New British Study Shows No Relationship Between MMR Vaccine and Autism; What's Your Take?
There is no evidence for a link between the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) jab and autism.... MMR has been linked to the development of autism, following the publication in 1998 of research on 12 children, which has since been discredited.The study compared 250 children born in 1990 or 1991. 98 of the children had an autism spectrum disorder: 52 had special educational needs, but no evidence of autism spectrum disorders; and 90 were developing normally. According to the press release,
All the children had been vaccinated against MMR, but not all of them had been given both doses.As of today, the actual study, Measles vaccination and antibody response in autism spectrum disorders is available online. Here is the abstract as it is presented in the paper itself:Blood samples were taken, to check for the presence of persistent measles infection, or an abnormal immune response, indicated by circulating measles virus or increased antibody levels.
Results of the blood sample analysis showed that there was no difference in circulating measles virus or antibody levels between the two groups of children.
This finding was not affected by whether or not the child had received both MMR doses or whether or not they had regression.
Furthermore, there was no evidence of bowel symptoms (enterocolitis) among the autistic children, irrespective of whether or not they had regression.
Children who were autistic and those with special educational needs were less likely to receive the second dose of MMR, possibly reflecting parental concern about vaccination following the diagnosis of a developmental abnormality.
The authors point out that theirs is now the third, and largest, study that has failed to show a link between the MMR jab and autism.
ABSTRACTOnce again, I am guessing that those who support an MMR/autism connection will not be impressed.Objective: To test the hypothesis that measles vaccination was involved in the pathogenesis of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as evidenced by signs of a persistent measles infection or abnormally persistent immune response shown by circulating measles virus or raised antibody titres in children with ASD who had been vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) compared with controls.
Design: Case–control study, community based. Methods: A community sample of vaccinated children aged 10–12 years in the UK with ASD (n=98) and two control groups of similar age, one with special educational needs but no ASD (n=52) and one typically developing group (n=90), were tested for measles virus and antibody response to measles in the serum.
Results: No difference was found between cases and controls for measles antibody response. There was no dose–response relationship between autism symptoms and antibody concentrations. Measles virus nucleic acid was amplified by reverse transcriptase-PCR in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from one patient with autism and two typically developing children. There was no evidence of a differential response to measles virus or the measles component of the MMR in children with ASD, with or without regression, and controls who had either one or two doses of MMR. Only one child from the control group had clinical symptoms of possible enterocolitis.
Conclusion: No association between measles vaccination and ASD was shown.
Most people would, of course, agree, that the MMR does not cause autism in most children - or most children would be autistic. But many parents of children with autism say that their child's regression occured, quite literally, within hours of the MMR injection.
The question in many parents minds, then, remains: are some children predisposed to be more sensitive to the MMR than others? If so, is it the case that some children develop autistic symptoms as the result of the injection?
While this possibility does remain open, the study seems to address, head-on, the actual process by which Wakefield and others claim the MMR causes autism. The study specifically notes that measles virus was not circulating in the bloodstream after the injection, and that only one of the children with autism showed any bowel or gastrointestinal problem (compared to two children in the control groups).
So... where does this new study leave you? Still unconvinced? Wavering? Or now certain that there's no connection whatever between the MMR vaccine and autism?
Comments
I’ve never been convinced of the link between vaccines and autism, specifically because there are still young children who are being diagnosed- well after thermerisol (sp?) was removed from vaccines. That being said, I’m wondering if some children have something like an allergic reaction to the vaccine itself, and that reaction LOOKS like autism. That would explain the immediate regression after the shot that some parents report. Of course, I’m not a doctor or any kind of expert, I’m just speculating. My own boy with pdd was different from day one (I’m convinced his asd is genetic- other family members are touched), no changes for better or worse after injections, so I have no experience with any regression. I wonder what percentage of autistics were the regressive type as opposed to non-regressive?
The issue with Autism and the MMR is not Thimerasol…although that is a common point of confusion…the concern with the MMR is the fact that they are injecting your youngster with three LIVE viruses in one immunization. And that just might be too much for the immune systems of autism pre-disposed children too handle.
This study convinces me of nothing. Obviously, there is a gentic factor to ASD and if the MMR is a possible trigger that turns on the gene in the DNA of these youngsters…why won’t they study that. The Govt and the CDC have been saying for years that there’s no link between the MMR and autism, but I don’t buy it. My 9 year old is NT but with Autistic Tendencies, and my 3 year old is on the more highly functioning end of the spectrum. Both were fine prior to their MMRs…unfortunately what we’ve discovered after my son was diagnosed, and something we didn’t really think about at the time was that at his 12m visit he received 2 shots of antibiotics for chronic ear infections, a couple of blood tests (no big deal) …but this is what gets me and where I think things turned for Sam…They also gave him his MMR, the Varicella vaccine, and a Flu Shot. All on the same day, to an infant who had been premature and was fighting ear infections and trying to “catch up” as it is.
The Govt and the CDC loves to throw around the fact that Thimerasol hadn’t been in the vaccines since 2002, but they fail to tell people it IS still around and its in Flu Shots – the same Flu shots they reccommend for all pregnant women, premature babies and children under a certain age. BUt I digress! This thread is about the MMR (hence the confusion!)
So, my infant , whose immune system was already compromised, received 4 different live viruses and Thimerasol…all in the same day. And they will never convince me that this is not at least part of the reason my son has Autism. I truly believe it is the environmental trigger that turned on what ever was inherited genetically.
Now I know nothing can really change the course of Sam’s life now, and I truly accept him as he is…intelligent, loving, gentle and the JOY of my life. But if our Govt would drop their “CYA” policy and actually have an independent third party do some investigating – not the CDC and not the pharmaceautical companies – maybe we might get some real answers and maybe they will stop this “One siz fits all” attitude toward the Immunization Schedules.
There are some classic logical fallacies in this study, as well as some outright problems that seem to be more than just oversights. Logic really should be a required course in medicine (and for anyone, for that matter).
- Just because the responses that the study looked for, nine years after the immunizations (a persistent measles infection, an abnormally persistent immune response, circulating virus in the bloodstream, etc.), either didn’t show up, or didn’t show up any more or less often than in kids without autism, doesn’t automatically mean those symptoms are “supposed” to show up if an immunization has triggered autism. They seem to use this as a yardstick (or a straw man), based on prior studies which claimed a link, to see if those prior studies had anything to them. But just because this study’s measurements were supposedly done more “properly” than the previous studies, and/or measured for things they thought might be better indicators, and didn’t find a real difference in the measurements between autistic and non-autistic kids, it doesn’t mean that what they measured for has any meaning in the first place. Autism is a brain thing–not measuring anything abnormal in the bloodstream outside the brain, especially years after the immunization, is not proof that something destructive didn’t happen inside the brain, soon after the immunizations. Did the study draw cerebrospinal fluid and test it? Did it do any MRIs, CAT scans, etc. on the kids’ brains, before, during, and after the immunizations, to see if that might show a cause and effect? No, because they did their tests only years afterwards, and on nothing inside the brain too.
- Again, primarily, many parents say the damage was done when their kids received immunizations as babies, and/or when just a few years old–many say their kids began behaving completely differently very soon after these early immunizations, often just a couple hours later, constantly screaming, crying, etc., and then no longer communicating, so presumably this is when the damage is done, and this is when measurements need to be made–not nine years later, when the kids are 10 to 12. What’s that all about? Parents report their kids developed autism immediately after vaccinations they received as babies or only a few years old, and then a “study” is released in which measurements are taken years later, to see if the kids still have any signs of abnormal reactions to vaccinations long after they’ve gone through several years of development?
Early in the article, is the statement that in another group’s earlier study, a majority (75 of 91) of kids with autism (presumably some years after the immunizations, but they don’t bother to say), were found to have “raised concentrations of measles antibodies…in intestinal samples”, as opposed to only 5 out of 70 kids without autism. But the article then expresses skepticism about the meaning of this finding. Then the article goes on to report its methodology: measure for raised concentrations of measles antibodies in kids years after immunization. So they test for the same thing, again years after the immunizations, that they just expressed skepticism about. This is their convenient straw man measurement. They find what they call no significant differences in what they measure, between the kids with autism and those without, and imply this means the immunizations probably didn’t cause any of the cases of autism. They still use the usual phrases to describe the meaning of their study, such as “failed to show any association”, and “there is no evidence for a link”, and though both conclusions are true for purposes of this particular study, all it means is they technically have an out if some other study shows there IS a connection between immunizations and autism. But they make clear that they’re trying to say there is no connection.
In the article’s discussion/conclusions section, they mention another study by a D’Souza, in which measurements were done of kids 26-30 months after vaccination, and says that study, as well as the one that’s the subject of the article, which did its measurements about nine years after the kids were immunized, had similar findings. All this really shows, is that some time after immunization (at least about two years, and possibly less time, as far as we know), measurements of measles antibodies in kids with and without autism, are similar. Why are they dead-set to convince people that this finding implies that the immunizations probably didn’t cause many of the cases of autism? There’s no logical connection.
A classic reaction to viruses, is inflammation. Inflame a developing brain badly enough, in the right way, and you get a brain-damaged kid. But the kid’s immune system still eventually removes or controls the virus in the process, so that the kid’s measurements for viral remainders, settles down so that it resembles that of a kid whose brain didn’t develop the same inflammation, or which handled the inflammation just better enough so it didn’t cause brain damage–all it takes is a tiny edge, a little extra protection, and a baby’s brain won’t become damaged due to inflammation, or not enough to show as autism. If one doesn’t understand this, it skews the whole meaning of any measurements.
The study wasn’t designed to detect a connection between immunizations and autism, so it didn’t.
The people who did this study are either stupid, or deliberate. I can’t see a third alternative, unless it’s both.