In this difficult and complex situation, pediatricians are doing their best. Based on their knowledge and understanding, they are working hard to ensure that parents trust in the safety and efficacy of vaccines - and in the trustworthiness of pediatricians as a group. Here's how R. Douglas Schultz, M.D., chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at Shannon Medical Center, put it in today's Chicago Tribune:
Pediatricians want to make sure that parents do not rely on incorrect or incomplete information about the safety of vaccines when deciding to get vaccines.Schultz goes on to "debunk" various theories about how vaccines might cause autism, and concludes by saying, "Again, we understand the fear of parents and want to try to provide the best information available for you to make an informed decision."Thanks to vaccines, children have less to fear from bacterial meningitis, pneumonia, measles, whooping cough, polio, and many other infections that killed or crippled many children in the past. These infections can make a return if we are complacent.
Vaccines go through rigorous safety tests and after approval they are monitored closely for rare side effects and adjusted whenever there is a need.
Mothers have put a huge trust in us when they hand us their baby to give the vaccines. We must understand that it was easy in the past when diseases were more common, but it is harder now when the threat of infection does not seem so great.
I have no doubt that Dr. Schultz is intending to do his level best by both parents and children. But here's the problem: he says nothing whatever about autism, its causes, its prevention, its treatment, or its cure.
Dr. Schultz is by no means alone - in fact, he's in excellent company. We ourselves went to one of the top developmental pediatricians in the United States to confirm our son's diagnosis of autism, and by golly we received our confirmation. Period. We walked out of that very highly respected pediatrian's office with the advice to place our son in a small classroom, and to check out a particular website which offered a range of information about high functioning autism and Asperger syndrome.
In fact, like almost all parents who walk away from a medical doctor with an autism diagnosis, we were on our own. It was up to us to "do our research," and then make decisions based not on the scientific knowledge of our medical professional but on whatever we could find, read, and make sense of.
If pediatricians and pediatric professionals in general expect parents to take their advice when it comes to autism, it seems to me that it's their obligation not only to admonish but also to provide necessary resources for action. If our child is developing oddly, it's up to our pediatricians to recommend next steps for evaluation AND action. If our child is diagnosed with autism, it's our pediatrician's job to recommend what they consider to be appropriate treatments - and then to guide us toward practitioners who can provide those treatments at a reasonable rate and in a timely manner. If we're concerned about a second child's risk of autism, it's our pediatrician's job not only to reassure us but also to present us with options that might - just possibly - prevent disease while ALSO lowering risk of vaccine damage.
I don't doubt the good faith of the medical profession. But good faith and a medical degree are no longer enough. Perhaps we need the old fashioned kind of doctor once again - the kind who knows us, understands our situation, and can help us along the road to wellness. Lectures on the safety of vaccines and the trustworthiness of the medical profession to dose us just won't cut it anymore!
Autism is simply a term from the psychiatric DSM-IV manual. It’s nothing but a smokescreen. It provides an alibi for the drug companies who added mercury to vaccines at levels 250 times higher than hazardous waste levels (based on toxicity characteristics). It provides an alibi for the CDC, FDA, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the other drug company cronies who are responsible for the safety of our children. It provides an alibi for the people who administered this poison. It provides an alibi for health insurance companies so they don’t have to pay for treatment for these sick kids. It provides an alibi for psychiatrists so they can force powerfull anti-psychotic drugs on these kids who are already terribly confused.
There will never be an identifiable cause for autism. There are though 11 published papers which identify the underlying medical condition of autism as neuroinflammatory disease. My favorite is “Neuroglial activation and Neuroinflammation in the Brain of Patients with Autism”. This was published by John Hopkins University. Now, do you want to debate whether mercury, a known neurotoxin, added to childhood vaccines at levels 250 times higher than what the EPA identifies as hazardous waste, causes neuroinflammatory disease? Do you want to debate whether brain damaged kids behave in a way so that some psychiatrist can label them as somewhere on the “spectrum”?
Here’s the problem: we still don’t know for sure what causes autism and children still respond differently to the myriad of treatments available. I agree that most pediatricians need to catch up on their autism knowledge, but usually the developmental pediatrician or psychologist should be able to refer the families to the local agencies that provide early intervention and other autism services. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait at least a few years until we get a better understanding of this condition so parents will be able to rely more on the advice of doctors and other specialists. At this point, it’s like my husband says, the “experts” seem like a bunch of amateurs. We are all scrambling to figure out what’s going on with our kids and what will work better on his/her specific situation.
Lisa –
I think you touch on an important point. The AAP and other public health advocates treat any questioning of policies and procedures by parents or advocates dismissively, respond with lectures, and appear incurious about autism, a disorder now affecting 1 in 150 kids in the U.S. This attitude inflames many in the autism community and is counterproductive to promoting public health.
Perhaps one can chalk it up to the historical guild mentality in medicine: physicians on pedestals, and little, if any, information shared or put in the hands of patients.
Things have changed over the past few decades and I think your desire to return to the old fashioned way will never take place. There have been some “game changers”: the internet and “patients” who have been recast by insurance companies and policy makers into “consumers”. As consumers, we are told to ask questions and demand top service for our health care dollars. Pediatricians especially, the vanguard of preventitive health care, had better get used to the new world of spending more time per appointment answering patient questions, including those about vaccine safety.
I think the current well coordinated PR campaign on immunizations will likely fail to increase uptake rates because it reverts to the “we know best” and “trust us” (if not bludgeoning) approach that won’t work anymore. The toothpaste is out of the tube.
The next step, when this campaign inevitably peters out, is already in the works in many State Legislatures. It’s codifying mandatory immunization and removing the concept of informed consent from the equation altogether.
A better approach in my view would be to dramatically beef up immunization safety with bigger budgets for research and pre-launch testing, more transparency, less industry influence, and a whole lot more accountablility.
You are certain your child was not vaccine damaged, but for many parents (like me) with children in the “regressive”, as opposed to the “Asperger” subtype, we do not share your confidence. Finally, for many parents and patients not affected by autism, possible deaths related to the fast-tracked recommendation of Gardasil for pre-teens underscores the idea that we have a public health system in need of a big overhaul as it relates to vaccine safety.
The CDC and NIH should separate the vaccine promotion and safety functions as a first step. A strong, independent watchdog over ALL vaccines is overdue.
The problem is there are no effective treatments, no easy answers no matter how much parents want them for their kids. Autism is most likely a wastebasket term for a variety of developmental neurologic conditions. This is why multiple genes have been found in the etiology of autism. Certainly research needs to be done to find effective treatments and even a cure but the problems are rather formidable. In the meantime, the sad truth is that not a whole lot can be done. However, some kids to recover to a great extent so all hope is not lost.
Funny – they remind me of the Skeptics’ Society. Those guys who say ‘We don’t know how x, y or z happens or even why, but we do know for a fact that it is not God because God doesn’t exist’.
So here we are told to content ourselves with ‘We don’t know how autism happens or even why, but we do know for a fact that it is not vaccines because vaccines save lives so they can only be good!’
Gee, reassurance like that trumps all the other stuff (”Who you gonna believe – me or your own eyes?”)
How can intelligent people not know the cause of autism? I have known for decades. The brain development is a genetic thing as is the complete development of the whole person. Mutant genes are the culprits, spurred (a Texas word) on by the synthetic chemical disrupters. “Normal development” results from a combination of normal cells and natural chemicals that regulate the turning on and off of specific genes, allowing appropriate development. The autism explosion is a result of decades of living with environmental pollutants, by far the worst inside our homes. If you people are paying attention, and still with me, lately the news has been hinting at different things that “could” cause a problem. They may never tell you the truth simply because the biggest television advertisers are the people that are marketing these deadly household products.
Any questions now??
keithwren@ourlifeline.net
is the mud bath a good thing to bath an autism child in
Yes, as long as you leave out the mud.
Our pediatrician is the head of vaccines for the group of clinics. He vaccinated my son as an infant who was diagnosed with ASD in May 2007 at age 4. He also told me my daughter didn’t have leukemia when I said, “I think my daughter has leukemia.” Parents are caught somewhere in the knowledge gap between let’s say my intuition, she has leukemia, and lack of research, say..do vaccines cause autism. I love our oncologist and my NEW pediatrician.
“Ask your Doctor” LOL
As a parent of 4 “differently-wired bears”, 2 on the autism spectrum, I am often asked if I think vaccines caused my children’s conditions. The short answer is “no” – I don’t vaccinate. I discontinued vaccinations after my eldest child had severe reactions to her first round of vaccines…ones received on her 1st birthday, postponed until that time after discussion with her pediatrician – an “old-tyme country doctor” who’d been practicing for 30 years and respected the intuition, intelligence, and “front-line” knowledge of his parents. It is semantics that often inflames and gets in the way of making any progress in the vaccine debate. Are vaccines the CAUSE? Highly doubtful according to the scientific evidence put forth by the medical communicty. Are they the TRIGGER? Quite possibly if ALL the evidence (including antecdotal) is examined, particularly for those persons who are genetically pre-disposed to environmental insult in the first place. A vaccine introduced into an already-taxed immune system can be the proverbial straw on the camel’s back. It has not been adequately – or unbiasedly – studied. However, until the medical community, and research science as a whole, is willing to step down off the pedestals they have placed themselves on and understand the only difference between an educated parent and themselves is what the chose as their career path, there can be no real examination of the antecdotal evidence or unbiased scientific studies. And, unfortunatly, as long as medicine is “big business” and not the service industry it SHOULD be, that will never happen, particularly not with such lucrative cash cows as vaccines and many prescribed drugs have become.
Well said. Pediatricians are very quick to tell you vaccines don’t contribute to Autism, but then they can’t tell you what does or the best way to treat it. I’ve been on this journey now for 2 years and I’ve learned to listen to the parents who’ve been in my shoes more than anyone else!
It bugs me when people say we parents can’t be objective in determining whether diet, or supplements, or therapy is working for our children, and that those results shouldn’t count. We are the most OBJECTIVE people; WE are the ones who said, “Hey, there’s something wrong with my kid,” in the first place!
I know the vaccines were too much for my son’s immune system. After his MMR, he got sick, had trench mouth, diarrhea – it was awful – the shots were too much, his body was overwhelmed and couldn’t fight the everyday germs. It was a few months later that I realized the true extent of the damage. He had no eye contact and spun wheels all day long. But it was damage that was reversible.
I began healing his immune system with diet, supplements, yes we’ve done chelation and he is now a very normal child. He only has a speech delay now.
We need to vaccinate more carefully. I am PRO-VACCINE. Vaccines save lives! But why can’t we space these out; why all 36 by the time their 15 months old? That’s A LOT for a little body to take!
Why is a brand new birthed baby, who’s just had the most traumatic day of his life, who is learning how to breathe for the first time, who is so overwhelmed with new senses that he can do nothing but sleep – why do we inject him with Hepatitis on his first day of life?! It’s insanity.
Vaccinate, but do it safely.
Dadvocate — brilliant. You hit the nail on the head; perfectly stated.
And, Lisa, you also nailed it here:
If pediatricians and pediatric professionals in general expect parents to take their advice when it comes to autism, it seems to me that it’s their obligation not only to admonish but also to provide necessary resources for action.
In my experience — I have known a LOT of doctors in the Air Force and as a practicing attorney. I think the medical profession now mostly consists of relatively smart men and women who were able to pass calculus, microbiology, and organic chemistry, and who want to earn a comfortable living and enjoy the prestige of being called “doctor”.
They are not “medical scientists” seeking truth or researching cures. They run “patient-mill” practices; churning through 10+ patients-per-hour, bill insurance $200-per-visit; then the insurance company knocks it down to $60-per-visit… etc. That is their focus. Earaches and runny noses.
Doctors take the minimum number of CME courses each year to meet the licensing requirements of their State Board of Medical Examiners, but most do not really delve any deeper than that.
Thus, their knowledge is essentially stagnant – reflecting the “state of the art” on the day they graduated from Med School. If a doctor graduated 12 years ago or more, he/she is likely to view “Autism” as a product of “refrigerator mothers”.
Even now, Med Schools are barely starting to teach that autism is a medical / neuro-developmental condition (rather than a psychiatric condition).
Doctors are also fed a steady diet of pro-vaccine info from the American Academy of Pediatric Medicine, CDC, NIH, etc.
So the net result is that doctors: (1) assume that parents know less than the doctor knows about everything; (2) that anything the parent thinks she knows is probably from “the internet” and parents lack the scientific reasoning understanding necessary to separate hokus-pokus from real medicine; and, (3) doctors believe there has been conclusive *disproof* of any vaccine-autism connection or antibiotic-autism connection, so they roll their eyes at any parent who asks about a “modified vaccine schedule”.
Lisa — you are totally right — these doctors do NOT see themselves as the “interface” between newly-diagnosed PDD patients and available resources. They just address the surface issue — whether your child has “autism”. Then they have to run ahead because the next patient is waiting in the next exam room.
The point is, Doctors should be prepared to hand out a brochure or something that has contact numbers for State Early Intervention programs, Autism support and information groups, they should have at least a rudimentary understanding of ABA therapy, etc.
Parents are simply patted on the head; “informed”/”reassured” that vaccines didn’t cause it, and sent on their way (after they have paid their co-pay).
As Dadvocate says, they (doctors) lack intellectual curiosity. But they DO NOT lack intellectual arrogance. If it something cannot be treated with “rest”, “fluids”, or “Amoxycilin”, then doctors typically don’t have anything to offer.
A recent analogy from a doctor visit I had a couple of weeks ago. I have been having asthma symptoms and hoarseness. My doctor had just come back from a CME on “vocal chord dysfunction” (VCD) which dealt with how some “asthma” cases are really VCD. So he just went on and on about how he suspected I may have VCD. Well, I went to the Internet and found out that VCD will be evidenced by wheezing on inhalation, whereas my wheezing occurs only upon exhalation. He said, “Oh, you’re right about that. But I still think it’s probably VCD.”
He had just gone to a conference on VCD and was “shopping” his patients, trying to find his “first case”. He wanted it so badly that he ignored a symptom in the differential in order to keep it in play.
Doctors are just people – not gods. They are people who are a little more educated than average — and a lot more arrogant than average. They don’t spend hours and hours studying autism’s symptoms, etiology, treatments, etc. Parents do!
This creates a situation where – I sincerely believe – the average parent knows more information about Autism symptoms, treatments, causes, etc., than does the average doctor.
Until the cause(s) of autism is(are) determined, doctors should not be so quick to dismiss vaccines or anything else as a suspect.
…And if they are in the practice of medicine to help patients rather than to drive a Lexus, then they ought to be prepared with information and resources for parents of autistic kids.
Kathryn says:
Kathryn said… Pediatricians are very quick to tell you vaccines don’t contribute to Autism, but then they can’t tell you what does or the best way to treat it. I’ve been on this journey now for 2 years and I’ve learned to listen to the parents who’ve been in my shoes more than anyone else!
Didn’t you pay attention to my post above???
My grandson is autistic and legally blind. Getting the caustic home products out of his life gave him a lot of peace and he improved in many ways. If you know anything about Autism, you know what I mean by peace. I know many people that took that direction for their family and regardless of their health condition, they were better.
In case you missed it, here it is again.
How can intelligent people not know the cause of autism? I have known for decades. The brain development is a genetic thing as is the complete development of the whole person. Mutant genes are the culprits, spurred (a Texas word) on by the synthetic chemical disrupters. “Normal development” results from a combination of normal cells and natural chemicals that regulate the turning on and off of specific genes, allowing appropriate development. The autism explosion is a result of decades of living with environmental pollutants, by far the worst inside our homes. If you people are paying attention, and still with me, lately the news has been hinting at different things that “could” cause a problem. They may never tell you the truth simply because the biggest television advertisers are the people that are marketing these deadly household products.
keithwren@ourlifeline.net
I simply don’t understand why the medical community is more concerned with the rise of measles than they were about the rise in autism. The articles I read reflected 131 cases of measles ths year compared to 42 last year where autism is at 1 in 150 compared to 1 in 10,000 10 years ago. This shows how much influence pharmaceutical lobbyist really have on the medical community. The medical community needs a wake up call and needs to get their priorties straight.
First of all, the incidence of autism was 4:10,000 in the early 1980s. The diagnostic criteria has undergone three revisions since then, and today includes a spectrum of conditions. Two-thirds of the kids labeled autistic these days are on the higher functioning end of the spectrum, and would have received another label, or no diagnosis at all, 25 years ago. The “autism epidemic” is illusory.
The rise in measles in alarming because it can be directly traced to the anti-vaccine backlash. Measles is the first disease to appar when parents reject vaccines for their children. As vaccination rates drop, the incidence of measles and other dangerous diseases will increase. Better to raise the alarm now than after polio makes a comeback, or diphtheria.
AutismNewsBeat
Oops, I missed the url link to that conclusive study. Could you please re-post?
You seem to have access to some sort of double-secret information that the rest of us would love you to share with us.
Nothing double secret about the studies I am talking about – they are readily accessible on PubMed. I emailed the citations to Lisa few days ago, so maybe she can post them, or better yet, write about them.
I have 4 children. My oldest is Aspergers. I honestly can say we are lucky compared to many. However, I just want to make a little point here. Alex was given the hep b vaccine in the hospital jsut like the docs told us to do. Lo and behold, he becomes jaundiced and had to recieve treatment via bili-lights for several days. I denied this shot to my other three until they were 2 weeks old. NOT ONE of them were even remotely jaundiced. I discussed the vaccine issue with my pediatrician, and he dismissed it as hysterical ravings of uneducated parents. I then asked him about the polio vaccine they pulled a few years back, because it caused polio, or the rotovirus vaccine that killed kids. “They” were touted as safe as can be at the time, and look what happened. I doubt in our particular situation that Alex’s aspergers is caused from vaccines. He is just like my father, whom I am sure has it, and I believe my hubby is inclined to aspergers as well. Still, I don’t think all vaccines are harmless, nor do I think we should stop vaccinating. I think a more careful look into the injection schedule is sorely needed. I will NOT let them give more than 3 shots, ever. And then I try to arranged one for later.
But then, I disagree with the whole “use a condom” speech kids are given.
Condoms have a 15% failure rate. I know, his name is Ethan. But what if it had been Aids that would kill me.
I am tired of the medical community using our kids as guinea pigs.
Thanks, Lorie
Infants are surrounded by billions of bacteria from the moment they are born. The antigens contained in three vaccines are far less than the proverbial drop in a bucket. More like a grain of sand on a beach.