…forced vaccination on the entire population (al a Nazi Germany) as some here have suggested…

My friend, you do understand that despite the use of the weasel phrase “as some have suggested”, you just Godwined you point. But you bring up an arguement I’ve been considering, so I will respond anyway.

You seem to be asking, “If this is a non issue, why is so much research still being conducted?” I think I can explain. There are two reasons. The first is, the original correlation studies. This whole thing got rolling when some research was done to look into the anecdotal connection between vaccination and onset autism symptoms. A (very) few showed a correlation, tough in small statistical samples. That research is out there and it isn’t going to go away, and rightly so. Since then, however, many more, much larger studies have been done, and the correlation has evaporated. This is the primary response of vaccination proponents to the anti-vaccination contingent. No consistent correlation means no causation. That might be the end of it, except…

The second reason: this is a public health concern regarding children. (Now, the second part of that, from a rational stance, shouldn’t make a difference. However, it does crank up the emotional ante of the issue.) As such, it is as much in the public interest to continue research as it is to continue vaccination programs. Researches will continue to look for any correlation between vaccination schedules and autism spectrum diseases, even as they continue to show none. Also, the concern has raised the priority on finding a cause for autism, which is certainly a good thing.

Regarding thimerosal: you yourself note that the compound has been removed from all vaccination preparations except some tetanus and influenza vaccines. You seem to imply that this means the failure to find a drop in autism rates is meaningless.
However, it should be noted that neither tetanus nor influenza is universally on the vaccination schedule. As such, some of the children in the study would have gotten zero thimerosal, so some change of the rate curves would have been evident, if thimerosal were the culprit. Since there was none… well, you do the math.

Finally, regarding herd immunity: Others above (Phil included) have pointed out recent outbreaks of vaccinated diseases, such as measles. Herd immunity is a fragile thing. Since you agree that it’s important – you imply that it is a valid reason to refuse vaccination – it seems unwise to threaten it on a problem that has a statistical probability on par with contracting the a disease from a vaccination.

Hey Sarcastro, you’re obviously one of those Unix bigots who think something Bill Joy or Dennis Ritchie dreamed up one afternoon and is still faithfully preserved bug for bug almost 40 years later is superior to an operating system that was *designed* and *tested*. I love my VAX (a 4000-300 with 128MB clustered with a small Alpha workstation) and only wish the measles vax was around in 1954 when I almost died of it at age 1.

In this meeting the Committee admits that we don’t have a method of prescreening those who might be at risk of post immunization complications, even the ones that are backed by undisputed scientific research.

The Committee also admits that we have no studies conducted on the long term (20-30 years) affects of the vaccinations currently on the market and that the practice of mass public vaccination is basically an ongoing experiment.

The Committee further admits that the government organizations involved with vaccination programs (HHS/CDC/FDA) have major image problems and that there is a definite need for improved relations with the public. They recognize that they need to improve transparency in how they conduct business and in publishing the research data.

http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/minutes20080411.html

In addition to the two US House of Reps findings of impropriety in the pro-vax research that I posted earlier, the US Senate has more recently found:

>That the FDA inappropriately used EPA guidelines regarding dangers of mercury leading to a potential miscalculation in the toxicity of Thimerosal.
>That CDC’s meetings at Simpsonwood (June 7/8, 2000) were questionable and gave the appearance of impropriety because the list of participants was very much one sided, and because of injudicious remarks made by several of those participants.
>That the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, who reviewed the data, inappropriately screened potential committee members for possible conflict of interest.
>That US Government data used to assess links between vaccines and autism was less than open and accessible to all researchers.

http://help.senate.gov/Min_press/autism.pdf

Please note that these are the source documents and not some second or third party ravings.

The anti-vax element is asking socially responsible questions and this process is necessary.

Here is an open question considering that many diseases can regional concentrations. If we disregarded personal liberty and forced vaccination on the entire population (al a Nazi Germany) as some here have suggested, where would you find your unvaccinated control group to prove that vaccines don’t cause problems?

Otherwise, I also went to the CDC website and crawled all over it looking for the CDC research that supports their position. Oddly enough, there isn’t any. It looks like the CDC contracts their research out to third parties (like universities and hospitals etc.). I am talking about reading the source document, not some other web page. All of the research that the CDC has made available comes to pretty much the same conclusion, and that is that there is not enough evidence for or against. More research must be done. (One might expect that from somebody who makes their living off of doing research as a government contractor.) Interestingly they did find relationships between thiomersal and individual autistic like symptoms, but at the end of the research none of them felt compelled to pull the trigger on confirmation. I did find it very odd by the way that their most resent research, published Sept 2007, isn’t available in complete form yet. Also, there are a number of studies still in all phases of the research process including the planning phase. That seems like an awful lot of ongoing research into something that isn’t supposed to have a connection to a disease. While their published position may not support a connection, their behavior doesn’t seem to support their position.

I looked up Thiomersal. It is an International Nonproprietary Name for an organomercury compound. That much is easy enough to find, but I also discovered that there are 41 other organomercury compounds around many of which are used the same way Thiomersal is used in vaccines. All studies that I could find on organomercury ingestion other than via vaccination show sever mental and neuro debilitation. If I could find a list of vaccine ingredients directly from their manufacturers, we could figure out if they just changed the name of the agent they use. Keep in mind, the US Army doesn’t use Napalm anymore because they were told to stop using Napalm. They do however still use gelatinized fuel weapons that work much better than the old brand name Napalm.

Many here have said that Thiomersal is no longer used in vaccines in the US. That isn’t true either. I have found this quote at (http://www.metrokc.gov/health/immunization/ingredients.htm)

“QUESTION: Has the thimerosal in vaccines been shown to be harmful to children?

Note: Thimerosal has been removed from all routinely recommended childhood vaccines, except some influenza (flu) vaccine, and tetanus-diphtheria (Td) vaccine used in individuals seven years and older.”

I stand by my original point. The anti-vax element is asking socially responsible questions and this process is necessary. My observations indicate that the pro-vax element isn’t acting like they are innocent and the chemical in question hasn’t been completely discontinued.

Cheers!

I know this is a late comment, but I think you’re making a mistake by judging people on their amount of formal education. I’m not saying that education doesn’t mean anything, but neither does the possession of a degree NECESSARILY indicate a person’s intelligence. You’d probably be surprised how many non-college-grads are smarter than you think.

I’m saying this as someone with a GED who plans to get a degree in art, so take that as you will. I don’t have a degree yet, but I take it upon myself to learn about things. Having a degree doesn’t prevent a person being ignorant on a particular subject. It’s just not a reliable indicator of intelligence/awareness/etc., and it irks me when people pretend it is.