupidity in throwing levels of toxic materials into a baby that doesn't way 20 pounds. Do any of you "know it alls" have a child with Autism ... I thought not.

Do any of you "know it alls" have a child with Autism ... I thought not.

Here we go again. I do have a classically autistic son.

The notion that all parents of autistic children would necessarily have to be pro-quackery and government conspiracy mongers boggles the mind. I'm not sure where people get these ideas. It's totally contrary to my experience. Many if not most parents online don't buy the anti-vax stuff.

Pulls up chair...grabs popcorn...waits patiently for Gary Myers to have his empty little head handed to him...starting...

I have nothing but admiration for the overwhelming majority of parents who struggle to bring up a child with ASD. I know a couple of them myself, and what amazes me is their down-to-earth attitude and the fortitude with which they cope with the curve ball that life has thrown them, without resorting to hysterical delusional ramblings about vaccines and invoking big pharma conspiracies lurking in every corner of the doctor's surgery.

I think this new strategy just shows how scientifically incompetent they are. All mitochondrial disorders are 100% genetic. The only way you can get a mitochondrial disorder is by not having the right genes to make the appropriate proteins to make the appropriate mitochondria.

You can have things like mitochondria depletion from some drugs that inhibit mitochondrial protein synthesis (for example chloramphenicol) or DNA replication (HART therapy will do it), but those do not cause mitochondrial defects. Low NO will cause mitochondria depletion too, but not mitochondrial defects.

Mitochondrial defects are straightforward to diagnose, and the diagnosis is unambiguous. There is no possibility of a misdiagnosis by a competent clinician. It is usually done by sequencing genes. If the person has the genetic defect, they have the mitochondrial defect and vice versa. If they don't have one, they don't have the other. There is no possibility of a "cure", no possibility that vaccines caused the mitochondrial defect.

I hope you guys enjoyed the press conference as much as I did. Now you can give up your obfuscation of the truth and engage in other pursuits. You put up a decent battle but the good guys just won!!!

Let us know if you ever want to engage in another battle of wits. We'll give you a bigger head start next time.

actual proof of the harm caused by these injections containing heavy metals

That's the rub isn't it. Show the actual proof of harm by the vaccinations.

Go ahead. Show us.

must proof tags

That should look like this

actual proof of the harm caused by these injections containing heavy metals

That's the rub isn't it. Show the actual proof of harm by the vaccinations.

Go ahead. Show us.

"Do any of you "know it alls" have a child with Autism ... I thought not."

I am not a "know it all". Apparantly, neither are you. Many people who discuss the vaccine/autism connection (including myself) have children with autism. Some are autistic themselves.

Orac--since this family appears to be big into chelation (at least in their past) one wonders if chelation will be seen as "so 2005".

First off, I agree with the scientific evidence against there being a link between autism and vaccines, I'm not certain that the comment by daedalus2u is correct about inheritance and mitochondrial disease.

I pulled the following discussion of the etiology of mito disease from this link:
http://www.umdf.org/site/c.dnJEKLNqFoG/b.3042179/

"Sporadic Cases -- Where There Are No Affected Relatives
In the "real world", in the majority (perhaps about 75%) of cases the patient is the only family member affected with mitochondrial disease. These cases are called "sporadic", and present much difficulty in answering the questions posed about regarding inheritance.

The first question is whether the problem is due to genetics, environment, or some combination of the two. Certainly, the genetic aspects of mitochondrial disease are well known and were briefly summarized above. However, not all mitochondrial disease is primarily genetic. For example, anti-retroviral medications used to treat HIV/AIDS can damage mitochondria and cause symptoms due to resultant energy failure. Removal of these drugs reverses the process and the symptoms resolve. There are other environmental causes of mitochondrial disease, and likely many that we do not know about.

In the opinion of this author, most mitochondrial diseases are probably both genetic AND environmental in origin. Even in the case of anti-retroviral medications, thousands of individuals have no problem on these drugs while only a handful do. Likely, there are genetic reasons for the high susceptibility to these drugs in an unlucky few - a genetic predisposition of an "environmental" disease. On the other hand, in MELAS, which clearly is primarily genetic in origin, neurological deterioration often occurs during a viral illness and/or fasting - an environmental trigger of a "genetic" disease.

The second question is: If genetic, was the mutation inherited? The answer is usually yes, but not always. New mutations do exist. In particular, deletions (missing areas) of mtDNA tend to be new mutations not present in the mother or siblings. However, deletions with duplications are often inherited, and some duplications are hard to detect.

What this all means is that there are very few answers in most cases where only one person in a family has mitochondrial disease. The condition probably is genetic, and it may or may not be inherited. Either the nuclear or mitochondrial DNA could be involved. Inheritance is probably autosomal recessive, maternal or sporadic (no inheritance), but not necessarily.

Based on many families, some groups give an estimated recurrence risk for mitochondrial disease (chance that each additional child of the same two parents will be somehow affected) of 10-15%. This is probably a reasonable rough estimate, but you should discuss the probability of recurrence for your family with a genetics counselor familiar with mitochondrial disease.

- Written by Richard Boles, M.D. and Terri Mason

I'd appreciate comment by those with medical expertise.

Orac (or anyone more knowledgeable in this are than me),
How does the fact that the brain in an immune priveleged organ, fit in with "vaccinations cause autism" hysteria? From my understanding, wouldn't any immune response ellicted by a vaccination outside the CNS have no bearing on an immune repsonse in the brain? or can the materials in the vaccine cross the blood-brain-barrier?

From what I've read, it appears that mitochondrial disease is genetic, but sometimes doesn't manifest until a few years after birth. It can manifest after some stress, like a fever or an infection. In that sense I guess there's an "environmental trigger" if you will, but not in the sense that it might be preventable.

I can see, though, why some people might hypothesize that *regressive* autism has some relationship with mitochondrial disease. The main reason I'd be skeptical is that autism is not fatal.

"I'm just curious what "minor" intervention will be touted as the treatment for "mitochondrial disease"."

That's easy: look no further, I predict, than our old friend dichloroacetate (originally tested as a therapy for mitochondrial disorders, remember).

Of course, given the aversion of the mercury nutjob fringe to "chemicals" perhaps it will have to be homeopathic dichloroacetate.

The Poling dad thinks Hannah's vaccines created her mitochondrial disorder. That's a new one.

I listened to the CNN reports. That mom is quite the harpy.

Thanks Joseph. I have no suspicion that autism = mitochondiral disease. I work with children with autism (and other developmental disorders) and they don't tend to present with some of the signs of mito. disease. However, given the coming onslaught of questions from parents and others I work with, I'm trying to understand as much about mito. disease as I can.

Question: Is there a big problem with waiting until children are older to vaccinate? If all older children and adults are vaccinated there should still be herd immunity, and presumably difficulty for any epidemic to gain hold. The benefit would be that it would make it clear that there isn't a connection, as the problem now is that autism symptoms show up at approximately the same age as the vaccines are given.

Mitochondrial disorders are genetic, but usually they are sporadic, that is a de novo mutation in that individual. There are a number of reasons for this, a major one being that mitochondrial diseases are often fatal, so they are not transmitted through the germ line.

Any environmental influence on any DNA disorder would cause different mutations in different cells. For all cells to have the same mitochondrial disorder, the disorder had to occur before the cells divided. If every blood cell has the same mitochondrial disorder, then it had to occur in utero or before in a germ cell before conception.

If all muscle cells have the same mitochondrial defect, that defect occurred before those muscle cells divided during early fetal life. The child has a point mutation in a mitochondrial gene. It is simply not possible for the same mitochondrial defect to occur in multiple muscle cells due to an environmental exposure unless that exposure was before the muscle formed in utero.

Doesn't matter what the dad thinks, it simply shows his ignorance, and the ignorance of his handlers. In their zeal to blame vaccines and mercury, they are pushing nonsense.

This whole vaccine award is purely legal. And the award should not have been given when considering what has been admitted the facts of the case...this is a confusing and weird case.

From everything I've read, which has been on-line and in newspapers, the child showed "autistic" signs at three months old, far earlier than the supposed affects of the vaccine. The child is also described as being mildly affected, which if such is the case, where's my damn money?

How does the this fund work? What the parents have to say doesn't really illuminate this issue, and the fact Larry King is going to talk to this coupld only goes to show that whether you love her or not, Rosie O'Donnell was right and maybe he should hang up his microphone. I want to know the reasons, especially as what the child supposedly has is not considered autism.

And an example of another doc who has been emotionally manipulated, either by himself or his "handlers," into a state of denial.

And so Dr. Jon Poling joins Prof. Peter Duesberg in the lexicon of whackjobery. It's not at all surprising that Larry King is hosting this clown. This is the same Larry King who once famously asked why there will still monkeys if humans descended from monkeys.

Rjaye - I think the news report that said 3 months was in error. Nothing else I've seen has indicated she had problems before starting to get ear infections at about 6 months.

I do think it's important that, as you point out, she is apparently only mildly affected - which was borne out in the CNN video aired today. If that is a child who needs 24-hour one-on-one supervision (at least more so than any 9-year-old), I am Queen Elizabeth. The published case report says that she has not scored in the autism range on a standard metric since she started kindergarten. So, wtf?

First it was MMR that supposedly caused autism. Research ruled that out. Then it was thimerosal. That was ruled out when the rates of autism went up rather than down as thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines. As evidence accumulated against these hypotheses, yet another emerged. Now it is giving too many vaccines at the same time.

All the while real research, (as opposed to parental speculation), has improved our ability to diagnose autism at younger and younger ages which completely negates the significance of the correlation between 15-18 month vaccines. But there is no news commodity to be sold with that story.

Do you suppose anyone in the news media will ever report on the unvaccinated child who dies as a direct result of the irresponsible choice to sell the news rather than report the actual facts? Or will we ever see a story about the delay in finding the real cause of autism as we waste our limited research resources chasing parental convictions rather than the actual evidence?

Science needs a voice that is as loud as a heartbroken and/or angry parent. We need a story that is as marketable as perseverance prevailing over the establishment. Until we find that voice or that story, it's going to be a long struggle with these issues.

Do any of you "know it alls" have a child with Autism ... I thought not.

I do, you arrogant jackass. And if you and the rest of the mercury militia are not in the business of reintroducing polio, mumps, rubella, etc., you're sure doing a damn good job of pretending to be.

(By the way, dipshit, thimerosol's been removed from the vast majority of childhood vaccines. What was that about heavy metals? Do you even understand what the term means?)

How does the this fund work?
Posted by: Rjaye

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is described here:
http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/torts/const/vicp/about.htm

"Individuals who believe they have been injured by a covered vaccine can file a claim against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims seeking compensation from the Vaccine Trust Fund. The Department of Justice (DOJ), which represents HHS, consistently works to ensure that fair compensation is awarded in every case that meets the eligibility criteria. If found eligible, claimants can recover compensation for related medical and rehabilitative expenses, and in certain cases, may be awarded funds for pain and suffering and future lost earnings. Often, an award is more than $1 million. By protecting the Trust Fund against claims by those who have not suffered a vaccine-related injury, DOJ helps to preserve the Fund for future deserving claimants. Regardless of a claimant's success under the Program, reasonable attorneys' fees and costs are paid."

Among the reasons the fund was established was to remove the disincentive drug manufacturers had from entering the vaccine market. In addition, just as many worker's compensation programs do, it removes the claims from the tort system. In doing so, the vaccine manufacturer and health care providers do not have to fight frivolous lawsuits and the claimants do not have to prove the facts of their case in they same way they might have to in a tort case.

The real tragedy here is the incompetent way the news media is reporting on this case. And I doubt that damage will be undone even if Larry King has someone on with this family to talk about the scientific evidence regarding vaccine risks and benefits.

The benefit would be that it would make it clear that there isn't a connection, as the problem now is that autism symptoms show up at approximately the same age as the vaccines are given.

It's ALREADY clear there isn't a connection. It's as clear as the fact that there isn't a total absence of transitional fossils. The people who lead the movement denying one of these claims have the same basic motives and mindset as the people who lead the movement denying the other, and it is highly unlikely that any evidence up to and including the stars moving around to spell "It's Not the Vaccines, Stupid!" could possibly convince them otherwise.

Did any of you antivaxers consider the fact that because autism rates increased when thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines, it actually suggests thimerosal may have had a protective effect against autism.

Did any of you antivaxers consider the fact that because autism rates increased when thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines, it actually suggests thimerosal may have had a protective effect against autism.

And of course some studies end up suggesting this (one out of the UK, for example) just because the numbers work out that way. But I think it's just as mistaken as suggesting that because thimerosal exposure and autism diagnoses increased simultaneously in the first half of the 1990s, then there's a causation effect. We're clearly looking at coincidence. The California trends are very telling in this regard. They are completely unaffected by removal of thimerosal. There's no discernable change in the previous increasing trend, upward or downward.

Carlie said: "Question: Is there a big problem with waiting until children are older to vaccinate? If all older children and adults are vaccinated there should still be herd immunity, and presumably difficulty for any epidemic to gain hold. "

Actually there is... one of the biggest problems is pertussis. The protection for pertussis wears off after a few years and it is still goes through the population. For adults it is often mistaken for a nasty cold, but for babies under a year old it is often fatal. Herd immunity is the only thing that protects newborns from pertussis. Because of the efforts of the antivax bunch (Barbara Loe Fisher for one), that herd immunity has been significantly reduced and pertussis is still around and from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/dis-faqs.htm, "In recent years, 15 to 21 infant deaths from pertussis are reported to CDC annually."

Recently a pertussis vaccine has been approved for older children and adults. All three of my teenagers have had the Tdap (and for the 19 year old it was the first time he had ever been vaccinated for pertussis... he had to depend on herd immunity due to his neonatal seizures, at a time when our county was having a pertussis epidemic --- we had to be very very careful who he had contact with during his first couple of years).

Also when the Hib vaccine first came out it was only for older toddlers/preschoolers. It turned out that was not an effective timing, and the rates of Hib (a truly nasty disease that had a very high rate of death and disability) weren't substantially reduced until it was approved for babies. My younger son was the first to get that vaccine, he is 17 years old (and at a mom/baby group that I took him to I met a woman whose first child had died of Hib just a couple of years before).

If you look at vaccine studies you will see that there are lots of research into finding appropriate timing of the vaccines and their boosters. Unlike the propaganda one finds in several anti-vax websites, there is lots of research in vaccines from safety to effectiveness. Just go to www.pubmed.gov and put in a disease with vaccine to get a list of papers.

Gary Myers wrote "stupidity in throwing levels of toxic materials into a baby that doesn't way 20 pounds. Do any of you "know it alls" have a child with Autism ... I thought not."

I have never claimed to "know it all". I would not have even thought of vaccines and safety until my firstborn had seizures as a newborn. He spent his first year on anticonvulsants. But after he was weaned from the medication he became ill from now vaccine preventable disease, which caused him to have a very very bad seizure which required him to be taken by ambulance to the hospital. My oldest son's severe speech and language disability may be due to that last seizure. He might be a "disease damaged" child.

You guys seem to forget that the actual diseases cause harm and disability. The little girl would have also had serious ill effects if she actually had measles, pertussis, chicken pox or just a high fever. I'm not sure it was even wise of them to put all the catch-up vaccines for one day (even 1968 when my family was preparing to move to South America I got several vaccines, but not as many as Ms. Poling, and they were spread out over two months)

Please, Mr. Myers, answer my question: Which vaccine in the present pediatric schedule is more dangerous than the actual disease? Be sure to include verifiable documentation, for example, if you claim that the DTaP is more dangerous than pertussis, diphtheria or tetanus show us the study that show the large number of children harmed by DTaP versus the numbers of children harmed by the disease (see link above). Thank you.

Question: Is there a big problem with waiting until children are older to vaccinate? If all older children and adults are vaccinated there should still be herd immunity, and presumably difficulty for any epidemic to gain hold. The benefit would be that it would make it clear that there isn't a connection, as the problem now is that autism symptoms show up at approximately the same age as the vaccines are given.
Posted by: Carlie

First, autism is diagnosed before these vaccines are given. Some very clever research was undertaken looking at the abundant videotapes of children's first birthday parties. Researchers identified behaviors that were diagnostic of autism. Prior to that, the diagnosis was most often made when toddlers reached a stage of more social interaction after 12 months of age. The original suggestion vaccines were related to autism had to do with the coincidence vaccines are given at the same age socialization increases. The original research has been discredited, by the way.

Now autism can be diagnosed even younger than one year. It's pretty apparent that the root of autism is either in utero, perinatal, or genetic. The medical community has been unable to get the news media as excited about those discoveries as they have been about the vaccine misinformation.

As for the ideal age for vaccinations and the reasoning and safety of administering them together, in the US that is determined after very careful review and continual monitoring undertaken by the public health service's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). They meet twice a year to review the research and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data. Their findings are public as well as the documentation of their rationale and the hundreds of citations they based their decisions on.

They also alert providers to any problems with vaccines that show up in between the April and October meetings.

Criticism the ACIP is simply an extension of the pharmaceutical companies couldn't be more ignorant. Their decisions are completely transparent, and contrary to the big pharma conspiracy theorists, there is abundant research out there which is not funded by drug companies. There is also a very large and very diverse medical community out there who are capable of and do read the research for themselves, and who are capable of and do evaluate the bias of the source or funding of the research. In fact, it should be rather obvious the medical community is by far better at evaluating the bias and significance of medical research than any layperson conspiracy theorist.

Vaccine age recommendations are based on actual data as to the risk of the specific infections. The earliest given, hepatitis B vaccine, is given just after birth because there are cases of infants contracting hepatitis B at that age. Pertussis and tetanus are risks to infants. It would be dangerous to delay those vaccines. Herd immunity is irrelevant when it comes to tetanus, the bacteria come from dirt not other people. And you need both herd immunity and individual vaccinations to protect infants from pertussis because the vaccine is not good enough without both.

Also, you cannot usually achieve sufficient herd immunity in older populations to protect younger populations because the pool of unvaccinated younger kids would be too large.

Vaccines are given in combinations, one, to decrease the discomfort in giving a child numerous injections, and two, because the data shows if you can give them all together, kids are more likely to get them. If you spread vaccines out, they inevitably get delayed, duplicated (when records of past shots cannot be found) and sometimes missed altogether. Again, we know this from experience, not from guessing or assuming.

Other countries have similar public health systems to evaluate and make vaccine recommendations. There is more consistency in the recommendations between countries than there are discrepancies. Again, for vaccine recommendations to be a big pharma conspiracy it would have to involve the majority of researchers and scientists all over the world, the majority of health care providers all over the world, and all the world's public health systems. Either the entire medical community is in on the scheme or they are a bunch of dupes. You trust them to perform neurosurgery but not to figure out if a vaccine is safe?

There is one more typical antivaxer misinformation I haven't addressed here. That is the notion that 'herd immunity' is somehow the sole objective of the public health system. Nonsense! The objective of this country's public health system and the world's public health systems is to decrease disease burden. The idea herd immunity trumps individual risk is a contradiction in logic. If individuals were somehow sacrificed for herd immunity, you would have by simple analysis, a vaccine risk greater than vaccine benefit.

But I think it's just as mistaken as suggesting that because thimerosal exposure and autism diagnoses increased simultaneously in the first half of the 1990s, then there's a causation effect. We're clearly looking at coincidence. The California trends are very telling in this regard. They are completely unaffected by removal of thimerosal. There's no discernable change in the previous increasing trend, upward or downward.
Posted by: Joseph

I am not suggesting this is an evidence based conclusion. I am suggesting it is an evidence based hypothesis. Why would I attack an unproven hypothesis, "vaccines cause autism", with another unproven hypothesis?

BTW, you've merely added some evidence to the contrary. I wouldn't want to form a research direction with a bias against a thimerosal benefit anymore than I'd want to bias it against a thimerosal risk. The health care community did not dismiss the thimerosal risk out of hand, we did the research.

"Science needs a voice that is as loud as a heartbroken and/or angry parent. We need a story that is as marketable as perseverance prevailing over the establishment. Until we find that voice or that story, it's going to be a long struggle with these issues."

Science (or at least the American Academy of Pediatrics) is looking for parents of children injured or killed by vaccine-preventable diseases to tell their stories. Similarly, it may be desirable for the parents of such children to sue the pants off the irresponsible and sociopathic antivaxers who assured them that vaccines were useless and gave them advice on how to dodge vaccination requirements. The antivaxers obviously don't have pockets as deep as those of vaccine makers or the government, but it's another place to start.

"This is the same Larry King who once famously asked why there (were) still monkeys if humans descended from monkeys"

Actually, the burning question is, if human descended from monkeys, why is John Best still around?

daedalus2u:

Thanks for that clarification. The interaction between gene and environment you seem to be identifying is prenatal environmental influence. That makes the different etiologies of mitochondrial disease easier to understand.

Well, it sounds like the press is far worse than I could imagine. I just watched the newscasts in Seattle, and Channel 5 just reported that the vaccine caused the child's autism. AAAAGH!

Thanks, Isles, on the vaccine fund info. I thought the ball was dropped, but reading the Academy of Pediatrics press showed that the fever the vaccine may've caused might've aggravated her mito, and not caused autism. It was a probability-not a certainty...I guess that fifty percent and a feather? Actually, the fund makes better sense now that I've read that, but wow! I can't believe how the press has bungled this one.

Ouch.

And kids do die from pertussis. I worked for several years in a NICU and it happened several times over that period. There would also be babies come in with whooping cough, and never go home. That was so heartbreaking. And it would only be a blurb or two in the paper, the usual "the signs and symptoms of," and that was it. On to the next story.

Well, it sounds like the press is far worse than I could imagine. I just watched the newscasts in Seattle, and Channel 5 just reported that the vaccine caused the child's autism. AAAAGH!

Thanks, Isles, on the vaccine fund info. I thought the ball was dropped, but reading the Academy of Pediatrics press showed that the fever the vaccine may've caused might've aggravated her mito, and not caused autism. It was a probability-not a certainty...I guess that fifty percent and a feather? Actually, the fund makes better sense now that I've read that, but wow! I can't believe how the press has bungled this one.

Ouch.

Thanks to people like Barabara Fisher, we now use the DTaP, rather than the DTP, a much safer vaccine, that has had far fewer adverse reactions.

Thanks to parents of immune deficient children who contracted polio from the vaccine, we now use a safer vaccine, an inactivated virus vaccine.

How is it we successfully eradicated polio, smallpox, etc, without vaccinating infants? These vaccines were given to older children, not infants.

To think we cannot strive to improve safety is ignorant.

I do ask you this, can anyone find a study that shows how many children produce antibodies to the vaccines they received in our current schedule?

I am very interested because my child's immunologist stated that it is NOT abnormal for a child to not respond to vaccines, as the immune system is not mature until age 2. If this were true, then our vaccination program would be faulty, correct?

My child suffered an adverse reaction to either the MMR, or Varicella vaccines. She had encephalitis, seizures, fever, bulls eye rash.

We also discovered she didn't create antibodies to these live virus vacines, and may have some sort of immunodeficiency. That is where it gets tricky, one immunologist said immunodeficiency, based on the lack of antibody response to vaccines. The other said that the lack of antibosy response is typical, but I just don't feel this is true...

Monica said "Thanks to people like Barabara Fisher, we now use the DTaP, rather than the DTP, a much safer vaccine, that has had far fewer adverse reactions."

Au contraire... further research showed that the DTP did not cause more seizures than what would normally happen. And the DTaP is less effective. Go figure:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/345/9/656

Barbara Fisher is directly responsible for my oldest son not getting vaccinated for pertussis at a time when my county was having a pertussis epidemic (which she most likely helped create). It was also the same time that 120+ Americans died from measles. She is part of the problem, not the solution.

She continued "How is it we successfully eradicated polio, smallpox, etc, without vaccinating infants? These vaccines were given to older children, not infants."

That is pure bullshit. I was vaccinated for both smallpox and polio as an infant. All of my children were vaccinated for polio as babies.

From http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/polio.pdf ... "A primary series of IPV consists of three doses. In infancy, these primary doses are integrated with the administration of other routinely administered vaccines. The first dose may be given as early as 6 weeks of age but is usually given at 2 months of age, with a second dose at 4 months of age. The third dose should be given at 6-18 months of age."

From my shot record (I was born in October of 1957):
Smallpox:
23 Jan 58 (no take)
20 Mar 58
13 Aug 59
30 Mar 68
6 Apr 68
7 Sep 71
20 Jun 74

Check it out, three smallpox vaccines before I was two years old.

Monica continued "I do ask you this, can anyone find a study that shows how many children produce antibodies to the vaccines they received in our current schedule?"

I am at my limit of two URLs, (which is why I did not post the JREF posting where I listed my entire vaccine schedule in response to a homeopath challenging us on our own vaccine histories)... but if you go into PubMed you will find lots of studies that show the studies on the effectiveness of vaccines. You'll also find the studies that debate the schedule.

By the way, my oldest son also had seizures a week after his MMR vaccine. But he also happened to be sick with another illness (which is now vaccine preventable). Guess what? Seizures happen, and sometimes no one knows why. His last seizure was blamed on the illness... but his first at the young age of 48 hours (before any vaccines, this was in 1988) were for "unknown etiology". Crap happens.

So, instead of the "god in the gaps" of creationism, we have "autism in the gaps" from antivaxxers?

Dangerous Bacon,

Thank you for the insult. That's another victory for my side today. What a wonderful day! I think I'll go listen to Louis Armstrong now. ...I see skies so blue, red roses too....the good guys win...what a wonderful world!!!!!

Did any of you antivaxers consider the fact that because autism rates increased when thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines, it actually suggests thimerosal may have had a protective effect against autism.

And of course some studies end up suggesting this (one out of the UK, for example) just because the numbers work out that way. But I think it's just as mistaken as suggesting that because thimerosal exposure and autism diagnoses increased simultaneously in the first half of the 1990s, then there's a causation effect.

Yes, that's the point: it's as sound as the conclusions the Mercury Militia are drawing.

Dangerous Bacon,

Thank you for the insult. That's another victory for my side today. What a wonderful day! I think I'll go listen to Louis Armstrong now. ...I see skies so blue, red roses too....the good guys win...what a wonderful world!!!!!

Let's have a poll: at what point do anti-vax loonies make themselves so loathsome that it is no longer productive to give them the benefit of the doubt and ascribe their behavior to something other than a sadistic desire to see children crippled or killed by disease?

Posted by: Monica Thanks to people like Barabara Fisher, ... Thanks to parents of immune deficient children who contracted polio from the vaccine, ...

Why would the medical community need a suffering child or parent to lobby those health care providers to evaluate risks and benefits of a vaccine and choose the safest most effective options? Why would we not act when safer vaccines became available? What makes you think the medical community only acts when some suffering person brings something to our attention?

I've spent 8 years at a university and 30 years in practice. Do you think people like me sit around on our asses not caring in the least about our patients or the care we provide? Why would I spend so much time learning my profession and providing health care and then need a suffering person to lobby me to act responsibly? Do you trust a neurosurgeon to cut into your brain yet think that same medical provider would not evaluate the research on the safety of vaccines?

Why do you, with no medical education from the sound of your comments, think you have looked at vaccine safety but the the medical community hasn't? Do you think that we want to cure cancer and heart disease but while we are at it make a few bucks on the side hawking vaccines which result in needless misery for children and parents? Are you serious?

Posted by: Monica How is it we successfully eradicated polio, smallpox, etc, without vaccinating infants? These vaccines were given to older children, not infants.

You could not be any more ignorant of the facts here than this.

Posted by: Monica To think we cannot strive to improve safety is ignorant.

No, Monica. To imagine the medical community has no interest in improving care and safety is where the ignorance lies.

Posted by: Monica I do ask you this, can anyone find a study that shows how many children produce antibodies to the vaccines they received in our current schedule?
I am very interested because my child's immunologist stated that it is NOT abnormal for a child to not respond to vaccines, as the immune system is not mature until age 2. If this were true, then our vaccination program would be faulty, correct?
My child suffered an adverse reaction to either the MMR, or Varicella vaccines. She had encephalitis, seizures, fever, bulls eye rash.
We also discovered she didn't create antibodies to these live virus vacines, and may have some sort of immunodeficiency. That is where it gets tricky, one immunologist said immunodeficiency, based on the lack of antibody response to vaccines. The other said that the lack of antibosy response is typical, but I just don't feel this is true...

So you've taken your personal experience, the failure of the medical community to provide answers or treatment for your child and decided that every one of us are to blame? You have no answers so we must all be at fault? They didn't help your child so we all must not have tried hard enough?

I'd like to offer you empathy for your tragedy, whatever it is. But I'm not in the mood to take the blame you want to heap on me and my 30 years of dedicated practice doing the best job I could. I am a nurse practitioner and I am not making tons of money by any stretch. But I take great pride in my work and I, like most of my colleagues, feel an obligation to providing the best care we can.

Medicine has only been in the business of serious evidence based practice for the last 100 years. Of course we can't cure every patient and of course we don't understand every disease process. But to accuse us of not giving a sh*t is as ignorant as it gets.

it. If Hannah's mom and dad has been into autism quackery (DAN) since shortly after she was diagnosed as having encephalopathy way back in 2001, they sure must know about Andy Cutler. How come Andy baby hasn't cured their Hannah by now? How come chelation didn't cure her? How come she's still so disabled she can't be left alone for a minute? Your son looks like he has a genetic disorder. Maybe Sotos syndrome?

Askyroth,
Thimerosal has not yet been removed so your conjecture is premature.

John Best Just Won,
Good job, insult my son's appearance when you have nothing intelligent to say.
Perhaps the Poling's child has not been cured yet because they have to deal with the mitochondrial thing that most of us aren't dealing with. Why don't you "scientists" figure out how to help her?

skeptigirl, you ask Why would the medical community need a suffering child or parent to lobby those health care providers to evaluate risks and benefits of a vaccine and choose the safest most effective options? Why would we not act when safer vaccines became available? What makes you think the medical community only acts when some suffering person brings something to our attention?

The reason the antivaccinionists believe the medical community doesn't care about suffering people is because the antivaccionists are projecting. They are projecting their own values, their own beliefs, and how they themselves would behave in that situation onto the medical community. The antivaccionists are all about "me, me, me". They don't consider the adverse consequences of their actions, they believe that no one else does either.

David Kirby doesn't care if parents stop vaccinating and their children are then harmed by preventable diseases. He makes a lot of money fanning these flames and selling torches to the mob trying to destroy the vaccine industry.

First and foremost, I am NOT here to blame anyone, I don't recall stating this was YOUR fault skeptigirl, perhaps you inferred that because you feel guilty? Have you administered vaccines to a child who had a severe reaction?
I am not sure what to make of your attack. I never accused anyone of not giving a "sh*t". In fact, quite the opposite is my experience. My daughter's pediatrician, and her entire team of doctors have been very compassionate, and determined to learn why my daughter had such a reaction. I have never once blamed them, as they could not have known the outcome. You could not be further from the truth.

Secondly, I am NOT antivaccine. I hate when people draw conclusions that are not valid.

We CAN create safer vaccines, we have in the past, and we need to continue to do so. The first step towards that is a more accurate, accessible and well known adverse reporting system.

I find it sad that the ARNP and 2 pediatricians that have been treating my daughter did not know of VAERS, or how to report a reaction. My congressman suggested I do such a thing, and I provided the practice with the correct information.

Thirdly, I have real skepticism with our current state of affairs at the FDA. Let us not forget Ketek, Zelnorm, Oxycontin, Heparin and Vioxx. Let us not forget who funds the FDA.

I would also like to remind everyone that for every congressman in the US, there are approximately 40 pharmaceutical lobbyists. Pharmaceutical companies have more lobbyists in the US than any other industry.

Currently, the only countries that allow direct to consumer advertising of pharmaceutical preperations is the US and New Zealand. Recently, congress asked these corporations to suspend such marketing, until a product has been available for 2 yrs, to allow for a smaller sample size and moniter adverse reactions more efficiently.

Last yr, $48 billion was spent on direct to consumer advertising in the US.

Pharma's lawyers said "no way, we have freedom of speech", which by laws of our constitution, trumps our safety.

Currently, members of our congress are asking that the commissioner of the FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, resign. Congress has lost confidence in officials over the handling of investigations and oversight by the agency.

Former employees of the FDA often wondered who the client was, the American people, or the companies funding the studies. You can read about it in the NEJM.

The tides are turning, our congress is demanding answers from these corporations, and the FDA, not just about vaccines. I say it is about time.