Ex-NIH Chief Has a Suprising Perspective on the Autism/Vaccines Issue
Wednesday May 14, 2008
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Healy went on to say that many in the scientific world have been quick to dismiss the concerns of parents and have not conducted the necessary studies of causation to definitively rule out a vaccine/autism link. Healy’s comments have become a lightning rod in the medical community - with an infectious disease expert with the American Academy of Pediatrics calling CNN twice yesterday to express concern parents will misconstrue Healy’s comments and stop get their kids vaccinated - and that vaccines save lives.In the video, Healy argues that even a relatively tiny number of cases - maybe 1,000 in 1,000,000,000 - of vaccine injury leading to autism certainly merits investigation.Wow. We had to take a moment at the summit, where I reminded the doctor that her comments seemed to fly in the face of most of her former colleagues at the NIH, and the CDC, FDA, and AAP for that matter. She is sticking to her guns, as is the neurologist father of Hannah Poling, who believes when the vaccine court awarded his daughter Hannah compensation, it was a milestone in this debate. Neither are anti-vaccine, and both are arguably legitimate scientists
What's your take on Healy's stand? Is she muddying the waters further? Or providing some much-needed clarity in a world of uncertainty?
Comments
She is neither muddying the waters nor providing any clarity. She is simply expressing the same concerns many many parents have over the years.
The vaccine schedule, it’s delivery methods, timing, and underlying components (including additives and preservatives) have not been well studied and need to be. And not just with epidemiological approaches. This is risk management 101.
I personally believe that the flawed structure of dual safety and promotion missions the CDC and closely related agencies caused complacency and an overreliance on industry self-regulation to become standard operating procedure. The supposed watchdog got fat and lazy.
I think Dr. Healy recognizes this gap in safety (and increase in possible risk) and wants the work done that should have been done all along. Before all the “antivax” spinners arrive, please recall that Dr.’s Healy, Poling, and many many more in the parent community(like me) support vaccines as an important public health tool. But with any tool, unless you understand how it operates in all circumstances, you can hurt yourself trying to use it.
Dadvocate, there exist more than sufficient data to look for correlations between vaccinations and autism. You can take a sample of the child autistic population, ask for their shot records, and compare that to similar non-autistic populations. Further, you can compare a sample of our general population to a sample from another population in the world where most vaccines are unlikely. Nobody can find a correlation that stands up to any rigor.
Considering the climate of the anti-vaccination crowd, it does seem (to me in any case) that she makes the situation worse.
I really don’t pretend to know what someone else thinks but it would seem to me that Healy could simply be expressing something somewhat subtle. I would assume that she knows the fact of all epidemiology: You can’t completely rule out a hypothesis. Only provide evidence toward or against it. If so then ‘rule out’ is being used in a different context. Just like ‘proof’ often is. Most people do not use ‘proof’ in it’s objective context like a mathematician does. They mean ’sufficient evidence for me to believe’ and clearly that differs from person to person.
When you lay out and rank the studies (based on criteria like sample size and methodology) there is little in the way of evidence that supports the idea of a causative link between immunization and autism spectrum disorders.
However clearly this doesn’t meet a number of people’s threshold of evidence. It seems plausible to me that a scientist may think there needs to be more study to better convince the public and that would seem a even more plausible position if that scientist held an office in a government agency.
When someone with her credentials says something like this, it gets my attention. Very interesting.
I completely agree with Dadvocate about Healy’s probable intentions - and about their legitimacy.
BUT.
Given the very high level of emotion and the kind of stakes involved, I wonder whether this was the right time for Healy to jump in.
I don’t mean to overplay this particular set of hearings, but already there seems to be a measurable decline in vaccine use. It worries me that we are so very far away from knowing who, if anyone, is likely to be negatively impacted by vaccines… as a result, parents reasonably choose to avoid potential risk - and in so doing, may be taking on even greater risk…
Lisa (autism guide)
It’s interesting that Healey has come to the defense of vitamins in light of a recent meta-study which suggested that they might pose some risks. She’s not really that concerned about those risks, apparently, but she is concerned about the theoretical risks of vaccines. She has also criticized evidence-based medicine. That kind of gives you a feel of where she’s coming from.
Interesting that people say things like “someone with her credentials…”
Sure she went to Harvard and graduated “cum laude” but all of her post-degree work was in cardiology. She’s hardly an epidemiologist and as a professor of medicine it’s even possible that she did very little in the way of research. From the point of being a dean onward she was likely doing far more administrative (and later political) work than actual science.
What Dr. Healy actually suggested is that a study be done of the children who are presenting with autism where the parents think the vaccines was the cause. This study hasn’t been done. It seems like an obvious approach.
The studies done so far have avoided looking at the actual children. Imagine a cluster of brain cancer cases in one office building in a city. The CDC is notified and proceeds to do a study in several other cities. They do look at office workers, and their conclusion is that office workers are not at excess risk for brain cancer.
Dr. Healy’s suggestion is perfectly valid.
I continue to be amazed at all the people who are so certain that all the necessary research has already been done and that no additional research is needed. The most BASIC research has NOT been done. I realize that many of the people commenting on this subject are just regular parents with little or no understanding of science, but if you’re going to comment on this subject, please spend at least a few weeks thoroughly reading the literature and getting some foundation in this type of research. Your ignorance, in light of the comments you make, is utterly appalling (not to mention EMBARRASSING. I guess this is but another example of how our educationa system is failing and what the consequences are.)
Liss, I’m not sure why you feel that commenters on this blog are required to do weeks of research before stating a point of view. So far as I, at least, am concerned, people are welcome to present their thoughts here with and/or without prior research credentials - provided they’re not abusive to others!
Clearly there is plenty of room for legitimate disagreement on this particular issue (vaccines and autism) no matter how carefully you research.
Lisa (autism guide)
Bernandine - you go girl!!!
Dr Healy is or was a director of NIH
As such she will be privvy to data that the world had not publicly seen.
If she can link autism to vaccines this late in the day after so many have absolutely denied any link then we may be witnessing some sort of softening up process before we are all told that, yes, over and early vaccination can cause health problems.
Link this to other influential people in places that denied harm in most cases such as the vaccine board and you are getting a cohesive uniform change of view
And all I can say is:
About time too!
The worlds most toxic non radioactive element has no place in our 2008 vaccines and at present some have mercury at levels that destroy brain cells when diluted evenly in the childs body.
The problem is that mercury is not randomly diluted but preferetnially directed to our brains.
Why do people always knock other people.
The worlds biggest idiot can say 2 plus 2 is four and they may be right.
The biggest mathematical brain can say 2 plus 2 does not always equal four and he may be right too.
But for the man in the street or the one day old baby do we have to give them vaccines that may destroy health according to idiots and may not destroy health according to the worlds best vaccine experts?
Dr. Healey’s comments seem reasonable and measured and were not stated in a sensationalist tone.
She is advocating more research. If some parents over-react by not vaccinating their kids at all, that is no reason to stifle the debate.
Funny how the “medical establishment” wants any discussion of vaccines to be “off-limits”. They say vaccines are the single greatest health- and life-saving innovation in the history of medicine.
Great!
‘Doesn’t mean more is always better. Why are we vaccinating for Hep-B or rotavirus? Why are we vaccinating against chickenpox? The varicella vaccine is turning a mild childhood illness into a life-threatening adult illness.
Why is it controversial to simply take a look at the effects of vaccine agents, additives, and preservatives?
For good reason immunizations are near the top of the list of suspects in the autism puzzle. They bypass the body’s natural barriers and defenses. They contain excipients to unnaturally heighten the immune response. Safety research is done on vaccines individually, but they are administered in combinations. Precious little research has been done on synergistic effects or cumulative effects of so many vaccines on such immature immune systems. It is not far-fetched to think that vaccines could be *A* cause or *THE* cause of autism. Particularly because the symptoms of Autism seem so overlain with metabolic and immunological issues (eczema, allergies and asthma, GI problems, ear infections, etc.)
Curious, John (not John Fryer), why you try to discredit Dr. Healey by noting that she’s a cardiologist-turned-administrator, rather than an epidemiologist. I’m not clear why an epidemiologist is any more qualified. The “thing” which triggers or manifests itself as autism is probably metabolic and immunological. Sure, an epidemiologist might be helpful in looking for patterns and clusters of autism, but I don’t think he/she would have any better grasp of the etiology of autism. Moreover, epidemiologists tend to have strong pro-vaccine biases.
-Bob
p.s. FYI, I have a 27-m.o. son with regressive autism, onset at 18mos. 24 hours after a series of vaccines. (Lost speech, lost eye contact, etc. at 18 mos). He hasn’t had a vaccine since the 18-mo series, and is now making steady progress. 6 m.o. son on modified vaccine schedule. He gets the important ones, but we leave out all the unnecessary shots; and he only gets one dose per month. So far, so good.
What Dr. Healy actually suggested is that a study be done of the children who are presenting with autism where the parents think the vaccines was (sic) the cause. This study hasn’t been done. It seems like an obvious approach.
Several studies have looked at children who supposedly “regressed” following vaccinations, and found the children showed autistic symptoms well before the parents first remembered them. Do those studies count?
FYI - 1,000 in one billion is the same as one in a million.
I also completely agree with Dadadvocate. I’m a mother of an autistic adult and a research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. We need to do the scientific studies and see what the data tells us.