People still afraid to vaccinate

tallaght01

I've seen a few kids in A+E over the last few weeks who haven't been vaccinated, as their parents are afraid of autism.

It's such a shame that this hasn't been put to bed yet. I mean, I'm not saying it's 100000000% absoloutely impossible that there's a link but there's literally zero evidence for it.

Interestingly, the difference between this issue and the usual "risk behaviour" is that, anecdotally, it's more common with middle class people.

Certainly, it's the middle classes here in Oz who are telling me that they're either electing not to vaccinate, or to use those single jabs.

Pretty frustrating that people still think we're keeping something from them, or are doing somehting that we know could harm their children.

JuliusCaesar

Myths take on a life of their own. Look at the 'drink 2 l of water a day'! Interesting article (somewhere on the net) which tracks this down to a media interprretaion of a scientific study. Not so long since rubbing poitin on your hands was a sure way of curing rheumatism!

AtomicHorror

tallaght01 wrote: »

I've seen a few kids in A+E over the last few weeks who haven't been vaccinated, as their parents are afraid of autism.

It's such a shame that this hasn't been put to bed yet. I mean, I'm not saying it's 100000000% absoloutely impossible that there's a link but there's literally zero evidence for it.

Interestingly, the difference between this issue and the usual "risk behaviour" is that, anecdotally, it's more common with middle class people.

Certainly, it's the middle classes here in Oz who are telling me that they're either electing not to vaccinate, or to use those single jabs.

Pretty frustrating that people still think we're keeping something from them, or are doing somehting that we know could harm their children.

One of the biggest problems facing science these days is public mistrust and disillusionment. Media interpretations of science tend to fall into sensationalism or fear mongering that is largely accepted by the public. In many ways scientists are partially to blame. Centuries of self-assured pushing of our findings on the public on the basis of authority rather than critical thinking (on their part) is at odds with the self-correcting skeptical nature of science itself. So whenever new data causes us to revise our views, the public see that previous self assured "fact" overturned and view it as weakness. In other cases, some scientists skip the peer review process to blab their half-finished results to the media or put personal interpretations on weak papers. Without becoming more open and inclusive, and above all more human, this is only going to get worse. Reason is slipping, and there are alternative philosophies that will take advantage of that.

Chunky Monkey

Tallaght, do you feel these parents are stupid or just unknowledgable?

Leafets are needed that show what was wrong with the 'experiment' that linked the vaccine with autism- not the annoying, patronising kind with pretty pictures and colours that say 'it's true because we say so' but ones that explain the facts, simply but comprehensively.

taram

At the GPs surgery I used to work in I got horribly frustrated by people who refused point blank to "give their kids autism". None of the ones I questioned seemed to know what the study was even about really, just the vague notion it could cause autism. The GPs did their best to alleviate fears, but a large number of parents still refused. And lo and behold, who walks in with measles a few months later...

eth0_

What's wrong with giving kids the single individual jabs? My sister got them for her kids with no ill effect (thus far)..

Chunky Monkey

I'd take one jab over three jabs any day!

vincenzo1975

Here's some perspective from someone with an experience in this.

Our daughter has Autism. She is 7.5 now. We held off on giving her the age 5 booster mmr until this year, when she was a few months past 7. On getting her first mmr vacines, we noticed a fallback in behaviour, speech development, eye contact and general behaviour. Sleeping patterns, eating habits and general play all degenerated to the level that we immediatly started to raise it with our Gp and public health nurses. A couple of years later, after lots more problems with her and with the health system in general, she was diagnosed. At the time of the vacinnes and initial problems we knew nothing about autism etc.

On starting to research this subject that we had NEVER confronted before, we came across a mountain of information from both perspectives that was equally compelling. We were faced with a girl who had fundementally changed without any explanation from any medical service. No one gave us answers. We weresimply told it was not the vacinnes. On researching and finding out about the mercury element, we would question this and no-one, I mean no-one in the medical industry that we had contact with had a clue what we were talking about. They just resorted to the same rhetoric that the vacinnes dont cause autism. next question, what causes autism? response no answer, next question, why do vacinnes not cause autism? response blank stare. This scenario played out again and again.

based on the facts of what we saw, it is hard to not be suspicious. the main problem with your point of view is not that the link has not been proven, but that the link has not been disproven. I do not know how these things are done, but the information to DISPROVE has not been produced. as well as that, I have spoken to the top paediatritions in this state who have told me quite bluntly that whatever side effects a small number of children have to vacinnes, it is worth the large step in health that the majority have.

The main fuel to this arguement is that Thimerosol causes a strong reaction in a small percentage of children and causes ASD. I honestly dont know if is true or not, but until the causes of ASD are fully established, I will reserve judgement.

The reason the vacinnes were called into question, was this preservative called thimerosol that is mercury based. This preservative has been removed from vacinnes over the last few years because of these fears, by the FDA on fears raised by the EPA

http://www.fda.gov/cber/blood/mercplasma.htm

The reason the parents do not take up the vacinnes is because a reason for autism has not been proven. Nobaody can conclusively say that it is genetic, enviromental, an allergic reaction, a toxic reaction with something during the first trimesters or anything else including a combination of the above.

As a parent, you only have to do some research on autism yourself, then go and talk to so called experts such a GPs or health service consulatants to find out that you know more then them. Even the teams that provide the diagnosis and the teachers and SNA's in the schools that deal with these children will openly acknowledge that parents are as rich a source of information on the specifics of Autism with their child as anyone else.

For every book or publication or report that you may have to show that there is no link, I could easily direct you to a book or report that claims a cover up, a medical epidemic, a true link.

That is what parents are faced with when they have a child that suddenly has problems. The are up against the wall and there is no reassurance from anyone, only parents with similar experiences and health people who cannot answer tough questions and have never heard of the term Thimerosol.

Anyway, I dont blame you for having your opinion, just thought I would give a parents input.

parents are only ordinary people, the problem is whan they take on the research after getting no real answers and being on the end of waiting lists that are frequently longer then 12 months, what else are they supposed to think?

This is the introduction of the FDA's (US Food and drug administration) own online info on Thimerosol. If you were a parent reading this after your child has developed chronic problems in the weeks after a vaccine, what conclusion would you draw about its safety.

'Introduction

Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound (an organomercurial). Since the 1930s, it has been widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening contamination with harmful microbes. Over the past several years, because of an increasing awareness of the theoretical potential for neurotoxicity of even low levels of organomercurials and because of the increased number of thimerosal containing vaccines that had been added to the infant immunization schedule, concerns about the use of thimerosal in vaccines and other products have been raised. Indeed, because of these concerns, the Food and Drug Administration has worked with, and continues to work with, vaccine manufacturers to reduce or eliminate thimerosal from vaccines.

Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine (see Table 1). A preservative-free version of the inactivated influenza vaccine (contains trace amounts of thimerosal) is available in limited supply at this time for use in infants, children and pregnant women. Some vaccines such as Td, which is indicated for older children (≥ 7 years of age) and adults, are also now available in formulations that are free of thimerosal or contain only trace amounts. Vaccines with trace amounts of thimerosal contain 1 microgram or less of mercury per dose.

In the following pages, a discussion of preservatives, the use of thimerosal as a preservative, guidelines on exposure to organomercurials (primarily methylmercury), thimerosal toxicity, recent and future FDA actions, and the conclusions of the Institute of Medicine's most recent review of thimerosal in vaccines are presented. This narrative on thimerosal contains references to the literature and links to other sites for readers who wish additional information; for quick reference, a number of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answers are provided.'

heres the link to the full discussion:

http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

tallaght01

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

.

On researching and finding out about the mercury element, we would question this and no-one, I mean no-one in the medical industry that we had contact with had a clue what we were talking about. They just resorted to the same rhetoric that the vacinnes dont cause autism. next question, what causes autism? response no answer, next question, why do vacinnes not cause autism? response blank stare. This scenario played out again and again.

But mercury has been removed from vaccines and there's been no reduction in the levels of autism

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

.the main problem with your point of view is not that the link has not been proven, but that the link has not been disproven. I do not know how these things are done, but the information to DISPROVE has not been produced. as well as that, I have spoken to the top paediatritions in this state who have told me quite bluntly that whatever side effects a small number of children have to vacinnes, it is worth the large step in health that the majority have..

Well it's been as close to being disproven as you can get. Insofar as children who have been vaccinated don't have higher levels of autism than those who haven't. That's pretty convincing is it not?

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

.The main fuel to this arguement is that Thimerosol causes a strong reaction in a small percentage of children and causes ASD. .

Thimerosol has never been shown to cause autism.

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

.The reason the parents do not take up the vacinnes is because a reason for autism has not been proven. Nobaody can conclusively say that it is genetic, enviromental, an allergic reaction, a toxic reaction with something during the first trimesters or anything else including a combination of the above. .

There's stacks of illnesses that we don't know the cause of. Doesn't mean that A) vaccines cause them or That we should withold all vaccinesuntil we know exactly what causes all illnesses.

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

.For every book or publication or report that you may have to show that there is no link, I could easily direct you to a book or report that claims a cover up, a medical epidemic, a true link.

The problem, and I don't mean to be disrespectful, is that whiole doctors are linited to using good evidence when making claims, people make all kinds of claims that they don't have to back up with any hard evidence. All the good scientific evidence shows no link. All the stuff that claims a link is basically bad science

We discussed this about a year ago in a thread. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055077967&highlight=autism+vaccines

page 2 contains most of the juicy stuff. My take on the issues you raised are contained in my last post on page 2,

taram

In the end if I was to step back from the issue and say 'possbility of autism' or likelhood of measles/mumps/rubella/anything else opportunistic that hitched a ride, I'd pick getting the mmr each time. My sister has a disorder that means she can't be vaccinated, and without the strong herd immunity that was there a decade ago she'd have probably gotten one of them, she picked up everything else going

vincenzo1975

Tallagh1,

Im certainly not looking to get into a big debate about this, or respond to every little point you make, or dissect your argument with cutting response as you did.

I merely wanted to give a perspective from someone who is in the position you describe as 'being afraid to vaccinate your child'. I thought this input was lacking from the debate.

I obviously have no chance of changing your mind, or even informing you of my position, which is unfortunate, as I don’t think you even bothered to read the US FDA links I posted. I think you also missed my point, in that in every drug/vaccine or food, there are a small % of people who cant take it and are at risk of adverse reaction. to say it is impossible for a vaccine to cause these problems is unfounded and misleading and unproven. Ordinary people who are faced with all the jumbled up information thrown at them in these circumstances find it very hard to make these judgements.

To put forth the argument that the greater good is more important then the few who suffer is much more acceptable and is generally how these things work anyway. When you find yourself in the 'few ' though, that’s frustrating. There’s no point in blaming anyone, you just do the best you can and move on.

We gave the vaccine 2 years late, we wanted our daughter to be well over the age of 6 before we did, because we witnessed a reaction back then.

That is our personal choice and responsibility. if others disagree, then fine, I have no problem with that.

tallaght01

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

to say it is impossible for a vaccine to cause these problems is unfounded and misleading and unproven.

tallaght01 wrote:

I mean, I'm not saying it's 100000000% absoloutely impossible that there's a link but there's literally zero evidence for it.

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

Tallagh1,

I don’t think you even bothered to read the US FDA links I posted.


.

I did. They say:

FDA wrote:

Under the FDA Modernization Act (FDAMA) of 1997, the FDA conducted a comprehensive review of the use of thimerosal in childhood vaccines. Conducted in 1999, this review found no evidence of harm from the use of thimerosal as a vaccine preservative, other than local hypersensitivity reactions (Ball et al. 2001).

FDA wrote:

In 2004, the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee issued its final report, examining the hypothesis that vaccines, specifically the MMR vaccines and thimerosal containing vaccines, are causally associated with autism. In this report, the committee incorporated new epidemiological evidence from the U.S., Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and studies of biologic mechanisms related to vaccines and autism since its report in 2001. The committee concluded that this body of evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism

You should read the reports I've linked you on the previous discussion if you want to look inti the issue prperly. There's some good, proper scientific stuff there.

I just think it's important to make sure people are aware that there's no science behind the claims of these autism links. Whatever anyone does with their own kids is their business, but for I'd hate for people to think they were basing that decision on actual scientific fact.

lorweld

I'm certainly no expert on this. However I have done a oral presentation on the links between mmr and autism, for a course i've done, I work with intellectually disabled adults. One of the points I remember from this is that autism is usually diagnosed, more prevalent around the time the child is of age for the vaccination prompting parents to think this is the cause. Also The Lancet medical journal in 1998 caused global alarm with the claims that linked the mmr jab with autism. Wakefield was the researchers leader. Wakefield was then paid alot of money to back claimants who brought lawsuits against the makers of these vaccines. Also at the time Wakefield patented (alledgedly) a new 'safer' vaccine!! There is some real evidence that Wakefield effectively scaremongered parents in an effort to make money.

The_Minister

I get furious when people like Patricica McKenna come out and tell people that its not safe to vaccinate their children, without any proof. I'm sure children have gotten sick because their parents listened to her.

genegenie

autism is usually diagnosed, more prevalent around the time the child is of age for the vaccination prompting parents to think this is the cause

Exactly. Correlation does not equal causation.

Also The Lancet medical journal in 1998 caused global alarm with the claims that linked the mmr jab with autism. Wakefield was the researchers leader. Wakefield was then paid alot of money to back claimants who brought lawsuits against the makers of these vaccines. Also at the time Wakefield patented (alledgedly) a new 'safer' vaccine!! There is some real evidence that Wakefield effectively scaremongered parents in an effort to make money.

The Wakefield study was very flawed. In fact the editor of the Lancet conceded that it should never have been published. It looked at whether the measles virus from the MMR vaccine could have caused bowel disease which lead to autism.

Only 12 children were included in the study, far too small a sample size to make any generalisations. Also these cases weren't selected at random, they were chosen by the researcher which introduces selection bias into the study. He may have consciously or unconsciously chosen cases that he thought more likely to give him the results he wanted. Controls were poorly chosen and the study did not indicate over what time period the cases of bowel disease/autism arose. Behavioral issues appeared before the onset of symptoms of bowel disease in at least 4 of the 12 cases.

I can understand parents' concern over matters such as this. However, they should evaluate primary evidence from published epidemiological studies and clinical trials, rather than relying on hearsay and sensationalised media reports. The primary evidence clearly states that there is no link between MMR and autism. No parent should make a decision on whether or not to immunise their child based only on the claims of propagandists and tabloids.

vincenzo1975

The only parents perspective here (mine) points to the US FDA's concerns over mecury preservative in vaccines, and speakes about the possability that a small % may suffer adverse reaction, we (please read original post by me) witnissed this, we made a decision to delay the second jab.

I dont try to sell any other reports or people(who's patricia mckenna????)

I think a lot of you are not really listening to my points, just pushing the health systems reguler frustatrated responses. Sensationalism, scaremongeing, etc etc

We based our decision purely on what we saw happening with our child, nobody is in a position to tell us we were wrong.

AlmightyCushion

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

The only parents perspective here (mine) points to the US FDA's concerns over mecury preservative in vaccines

But like tallaght says, mercury has been removed from vaccines.

genegenie

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

But like tallaght says, mercury has been removed from vaccines.

And, as tallaght01 also said, there's been no decline in the incidence of autism since mercury was removed. You would expect to see a decline if mercury were the cause.

AlmightyCushion

genegenie wrote: »

And, as tallaght01 also said, there's been no decline in the incidence of autism since mercury was removed. You would expect to see a decline if mercury were the cause.

Exactly. Well I don't have kids but if and when I do I'll be vaccinating them. There's no evidence that shows an increase in the incidence of autism so I can't see why not.

vincenzo1975

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

But like tallaght says, mercury has been removed from vaccines.

2 questions please.....

1. Why was mercury removed from vaccines??

2. From the FDA link, what does 'other than local hypersensitivity reactions (Ball et al. 2001).' mean and at what is the % in children that this affects?

as for whether autism is in decline or not, Autism services throughout the world are playing catchup on diagnosis and understanding of how big this disorder is. Until the services throughout the world are on top of diagnosing and waiting lists are a thing of the past, noone can say if it is in decline or not. There are no accurate statistics to shpow the true levels of autism in any country in the world. Most studies are years old and are subject to constantly changing methods and understanding. This whole disorder is in its infancy of understanding.

do you really think anyone can say that autism levels are increasing or declining in Ireland, with the waiting lists and lack of expertise we have?

John

1. Why was mercury removed from vaccines??

If I remember correctly it was because when they added up the amount of mercury in each of the vaccines a child would receive in its life, the total amount was higher than FDA guidelines would allow, i.e. the tiny amounts would build up to an amount that was not acceptable. No links with autism were found but rather it was removed for a "better safe than sorry" reason. I suppose in the beginning when a child would only receive a few vaccines in its life, the amount of mercury was negligible but now with so many vaccines the amount of mercury was too much.

I haven't really any expertise in this area but I have found one article that has correlated the removal of mercury with a decline in autism levels, click here (I haven't read the original article because I have no access to journals from home). However, this is just one study out of many and I think this is the exception rather than the rule. If it is true and the mercury does increase the risk of autism then parents should be reassured that it's now gone from the vaccines.

2. From the FDA link, what does 'other than local hypersensitivity reactions (Ball et al. 2001).' mean and at what is the % in children that this affects?

I think it means a rash or swelling around the injection site.

do you really think anyone can say that autism levels are increasing or declining in Ireland, with the waiting lists and lack of expertise we have?

Autism diagnosis is becoming more sensitive so more children will be diagnosed with an ASD with every passing year. This means the levels of ASDs reported will increase. This number could (and probably does) correlate very well with increases in the amount of vaccinations given to children but it could also correlate with global warming. A correlation does not imply a cause but equally, all reasonable correlations should be investigated.

You were not wrong for making the decisions you did for your child and I don't think anyone here is suggesting you were. It is obvious that you care about your child and did (and are still doing) what you thought was best which is all any of us can do.

What I think others in this thread are trying to get at is not your individual case but rather the way the media, the scientific community and the frontline health professionals communicate with the public. There is a lot of information and misinformation out there and it needs to be addressed. Parents need to make informed decisions about their children's health and the information they have access to should be trustworthy and thanks to vested interests on both sides of the debate, not all the information can be trustworthy.

genegenie

John wrote: »

I haven't read the original article because I have no access to journals from home

It's an open access journal so you don't need a subscription. Link to the article: www.jpands.org/vol11no1/geier.pdf

John wrote: »

What I think others in this thread are trying to get at is not your individual case but rather the way the media, the scientific community and the frontline health professionals communicate with the public. There is a lot of information and misinformation out there and it needs to be addressed. Parents need to make informed decisions about their children's health and the information they have access to should be trustworthy and thanks to vested interests on both sides of the debate, not all the information can be trustworthy.

Hear hear!

John

Ah, I didn't notice that about the journal. Will give it a read later.