Some children are too young to be vaccinated; some children have medical conditions that preclude vaccination. While you might disagree, I’d rather that those children not be unnecessarily exposed to diseases.

My husband’s father has two young children. They were given immunizations up until they were two years old, at which point they decided the vaccines had made their children “slow”. Now, these kids are fine. The issue is that their parents don’t spend any educational time with them. They’re put in front of a television, allowed to drink sodas and eat chips day, never read to, etc. The problem comes down to the parents just being lazy jerks who want to blame someone for something.

Two more asides: 1) I’m sure most people are aware of this, but the vaccines being blamed for autism are given around the age that children start to exhibit signs of autism. Take that as you will. 2) The pediatrician we chose has a sign in their lobby stating that they vaccinate according to a schedule for public health reasons. They will spread the timeline out if there’s a good reason, but otherwise, they’ll be happy to refer you to another pediatrician if you don’t want to vaccinate your child.

Depressing.

P
V

“Even 85% is within the herd immunity zone for measles.”

Actually, it isn’t. The R0 (number of new infections from a single case in a susceptible population) for measles is 15-20, meaning that you want immunity to be at 95% or higher to sustainably eliminate measles infection (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17981635). (Although the precise R0 will vary based on parameters like population density etc., the common goals – >95% with at least one dose, >90% with two – reflect this). We can expect to carry on seeing measles outbreaks here in the UK at the current level of immunisation.

So.. Denmark bans MMR sooner, according to your quote. You know MMR doesn’t cause autism, also according to your quote. Yet you’re bringing it up as if it’s important? I could bring up average temperatures in Denmark compared to the US, note the difference in autism rates, then say “I know it’s not in the temperature”, and have the exact same result as your statement here.

@Gordon – Well, he went with an extreme and graphic comparison, but yeah, I think his point is valid. Letting children die so that the unvaccinated carriers (or their parents) can be sued is more than a little callous.

Personally, I’d like to know a bit more about that situation. The article you linked to does not provide much in the way of details. Was it every HepB vaccine in the country? Only a certain lot? Are there other factors involved? What was the infrastructure like for testing of vaccine batches prior to distribution? Also, my guess is that this is probably a rather rare occurrence and not a simple matter of condemning vaccination programs in general.

Bottom line: governments should do their due diligence to ensure that the vaccines that are released are as safe as possible for the populace. If there is an incident of a bad batch, pull unused doses and compensate anyone who has been injured by the bad batch, certainly, but also understand that, frightening though a bad batch may be, is should not deter people from taking appropriate measures to protect their health, their children’s health and the health of their community.

They have the need to and should be allowed to infect, maim and kill others? Finding a fault with one manufacturer does not invalidate the concept that herd immunity benefits all.

No, that wasn’t like saying that at all. Seriously, were you completely high when you typed this?

If there is no causative agent then the correlation isn’t terribly informative is it? It could very well be two independent events that merely appear together but have no common link. Given that autism affects about 1 in 160 children and 85% of kids are vaccinated and symptoms usually become apparent around the time of certain vaccines (MMR etc) of course there will be ‘correlations’ between kids who have autism AND were vaccinated prior to showing symptoms. It’s almost certainly just overlapping statistics.

Interestingly enough there appears to be increasing evidence that autism (or at least some forms of autism) are actually copy number variations on genes associated with social cognition and brain development/ programmed cell death which can potentially account for the wide spectrum of disorders. Also, there are recognisable differences in the brains of children with autism and unaffected children from birth, the effects of autism just aren’t usually apparent until about 2 years or so depending on the severity.

The Dutch Health Council which is totally independent of govenrnment, big pharma or any other special interest has once again confirmed this finding in an extensive study in 2007.

The “yet I still believe” of Jason and the misleading figures of Science News – Facebook point to a very worrisome and widespread tendency to find something or someone to blame in the face of evidence to the contrary. Please put blame where blame is due. If not one plays into the hands of big pharma and others who wilfully deceive the public.

I’m not quite as cavalier as @VinceRN about immune compromised children not belonging in school ever; I think some people may rationally accept high medical risks in return for brief social normalcy, and the situation for a severely ill child should be left up to child, parent and doctor.

I’ve heard a similar version of that story. In my version there was a flood and the man was sitting on his roof watching the water rising. He passes up the opportunity to be rescued by two boats and a helicopter in this version, saying “God will save me”. Eventually drowns when the flood covers his house. When he meets god, he says “I sent you two boats and a helicopter”.

The best bit: I first heard it as a joke told to me by a Catholic priest.

Adam Jacobs, the study you refered to above only compared rates of autism for those who recieved and did not recievce the MMR vaccine.

What comment number are you responding to? And which paper did this person reference. I have gone up and looked at the first ten comments and I can neither find “Adam Jacobs” nor a reference to any paper.

Science News:

Did you also notice that according to the numbers they provided that the rate of autism in Denmark is about 1:10 that of ours? Denmark banned thimerosal in vaccines in 1992 (I know it’s not in the MMR).

Using which version of the DSM? It changed in 1994. And there is a Danish study on the difference before and after the removal of thimerosal, it is about the same as what happend in the USA after 1999:
“Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism: Negative Ecological Evidence from Danish Population-Based Data”, PMID 12949291

I like the one about the guy who prays every day that God should let him win the lottery this week. After a year, he still hasn’t won. After his next prayer, a voice booms down from the heavens: “Maybe you should buy a ticket!”