This morning's blog post on Opposing Views, focused on the issue of vaccines and the present Supreme Court case, included a few real gems that echo many of my own thoughts on the issue. While I don't agree with every statement in the long article, these paragraphs stood out for me:
The presence of vaccination courts accentuates the fact that known damage from vaccination exists. The need to evaluate damage that has transpired from administration of vaccination - according to medically accepted review, made the courts necessary. Vaccinations are comprised of many ingredients, not just thimerosal. Science and the field of medicine acknowledge that, at times, brain damage occurs from vaccination. However, both also acknowledge the lives cost - versus lives saved scenario as justifiable according to their disciplines....
How curious it is that so many experts perceive autism to be a neurological illness, but the vaccine manufacturers can simply say they did not cause autism because medical diagnostics do not yet perceive the exact neurological deficits that contribute to the presentation of autistic features. Medical diagnostics obviously existed for the 1300 cases of vaccine related brain damage that were compensated for in court over the past two decades. Wonder how many of those cases involved children who, in addition to having disorders with known medical cause, also had the label of autism?
The blog post goes on and on, into subjects with which I'm less familiar. But the paragraphs above really do voice many of my own opinions. Here's why:
Vaccines are a specially-protected group of drugs. They're protected because their use is believed to be absolutely essential for the public welfare. The public welfare, in this case, is understood in the classic sense as "the greatest good for the greatest number." Based on this philosophical perspective, a few negative outcomes can be justified if the general public outcome is positive - and in the case of vaccines, there's no doubt that more people are protected from disease than are injured by vaccines.
The decision to allow some to be injured in order to protect the majority was, no doubt, difficult to make. In order to soften the blow for the few who were injured, a Vaccine Court was set up to provide compensation. Certain injuries, known to be caused by vaccines, could be compensated without recourse to expensive lawyers or complex legal processes. Over the years, a relative handful of families have taken advantage of this court system, and received financial compensation for what are often severe neurological injuries.
Then, about twenty years ago, the DSM IV (the manual on the basis of which doctors make diagnoses of mental disorders) was changed such that autism, previously considered to be a rare and severe neurological disorder, suddenly became a broad ranging and increasingly common "spectrum" disorder. Individuals who would have been otherwise diagnosed or not diagnosed at all were falling into the "pervasive developmental disorder" category - and the numbers continued to grow. It's still not clear to what degree the growth in ASD diagnoses is "real" and to what degree it's the result of explosive news coverage, media campaigns and other cultural changes. Be that as it may, a great many parents were suddenly faced with a devastating diagnosis - and offered no cause, no reliable treatment, and no cure.
Then, heads started to turn in the direction of vaccines. After all, vaccines are pervasive in our culture; vaccines contain a number of potentially risky ingredients; and vaccines are KNOWN to - on very rare occasion - cause precisely the type of social/communication symptoms typically understood to describe autism spectrum disorders. Books, articles and awareness-raising campaigns pointed to apparently secretive decisions, and a public fear arose that vaccines were directly linked to the rise in autism diagnoses.
Rather than saying "yes, vaccines can cause injuries on rare occasion and yes, those injuries can sometimes be described as autism spectrum disorders, but no, such reactions are neither common nor likely," mainstream spokespeople and publications have consistently made the argument that there is no way on heaven or earth that vaccines could possibly cause autism.
But autism spectrum disorders are merely a set of symptoms which, in most cases, have no known cause. Many of those symptoms are among those known to be caused by vaccines. So, logically, vaccines certainly could be a cause of autistic symptoms (AKA an autism spectrum disorder) in at least some few cases. In fact, it seems extremely improbable that vaccines and autism are never linked.
Do I think vaccines are the cause of an epidemic of autism spectrum disorders? Absolutely not. We know that vaccines can cause neurological damage, but we also know that damage is rare. In addition, we know that often the damage manifests in symptoms that are very different from autism.
What I do believe, however, is that by closing the door to the mere possibility of an occasional vaccine/autism connection, the vaccine community has raised anxiety, suspicion and anger.
The court case we're looking at today is not about autism. It focuses on the question of whether vaccine manufacturers could, and should, be called to legal task for the quality of its products. The underlying issue, however, is whether it is morally or financially appropriate to open the floodgates to what could be thousands of cases against vaccine manufacturers - many of which may be frivolous, but all of which are likely to be expensive.
We're now facing a Catch 22. On the one hand, we could see vaccine manufacturers once again disappear behind the curtain of legal immunity, which will mean continued fear, uncertainty and doubt among families considering vaccination for their children. The likely result: a continued decline in vaccination rates and thus a related decline in public health. On the other hand, we could see vaccine manufacturers made liable for the quality of their products, which will mean a flood of lawsuits, increased prices for critically important drugs, and - very likely - a decline in public health.
It's frustrating to feel that all this could have been avoided with a bit more transparency and active concern early on. In today's world, though, no matter what the outcome of the Supreme Court case, it seems likely that we the people will pay. The cost: potentially higher health care bills and almost certain lower compliance with vaccine use.
For more about vaccines and autism:
- Autism and the Vaccine Court
- Introduction to the Vaccine-Autism Debate
- Can Vaccine Injury Cause Autism?
That vaccines are predicated upon a ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ is fine – except that some diseases have achieved the greatest good for the greatest number by almost dying out – Scarlet Fever/Scarlatina – without the existence of a vaccine. Other diseases have gone before the public vaccination programme commenced thus the small number injured by vaccines is no longer an acceptable price to pay.
My daughter became autistic beyond doubt following a DTP vaccination causing hospitalisation – all the doctors seen over the next few years dismissed this as coincidence. But it was in 1965 when autism was virtually unknown – albeit there were others – but by the mid nineteen nineties almost everyone knew about autism because they were everywhere – tell me it was nothing to do with the explosion in the use of mercury containing vaccines over that period and I will say bunkum.
As a worker in the field helping to create residential schools and centres I know many hundreds of parents – I have failed to find a single autistic child whose parents could tell me that their child was not vaccinated. Go back and look at the facts before you preach what you call ‘positive’ facts about immunisation. Mercury causes very many serious conditions and harmful effects upon the human body – now tell me that it’s OK to inject this material straight into the
bloodstream of a tiny infant of 10lbs weight! Only idiots would believe this statement but hired hands from the pharma industry vehemently make this claim!
Lastly tell me where I can find the unvaccinated autistic kids in our UK population of unvaccinated individuals numbering two to three millions!
Tony Bateson, Oxford, UK.
They recall millions of products that contain lead…like toys and cribs with lead in the paint etc. SO it is dangerous for a kid to put a lead based toy in there mouth but it is perfectly ok to shoot them up with a cocktail of poison? I’m right with you. The whole thing is absurd
Herd immunity for the greater good. Guess it works unless its your child, family that is destroyed and changed forever so another child doesn’t get the flu. Give me a break.
The ethical stance “the greatest good for the greatest number” is by no means universally accepted. But from what I can glean, it is the perspective that informed decisions regarding vaccines and public health.
Just as a question – if you were making public health decisions, what ethical rubric would you use? For example, would you start with the premise that medical decisions are individual and irrelevant to the “herd?” Or would you offer public health information/resources on an individual versus group basis (eg, asking individuals whether they would like information about immunization, rather than launching educational campaigns)?
Lisa
It is really hard to swallow that the loss of some of the CDC recommended schedule could hurt America’s health. We may have less chicken pox now, but our kids are sicker than ever. We have pervasive, lifelong autoimmune diseases that were unheard of decades ago. So maybe there are multiple causes, but to borrow your reasoning, is it unreasonable to suspect that the program that specifically works by tricking the immune system and known in certain rare cases to confuse the immune system so much it begins to attack itself, could be a large part of the problem in autoimmune disorders? If you are so worried about America’s overall health – then fight to keep the liability shield up. But get rid of the mandates. Any system that mandates a product while simultaneously allowing no recourse for those harmed by it is asking for absolute corruption. We are there.
Lisa said, “and in the case of vaccines, there’s no doubt that more people are protected from disease than are injured by vaccines”. That may be true for some vaccines, such as the smallpox vaccine back when smallpox was prevalent. But it is not true of every vaccine, such as the Hepatitis B given at birth.
And it is doubtful that the children born from 1990 to 2000 are healthier than the children born, say, from 1970 to 1980. Babies born in the 1990’s received far more vaccines than those born in the 1070’s, and have far higher rates of autism, asthma, allergies, bipolar disorder, ADHD, diabetes, and other auto-immune disorders. I don’t recall lots of terrible epidemics of infectious diseases during the 1970’s, although only a fraction of the number of vaccines were given at that time compared with the 1970’s.
Yes, some vaccines for serious prevalent diseases may have more benefit than risk overall. But when we give dozens of vaccines to babies we better understand the down side.
re: “It’s still not clear to what degree the growth in ASD diagnoses is ‘real’ and to what degree it’s the result of explosive news coverage, media campaigns and other cultural changes.”
It is clear that there has been a huge increase in autism. It is clear from multiple types of evidence, including formal studies, school statistics, agency statistics, anecdotal evidence, and memories of anyone over 40 especially those who work with the handicapped as therapists, teachers, psychologists — including Dr. Thomas Insel. Just the other day, I heard a woman who founded a school for the developmentally disabled in the 1960’s say that initially they had mostly children with Downs and CP. Now they mostly have kids with autism. And these are kids with significant issues; they could not just have blended in unnoticed even without “heightened awareness”.
The kinds of experiences parents describe today of typically developing toddlers who lose language and social connection and skills could not possibly have gone unnoticed in prior times. It would have been part of folklore, history, literature, news — whether ascribed to witchcraft or psychic trauma or illness…
“We know that vaccines can cause neurological damage, but we also know that damage is rare.” I really appreciate, Lisa, that you acknowledge it is probable that sometimes vaccines cause autism. But, we really don’t know how rarely that occurs. One of the tremendous shortcomings of our vaccine program is that adverse events are inadequately tracked and not studied. The CDC and other gov’t agencies have no idea how many of the accepted claims of brain damage due to vaccines have resulted in autism. The CDC et al are not studying these children to better understand these injuries. The CDC et al have not develped ways of identifying vaccine injuries, so when parents tell their doctor of adverse events, they are told it is just a coincidence.
1 in 100 children born in 1998 have autism. How much of this is due to vaccines? If even a substantial portion, that is not “rare”.
“The public welfare, in this case, is understood in the classic sense as ‘the greatest good for the greatest number.’” I wish I could believe that the forces at work developing and monitoring our vaccine program had such benevolent and rational motivations, with the first priority being the public good. Instead, I see corporate profit motives, corporate influence, government agencies unwilling to look at mistakes, skewed balancing of risks and benefits, skewed focus on infectious disease while ignoring immune system dysfunction, and Semmelweiss Reflex.
It’s interesting to blame so much on vaccines. We all can look up autism, asthma, allergies, bipolar disorder, ADHD, diabetes, and other auto-immune disorders to know all of these pre dated vaccines. We also know media coverage of the 1970’s isn’t what it is today, and even still many people just don’t talk about their health issues and they certainly talked about it less 30 to 40 years ago. Also, the autism rates of 1998 was not 1:100. Nationally in 2003, the rate was 1 out of 264.
Twyla, I just don’t buy that “school statistics, agency statistics, anecdotal evidence, and memories of anyone over 40″ are really as helpful as all that in identifying the true numbers of people who “would have been” diagnosed on the autism spectrum had they been born after 1990.
School stats, of course, would have included ZERO people with autism in that earlier era, because autism wasn’t a category for schools at all, period. Agency stats would have included far fewer people because there was no “spectrum,” only “autism” – diagnosed as we now diagnosed “autistic disorder.” Memories, of course, are notoriously difficult to pin down, and there’s no good way to know what a teacher or therapist would or would not have seen as “autism” in 1972. Even formal studies are questionable: we’ve seen the CA study that says “huge rise,” and the UK study that says “no rise!”
What makes this especially tough to nail down is that diagnosticians don’t distinguish among different types of autism. So we have stats that include many people who WOULD have received the dx and many who would NOT have received the DX all lumped together.
Lisa
Lisa I just heard a talk by Brian Deer, the journalist who exposed Wakefield regarding the so called research he did, which lead to Los of his medical license. How anything that man did can still be regarded as scientific makes no sense. He used families and innocent children for his own gain. Deer has no ties to the vaccine makers.
On another note years ago people with autism would not be found in schools because they were routinelyinstitutionalized.
What this case is based on, is the Bruesewitzes, of which went to “vaccine court” in 1995 and lost. They then attempted to sue in state court, but both a trial and appellate court have ruled they couldn’t, because doing so would conflict with the 1986 Vaccine Act. The Supreme Court is considering an appeal of those rulings. The way it appears, this child had the DTP, the argument being there was a safer vaccine available, being the DTaP however that was available in the USA that same year. The distributing of newer vaccines as such doesn’t happen over night, and much of that has to do with when and what particular doctors order. I still find it odd that only vaccine makers are the targets for suing, when no doctor is yet ever sued.
Michele –
The vaccine issue is more complex than would be suggested by a review of Wakefield’s work. For one thing, Wakefield’s focus is on the MMR vaccine, while many people have been focusing on mercury in vaccines – and mercury is not contained in the MMR. For another, vaccine injury leading to neurological damage is not new with Wakefield: the vaccine court has been around for many years, long before Wakefield was even grown up!
Regarding institutionalization: you’re right, of course, that people with severe autism would have been institutionalized in the past. It’s also important to note, too, that people with milder forms of autism would not have received autism diagnoses. Many such kids would have been labeled MR, schizophrenic, or just plain weird.
Lisa
Sandy – Doctors are sued all the time!
No kidding doctors are sued all the time. For giving vaccines doctors certainly are not included.
The focus on the MMR came first. After that was debunked, the focus then became thimerosal, then it was the aluminum salts and other contents. In that order.
Vaccine court was created in 1986. Wakefield was 30 years old at that time and working at Royal College of Surgeons in 1985. He was frown up and a doctor at the time.
whoops, you’re right Sandy. I was wrong about the date at which the vaccine court was founded: Wakefield was practicing at that time. Still, the issue of vaccine injury does certainly predate Wakefield’s 1992 study “implicating” the MMR vaccine.
Re docs being sued for vaccinations – I don’t know that any of us have any stats for how many such cases have been brought to court. I’d assume that if a doctor screwed up by giving too many vaccines at once, not shaking a bottle containing thimerosal, or giving vaccines when a child is ill, that she/he’d be liable. But of course the doctor isn’t liable for giving an FDA approved vaccine appropriately.
Lisa
“We know that vaccines can cause neurological damage, but we also know that damage is rare. ”
Do we really know it is rare? Is that fact?
I don’t think so.
Look around you at all the children that have autism, add/adhd, diabetes, allergies, asthma. We don’t know that that is NOT from vaccines. So it is not a fact that damage is rare.
We just don’t know.
Anne – we also “don’t know” whether most of those disorders could conceivably be caused by electromagnetism, fluoride in the water, ultrasounds before birth, the dye in children’s vitamins, or the increase in cell phone use. We don’t know whether they could be caused by pesticides, car exhaust or airplane contrails.
In fact, we don’t know what causes most of those disorders, period.
Why pick on vaccines as the most likely of the zillion possible unknowns? Why not pick on pollution or technology?
The central issue in my mind is whether we currently have in place a construct that is absolutely the most robust system possible of checks and balances to minimize the negative outcomes of vaccines that we now know exist today (and those we’ll discover in the future). This is especially important given the rapid increases of recommended and mandated immunizations over the last 2 decades and a “fast-tracking” of the approval processes for some.
I think the AAP and other public health promoters err when they demonstrate a paternalistic, and in some cases belligerent, “trust us” attitude rather than throwing back the curtains and demonstrating why they believe the current safety regime (and schedule) is the best possible for the most possible (not just for the majority).
My sense in reading some of the comments in the Supreme Court transcript is that some of the Justices are troubled that, in some vaccine cases, industry is effectively holding a “get out of jail free” card and is not incented to produce the safest posssible product…versus producing the one with the best economic profile. With out a “check” in the form of a legal remedy, it leaves the citizen powerless if they are injured.
Exactly. The message that many parents receive is, “This vaccine is required for your child to enter the school system. If your child is injured because of this vaccine, well there’s really nothing you can do about it.”
Add on top of that the mistrust (not in the least bit unwarranted) of the pharmaceutical industry with their long history of unethical practices. That is all just icing on the cake.
re: Sandy 10/15 @ 12:21 a.m.
I didn’t say that the autism rate in 1998 was 1 in 100. I said that the autism rate among children born in 1998 was found by the CDC to be 1 in 100.
Yes, vaccines are not the only cause of ADD, ADHD, asthma, allergies, diabetes, bipolar. But all of these have increased dramatically over the past 25 years at the same time as the vaccine schedule increased dramatically. See the Washington Post article “Immune Systems Increasingly on the Attack”.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/03/AR2008030303200.html
“First, asthma cases shot up, along with hay fever and other common allergic reactions, such as eczema. Then, pediatricians started seeing more children with food allergies. Now, experts are increasingly convinced that a suspected jump in lupus, multiple sclerosis and other afflictions caused by misfiring immune systems is real.
“Though the data are stronger for some diseases than others, and part of the increase may reflect better diagnoses, experts estimate that many allergies and immune-system diseases have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in the last few decades, depending on the ailment and country. Some studies now indicate that more than half of the U.S. population has at least one allergy…
“‘Overall, there is very little doubt that we have seen significant increases,’ said Syed Hasan Arshad of the David Hide Asthma and Allergy Centre in England, who focuses on food allergies. ‘You can call it an epidemic. We’re talking about millions of people and huge implications, both for health costs and quality of life. People miss work. Severe asthma can kill. Peanut allergies can kill. It does have huge implications all around. If it keeps increasing, where will it end?’”
Yes, vaccines may not be the only cause, but it seems to me that a dramatic increase in something designed to stimulate the immune system in an unnatural way should be a prime suspect.
Based off the family of this case or any family, I highly doubt those of a infant are thinking about requirements school. However without that one vaccine as an infant which this is based off, we know how deadly that can be to infants. I think the count now is 11. If ever anyone had listened to a message, it would had been that more so than school.
Twyla you made the statement “1 in 100 children born in 1998 have autism. How much of this is due to vaccines? If even a substantial portion, that is not “rare”.” There’s nothing there about the CDC. And no, there is no evidence vaccines are the cause of ADD, ADHD, asthma, allergies, diabetes, bipolar when we know they all pre dated vaccines. Over the last 25 years a lot has changed in the world besides vaccines. Increases could be more genetic, or have a different environmental all together.
Also, the thing which makes people allergic to peanuts is refined out when used in vaccines. Anyone can locate that valid process so vaccines are not the cause of those increases.
I don’t know about you, but I know quite a few people who have never had vaccines but have ADD, ADHD, asthma, allergies, diabetes, bipolar and eczema. I know people who have 4 to 6 of them.
Sandy; though you are quite correct that the part of peanut oil that causes the acute allergic reaction if EATEN is taken out; the problem is I have not found a single study indicating whether or not INJECTING the substance might produce a long term sensitivity reaction.
Another thing we just don’t know.
We know that you don’t give a lot of normal substances ( honey, peanut butter to tiny babies, because their systems just cannot tolerate the kind of things most adults can easily handle.
My understanding is that over the years we have ‘improved’ vaccines to get a better reaction from the immune system. And of course we have added many more vaccines and boosters to the schedule( from 5 to 10 in the 1980,s by the time a kid was 5, now increasing to 36 by the age of 5,starting with one on the day of birth).We have no long term studies that show what happens when you constantly use injections to stimulate an immature immune system.
The idea that injecting things that are designed to stimulate and create strong immune system reactions, may also cause immune system dysfunctions seems likely.
Autoimmune diseases after all characterized by an over active immune system attacking the body as if it is an intruder.
And there are no studies checking for these types of long term immune reactions. None.(If I am wrong please point them out to me.)
Multiple causes for all of these problems; autism, allergies, adhd etc; yes I do believe so. Some may indeed be genetic. Some may have other environmental causes. But it seems likely that at least some may be an effect of an overstimulated immune system through vaccination.
Thanks, Hera for your 10/16 11:58 a.m. comment. If there were a “like” button I would be clicking on it.
Medical literature reveals a slow but noticeable growth of the allergy in children through the late 1960s up until the late 1980s. Peanut allergy is more likely to develop in children who have 1st-degree relatives with atopic disease, and it probably shares genetic risk factors with other atopic diseases. A study indicated that exposure to soy milk or soy products was correlated with peanut allergies. Studies have found that delaying introduction of peanut products significantly increases the risks of development of peanut allergies. A study conducting jointly in Israel and United Kingdom in 8600 children noted a nearly 10 fold increase in incidence of peanut allergy among U.K. children compared to Israeli children. It was found that Israeli children were given peanut at a much younger age than those in the U.K. due to recommendation of pediatricians in the U.K.
Other than that, many products such as lotions have peanut oils in it.
One just cant single out vaccines as a cause, more than likely vaccines has nothing to do with it at all.
Sandy, it would be interesting to know your sources on this information. It’s also interesing that the first part of your comment is in a different writing style than the last sentence or two.
The text all looks the same to me, I see no difference and I don’t use HTML. And so what if it does have different text? I see that some times in comments here, however since I don’t use HTML, I never see it in my comments.
I don’t much care to do the research for anyone. Those who are interested can locate such studies, those truly uninterested can just pass it by. Fact is, one just cant single out vaccines as a cause, more than likely vaccines has nothing to do with it at all.
I wasn’t talking about the text style, but the writing style — for example complexity of the grammar, whether the subject agrees with the object…
Also would click “like” on Dadvocate’s 10/15 11:12 comment.
That’s funny, Sandy, in another thread you told Barbaraj “I’m not looking for discussions (stories) upon your statement, but facts. Aside from any net discussions (cited without a link)…” But above you say, “I don’t much care to do the research for anyone. Those who are interested can locate such studies, those truly uninterested can just pass it by.”
Seems inconsistent. You want others to link to studies/facts, but you don’t want to link to studies or cite sources?
Funny you should mention Barbaraj, who rarely sites her info. Don’t you want facts than “We’ve all heard the stories.”? Studies are easy to locate, stories are not. Big difference. That’s the problem with the autism community, much of the info is based and repeated on heresay. I wont give the links to the info since it’s easily found, and I just wont be further criticized. Those who are interested will locate it without me. Go ahead and research peanut allergies, it does have very little to do with vaccines just as there is no evidence vaccines are the cause of ADD, ADHD, asthma, allergies, diabetes, bipolar when we know they all pre dated vaccines.
As for the grammar, what’s more interesting is your nit picking at it.
Have a nice weekend Twyla.
Hi, folks. I can see we’re going downhill with comments on this thread, so am going to cut off comments here. Please join the conversation on other blog posts!
Lisa