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Do vaccines cause autism? It is a truism that nothing can ever be disproven (in fact, one of the most solid philosophical proofs is that neither science -- nor any other extant method of human discovery -- can prove any empirical claims either).
That said, the evidence for vaccines causing autism is about as good as the the evidence that potty-training causes autism. Symptoms of autism begin to occur around some time after the 2-year-old vaccinations, which is also about the same time potty-training typically happens. Otherwise, a number of studies have failed to find any link. Nonetheless, the believers in the vaccines-cause-autism theory have convinced some reasonably mainstream writers and even all three major presidential candidates that the evidence is, at the worst, only "inconclusive."
My purpose here is not to debunk the vaccine myth. Others have done it better than I can. My purpose is to point out that, even if the myth were true, not vaccinating your children would be a poor solution.
It has been such a long time since we've had to deal with polio and smallpox, that people have forgotten just how scary they were. In 1952, at the height of the polio epidemics, around 14 out of 100,000 of every Americans had paralytic polio. 300-500 million people died of smallpox in the 20th century. Add in hepatitis A, hepatitis B, mumps, measles, rubella, diptheria, pertussis, tetanus, HiB, chicken pox, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, pneumonia and the flu, and no wonder experts estimate that "fully vaccinating all U. S. children born in a given year from birth to adolescence saves an estimated 33,000 lives and prevents an estimated 14 million infections."
Thus, while current estimates are that 0.6% of American children develop autism, 0.8% would have died without vaccines -- and that's not counting blindness, paralysis, etc. It seems like a good trade, even if you assume that every single case of Autism is due to vaccines.
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Comments
Origins of autism not vaccines
July 25, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 15 weeks ago
Comment id: 31258
Please consider visiting http://www.neoteny.org/?cat=7 to review a unique and unorthodox theory for the cause of autism. It's not vaccines.
Empirical science vs epidemiology
June 6, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30548
The epidemiological studies done to date have been touted as stating that vaccines and/or their adjuvants do not cause autism. Two facts: 1) none of these studies make that conclusion, they all state that no connection was found (which is not the same thing); 2) none of these studies, that I have seen, have sufficient statistical power to identify this kind of problem in a small subset of the population.
There is a growing body of empirical science that points towards a serious problem. The best single listing, that I've found, of these studies at the end of the report by Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne to the Autism Omnibus Hearings:
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Kinsbourne_Final_Report_April_2008.pdf
(scroll to the end to see the list of references)
You can't negate empirical science with epidemiology. Most of the kids who have been tested for heavy metal poisoning have been found to have high levels of Mercury and Aluminum (among other things).
Finally, some here have stated that the thimerosal has been removed from the vaccines. This is false statement. While it has been removed from the majority of the vaccines, it is still there is a number of them. And, a number of the vaccines produced with thimerosal were found to still be on Doctor's shelves as recently as 2005 and possibly later. Check your facts.
More to come.
Statistical Power and Kinsbourne's References
June 7, 2008 by EpiWonk, 1 year 21 weeks ago
Comment id: 30571
Anonymous,
There are at least three problems in your reasoning, but I can see that the gullible could be taken in.
1. It's almost impossible to PROVE "no causal association." Scientists can just do study after study reporting no evidence of association (preferably with a narrow confidence interval around the null effect measure).
2. I've reviewed every epidemiological study that's reported no association between thimerosal and autism. Almost all of them have more than sufficient statistical power. A phrase like, "to identify this kind of problem in a small subset of the population" is so imprecise as to be meaningless.
3. The "Kinsbourne Document" was submitted as extremely selective, one-sided evidence in a court case. It's not a peer-reviewed published paper. The vast majority of the reference list are studies that have no direct bearing on the relationship between ethylmercury and autism. Indeed, I invite people to read the list of paper titles and figure out how they have any bearing at all, except that some papers have autism in the title and others have mercury in the title.
Re: Empirical science vs epidemiology
June 6, 2008 by Fred Bortz, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30554
You can make the same argument in favor of Astrology.
I don't know the statistics, but I doubt a single peer-reviewed journal article, let alone the numerous journal articles that have found no connection, would be published without a sufficient sample size to make its case. Certainly the number of diagnoses of autism is not small, nor is the number of children who have been vaccinated.
As someone said at the beginning of this thread, none of the data will ever suffice to persuade a true believer. As a person with autism in the family, I certainly hope that science can lead to cures just as social or mental-heath therapies can help with mitigation of the symptoms.
But as a scientist, I also realize that it is vital to let the evidence speak. The evidence continues to be that no connection has been found.
I do not want to risk deceiving myself with false hopes when there is real hope that science can find the real evidence of a cause.
Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)
Re: Fred Bortz
June 6, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30557
Fred, I think you missed the point. People are being told, mostly by the MSM, that there are numerous studies that say there is no connection -- which is not a true statement; and the fact that there is real empirical evidence.
You didn't say anything about all of the "real evidence" referred to in the Kinsbourne report. As a scientist what do you think about all these studies that point in the direction of a causal link?
Not the MSM, but peer-reviewed science
June 6, 2008 by Fred Bortz, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30558
Anon,
I refer you to the main article of this thread for reasons to vaccinate children.
And I repeat that anecdotal evidence, while real, needs to be looked at in light of statistical analysis. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that horoscopes cast and predictions made by professional astrologers have proven remarkably accurate. But the problem is that the anecdotal evidence of those astrologers' failures never gets reported.
The peer-reviewed science shows no statistical link. Since I am not an expert in the field, I will rely on peer-reviewed science from people who are expert, not the mainstream media, to make any final judgments.
Believe in conspiracy theories--or astrologers--if you wish. I'll trust the CDC, NIH, and other organizations who subject their conclusions to peer review.
Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)
miami news guy
June 5, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30528
It's not the vaccines that are accused of causing autism, it's the preservative thimerasol, added for no other reason than to extend shelf life that has shown links to autism. Just because the FDA has chosen not to focus its studies on the link between autism and thimerasol is not proof that there is no link. I would like to hear other reasons why the number of cases of autism has shot up in the last 20 years. For me and my kids I'll go ahead and ask for thimerasol free vaccines.
Shelf life is useful property
June 6, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30543
Extending the shelf life of vaccines *is* a valuable thing to do though. Vaccine supply and demand is a funny thing, and anything which allows producers to ride that wave smoother decreases the overall cost of vaccines and increases the overall supply.
There actually have been quite extensive studies on thimerasol at this point. Check the conclusions. Heck, simply by noting the decline in the use of thimerasol and the continued increases in rates of autism diagnoses you can see that any link is tenuous at best. There have been any number of dramatic changes in society in the last 20 years (not the least of which is improved awareness and diagnoses procedures for autism). Why conclude that a specific additive in vaccines of all things would be the cause? It's There is no logic or evidence to it. It's a literal example of the Pastafarian correlation/causation joke around "the decline in pirates causes global warming".
the other demographic trend more closely correlated with autism
June 5, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30526
older dads. Biological clock anyone?
Broken link below
June 4, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30512
Sorry, the link in the previous comment is broken; it should go here.
A better conspiracy theory
June 5, 2008 by coglanglab, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30525
would be one with at least some evidence behind it.
There are two problems with the evidence Anon cites. First, it talks mostly about the concerns about thimerosal. Fred mentioned that this theory has been debunked, but didn't give the evidence. Thimerosal has been eliminated from vaccines in Europe and is mostly eliminated in the US. Yet autism diagnoses are still on the rise. So much for that idea.
Second, the article has a single quote from the Simpsonwood transcript. The speaker seems to be concerned that, although the evidence presented at the meeting is that vaccines are pretty safe, some people (like anonymous) will take the mere existence of the meeting and of the research as proof that vaccines are not safe.
I did skim a dozen pages of the transcript (there's a link from Anon's article), but I got bored. If somebody can find a more damaging quote, I'd be happy to read it.
In any case, the point of my post was not to argue about whether vaccines cause autism. The point is that *even if they do,* it's a good trade.
Please try my web-based experiments
That's not what the CDC said
June 4, 2008 by Fred Bortz, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30513
This link in the original article debunks the claims of the anonymous poster about the CDC's views. The link Anon points to includes the Thimerisol theory, which has also been countered by the evidence.
Measles and mumps are always serious and can be life-threatening at times, and rubella in a pregnant woman causes serious birth defects in her children.
If you care about your kids, get them vaccinated!
Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)
The CDC believes that vaccines cause autism-spectrum disorders.
June 4, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30511
Google "Simpsonwood Transcripts". Read the articles by Robert F. Kennedy, then read the transcripts themselves.
(If you're having trouble finding it, there's a clear link here.)
The CDC's own gathering of scientists, given the CDC's studies of vaccines' aftereffects, are quoted in the transcript as calling their children and begging them to NOT vaccinate their grandchildren. They say things like "This is going to get published under the Freedom of Information Act, and the whole concept of vaccinations is going to be threatened."
The reason there is no solid link between autism and vaccines is that the CDC bought jobs for the scientists, buried the Simpsonwood transcripts, and then sold the studies and their results to a private company to avoid the Freedom of Information Act. But it's out there.
Autism in the family
June 4, 2008 by Fred Bortz, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30509
We have a young autistic child in our family, and we are grateful that the parents had him vaccinated. They are also arranging for the kind of early intervention that is likely to move him toward a more-or-less normal life by the time he is a teenager.
How awful it would be if they wasted time and effort fighting the apparently mythological vaccination connection instead of understanding his needs and helping him overcome the problems he will face.
Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)
Won't convince the true-believers
June 4, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 30503
This argument won't convince the true-believers. They already think the vaccines are useless at best, harmful or even cause/spread the diseases at worst (or, for the really loony ones, the vaccines are part of some government/industry/atheist/religious/communist plot).