We may as well kick off the blog with a biggie. We have been fielding this question a lot lately because the alleged vaccine-autism connection has been in the news for the last couple of weeks.
You have a choice:
The short answer: NO. Stop reading now.
The long answer:
No, vaccines do not cause autism. Autism is a neurological disorder affecting a child's ability to learn, socialize, and interact with the world around him/her. Autism is becoming more common. This is due in part to better diagnosis on our part but there is also a real increase in cases and we do not understand why. We also do not understand what causes autism. There is likely an interaction between genetics and the environment that predisposes one to autism. The genetic predisposition is clear from studies of twins and siblings. If one has autism, the twin or sibling is at increased risk.
But that's not the whole story. What are the environmental factors? Is it something that happens before birth? During birth? During infancy? Later? We just don't know.
But we do know that it's not the vaccines. There have been several very large, very well done scientific studies that have shown absolutely no relationship between autism and vaccines. They show no difference in autism rates between immunized and non-immunized populations. They show no decrease in autism in populations that stop immunizing. They show no rise in autism rates when immunization is resumed. There is just no relationship.
Lately, much has been made of the "thimerosal connection". Thimerosal is a chemical preservative that was used for decades to help stabilize vaccines so they would have a longer shelf life. It happens to contain ethyl mercury. Because people understand mercury as being toxic, this led to a belief that the thimerosal was "causing" autism in children receiving vaccines. However, there is a huge difference between ethyl mercury and methyl mercury. Ethyl mercury has not been shown to have toxic effects. I liken the difference to oxygen: two atoms of oxygen put together give you the oxygen we need to breathe and live. But three atoms put together gives you ozone, which is deadly. Same oxygen. Big difference. Having said all that, how do we know that thimerosal isn't causing the autism problem? Well, thimerosal was removed from all vaccines (except for some flu vaccines) about five years ago. Have autism rates dropped? Nope. Still rising.
Finally, you may have read recently that the U.S. Vaccine Court found a relationship between autism and vaccines. This is not really true. The Vaccine Court is the body that awards damages to people who have been injured by vaccines. The family of an autistic child filed a claim based on their assertion that vaccines contributed to the autism in their daughter. The Vaccine Court did, in fact, support their claim. However, the important detail is this: this child has an underlying, complex, metabolic problem, making her body more susceptible to stress. The child received several vaccines and developed a fever. The fever was the stress that worsened her metabolic problem, causing brain injury. However, ANY stress that caused fever, etc. would have produced the same effect. Had she gotten the flu, or pneumonia, or an ear infection, the result may have been the same. It wasn't the vaccine, it was the stress combined with this child's very rare metabolic disease that caused the problem.
Autism is a serious problem and we need to get serious about finding answers. But the more time, money, and effort we spend debunking the autism-vaccine "connection", the less we spend trying to figure out what is really going on.
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2 comments:
"The fever was the stress that worsened her metabolic problem, causing brain injury."
Was it the fever, or the metabolic problem that caused the brain injury?
What was the nature of the brain injury? Was it permanent "damage"?
If the fever caused brain injury, then the above quotation contradicts what is written in a later blog regarding fevers, which states, "A fever is a sign. No more. No less. It is a sign that a child's body is dealing with some sort of problem. That problem is almost always a viral illness such as a "cold" or a stomach flu. The fever will not cause brain damage or damage of any other kind."
Andrew,
The child has an underlying metabolic problem. This problem means that ANY stress to the body that causes an increased metabolic rate will lead to a worsening of the metabolic problem and potential injury. A fever causes the body's metabolic rate to increase. In normal children, this is harmless because they are easily able to cope. However, the child in question had a decreased ability to cope with stress because of the underlying problem. So, the metabolic problem was the cause of the child's brain injury, which is permanent. The fever was the trigger, but in this child, ANY source of stress to the body could have had an equivalent effect.
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