Vaccines vs. Autism Amanda Pryz Marian University 2012 The question of whether or not vaccines were related to the increase in Autism diagnosis was first argued by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 when he created a scare over the MMR vaccine in Britain by publishing the Lancet paper. In this paper he claimed to have linked the MMR vaccine to regressive autism and inflammation of the colon. Wakefield’s claims have been highly investigated. It has been found that his work has never been able to be duplicated by scientists outside of his association. It was also reported that Wakefield had a special interest in putting the safety of the MMR into question because he had applied for a patent on an allegedly safer single measles vaccine several months before he published the Lancet paper. Wakefield was also getting paid large amounts of money by trial lawyers wanting to link autism to vaccinations so they could file “vaccine injury” lawsuits against the vaccine manufacturers. Lastly, there weren’t any controls done to make sure that contamination was detected in the negative controls. Wakefield has since been charged by the General Medical Council with scientific misconduct and lost his ability to practice medicine in Britain. (1) The effects the Lancet paper had on the population of Britain were astounding. Before his paper was released 93% of the Britain population was immunized against Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. After Wakefield’s paper was released, the number of vaccinated individuals dropped to 73% nationwide, and as low as 50% in London. In 2008, 14 years after Measles was determined to be under control in Britain, Measles was declared to be an endemic again. (1) To give you an idea of just how serious measles is, nearly 20 million cases of measles are reported each year in which nearly 200,000 of these cases end in fatality. (2) Between 1989 and 1991, about 18,000 people in America became infected with measles. It was determined that the major cause of the outbreak was low rates of vaccination among preschool children. Only 15% of the children between the ages of 16 and 59 months that became infected had received the recommended measles vaccination. In many cases parents reasoned that they could avoid the minimal risk of vaccine side effects "because all other children were vaccinated." (3) 40 years ago autism diagnosis was diagnosed at about 4 per 10,000 people. In the early 90’s, around the same time as the number of vaccines routinely given to children was increasing, the number of diagnosed autism began increasing and is now between 30-60 cases per 10,000. So if vaccinations aren’t the cause for this increase, what is? It seems the increase is mainly due to an increased understanding and knowledge of autism along with a broadening of symptoms to diagnose it. (4) In the 1990’s the diagnosis of autism was changed to autism spectrum disorder. This allowed people with more subtle symptoms to be diagnosed. For instance, Asperger’s syndrome could now be classified under Autism Spectrum Disorder. By broadening the diagnosis criteria for Autism it is obvious that more people will likely meet the criteria. Another reason for the increase in diagnosis is due to an increased awareness and understanding of Autism. Clinicians are more knowledgeable about this pervasive developmental disorder and are therefore better able to make the diagnosis. (5) I’ve always been a firm believer in vaccinations and after doing this research paper that opinion has only become stronger. I say this, even as a child of the 80’s that suffered from seizures because of a bad tetanus vaccination. While this was an extreme side effect, I still feel it was a better alternative than getting tetanus. It is extremely frustrating to me when parents chose not to vaccinate their children because it puts my children at risk even if they have been vaccinated. I think their great, great grandparents, many who probably lost loved ones to these devastating diseases, would be extremely disappointed to know that their descendants would purposefully turn down proven medical prevention for these diseases. References (1) Anti vaccine hero Andrew Wakefield: Scientific fraud? Published by David Gorski under Science and the Media, Vaccines science based medicine.org (2) cdc.gov/measles/about/overview.html (3) faqs.org/espionage/Ul-Vo/Vaccines.html (4) Wiley Online Library. Article published in 2007 by M. Rutter (5) sciencebasedmedicine.org The Increase in Autism Diagnoses: Two Hypotheses Published by Steven Novella under Neuroscience/Mental Health,Public Health,Vaccines
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 23:56:58 +0000