Also, we know that a child that appears to be developing normally but “suddenly” starts showing symptoms is fairly typical. Symptoms do exist before this and a trained professional would probably be able to tell well before the parents could, but few parents take their seemingly normal children to specialists to see if they are autistic.

The unfortunate coincidence here is that the age where obvious symptoms start appearing and the age where we begin vaccine schedules are very similar, thus enabling the now understandably distraught parents to conclude the two are related.

It doesn’t hurt that there’s Oprah and McCarthy and other idiots pushing the idea into parents’ heads in the first place. Can they please start believing that soda and McDonald’s cheeseburgers cause autism so at least then parents will at least be helping their kids out rather than endangering them?

Fortunately personal experience isn’t the way scientific understanding is created. If it were, we’d never be able to find the truth about anything. It is very easy to see mistaken correlations in our own lives. Science is about trying to not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

I suppose I should revise my earlier statement, as there’s a bit more nuance to it and I was working from recall before. Here’s the regulatory language regarding inclusion of adverse reactions/events in drug labeling, from 21 CFR 201.57 (emphasis added):

Adverse reactions . This section must describe the overall adverse reaction profile of the drug based on the entire safety database. For purposes of prescription drug labeling, an adverse reaction is an undesirable effect, reasonably associated with use of a drug, that may occur as part of the pharmacological action of the drug or may be unpredictable in its occurrence. This definition does not include all adverse events observed during use of a drug, only those adverse events for which there is some basis to believe there is a causal relationship between the drug and the occurrence of the adverse event.

Note that it does not specify that there is solid evidence, but enough to make the person(s) responsible for the labeling believe that there might be some causal connection. This could be because of timing, the number of reports to the manufacturer (note that while manufacturers are required to report all AEs of which they become aware to VAERS, not all reports to VAERS have necessarily been made to the manufacturer), some studies that may or may not have been replicated or validated, etc. There is room for manufacturer discretion, then, as to whether or not they list an event that is not conclusively causally connected.

The FDA provides further guidance on this in their guidance “Adverse Reactions Section of Labeling for Human Prescription Drug and Biological Products — Content and Format”. About selecting adverse events to include, they state:

Decisions on whether there is some basis to believe there is a causal
relationship are a matter of judgment and are based on factors such as: (1) the frequency
of reporting, (2) whether the adverse event rate for the drug exceeds the placebo rate, (3)
the extent of dose-response, (4) the extent to which the adverse event is consistent with
the pharmacology of the drug, (5) the timing of the event relative to the time of drug
exposure, (6) existence of challenge and dechallenge experience, and (7) whether the
adverse event is known to be caused by related drugs.

The guidance also provides advice on how and when to update the Adverse Reactions section of the labeling. The Tripedia insert looks to have been last update in 2005, so the adverse reaction section may not have been updated to remove autism, yet. Other package inserts may not have been updated to include autism after all the brouhaha, or there was insufficient cause to include it (e.g., lack of sound scientific evidence to support its inclusion). While I can’t know what Sanofi-Pasteur was thinking when they added it to the list of reported adverse events, my guess is that they felt it was sufficiently plausible that they could get in legal trouble and decided to cover their asses. Merck (maker of the MMR vaccine) apparently did not consider the evidence sufficient to include autism in the list.

Just because some people (and it might only be a handful of people out of millions) report the onset of autism shortly after vaccination does not imply a causal link.

My girlfriend got a chicken pox shot in her 30′s because she never had it as a child. She wanted to work in Neonatal as a NICU nurse so, they required she have the vaccine. 1 year later she develops type 1 diabetes.

Guess what my opinion is of the 84% increase in male autism in the last 20 years?

Manufacturers are required by law to include in the list of “reported adverse events” all adverse events reported to them, whether confirmed to be causally related or not. As Chris2 said, it’s basically CYA language.

why on earth did the Tripedia vaccine package insert have Autism listed under adverse events reported during post-approval

Because their lawyers told them to. It is a cover your rear disclaimer. If you look closely is says “reported adverse reactions.” But they don’t show the numbers, nor if the reports were confirmed.