Great refutation of a tired old debate

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This is some comment driven site, so some of the comments are not work safe, but you'd probably hear them in a PG-13 movie nowadays. The pictures are all work safe.

http://thebicker.net/post/62747359537/c ... lenegative

I don't know what's more disturbing-- the debate, or the website. That was cute.

Number of vaccines in 1983: 10. Autism rate in 1983: 1 in 10,000. Definition of Autism in 1983: Nonverbal child hooting and screaming while banging his head against a wall. BuyerBeware was: Still not making eye contact, not playing with other kids, crying too easily, walking on her toes and sucking her thumb (when she could keep her foot out of her mouth long enough to get the thumb in). In short, still autistic, even if no-one had pathologized it yet.

THIS MOUNTAIN RANGE IS AFFECTING THE MURDER RATE!! !!

Kids get 46 vaccines nowadays? 46 different vaccines? What are all these new diseases they are vaccinating against?

I am not hocking this site. I haven't even looked at it. But it does have the graphic I was looking for:

http://www.drmomma.org/2011/01/cdc-mand ... 83-vs.html

I'm assuming this is a "vaccines cause autism" thing. I didn't look at the site. However, I have AS and I never got any of the vaccines. Wouldn't that kind of blow it out of the water?

The first picture was one supporting vaccines cause autism. The rest were pictures of other correlations: Is Facebook driving the Greek Debt Crisis?; Did babies named Ava cause the housing bubble?; Would M. Night Shymalian start making better movies if more people read newspapers?; Is this mountain affecting the murder rate in NYC?

Then made the point that correlation does not equal causation.

I don't know if you are referring to the original site, or the one I posted. The one I posted is just a side-by-side comparision of how many vax were administered in the 1980's compared to now. As a parent, I found that graphic to be very interesting. It's actually a bit shocking.

And...your AS would only blow it out of the water if there was only one thing that caused AS/ASD and if we assumed that AS/ASD was a homogenous condition. I am perfectly comfortable with the possibility that vaccines have absolutely nothing to do with some people's autism, and possibly something to do with other people's autism. But for some reason, it seems that most people view it as an all-or-nothing kind of thing. As if it cannot be plausible that both propositions can be true. Logically they can, provided autism is not a homogenous condition.

Not to start this tired debate. I think for the vast majority of us, it simply causes eyeball rolls because we have learned from experience how futile it is.

Those last two graphs made me snort.

One thing I think would be interesting to see over the next 10 to 20 years is whether there's going to be a drop in the diagnosis rates in adults.

In theory, if you could figure out a way to cobble those stats together with the stats of dignosed children born at the same time as the recently diagnosed adults, shouldn't it be possible to show whether or not there has actually been an increase in the number of people born with autism?

I am confused...how could diagnosed children be born at the same time as recently diagnosed adults?

Whoops, sorry for not being more clear. I'd only had one cup of coffee when I wrote that. And now I'm trying to figure out how to put it so it WILL make sense...

Let's say you take everyone with autism born in 1985. Some of them will have been diagnosed as children, and some of them will likely have slipped through the net, and won't have recieved a diagnosis until much later. So if you take the number of people diagnosed as adults born in a particular year, and put that number together with the number of people also born in that year who were diagnosed as children, then you should get an idea of how many people born in that year have autism.

Compare that to the same number from subsequent years, and you might be able to see whether there has actually been a rise in autism, or whether the increase is likely due to improved screening, in which case the number of potential adults being diagnosed with autism should start to drop (and probably fairly sharply), because more and more will have been diagnosed as children.

Does that make more sense?

Of course it could just be that I'm just talking nonsense. That's always a significant possibility to bear in mind.

It makes perfect sense to me. The only barrier to it working is the difficulty and expense (and diminishing returns--there aren't many programs to help adults with ASD, especially those who are coping with some level of success) with getting a diagnosis as an adult.

I was born in 1979. Going by family stories of me as a child and things I remember thinking and doing, I am pretty certain that if I was a child born in 2009, I would have been referred for testing definitely by the time I started Head Start, if not sooner, and I am fairly certain that I would have been diagnosed HFA. I cope fairly well as an adult, and all those coping strategies and things that I consciously think about and learned through trial and error are a pretty good mask. I can pass as normal with casual acquaintances and only come across as somewhat strange to people I am around more often--just enough to make most people uncomfortable (maybe I'll figure out how not to do this someday). At this point, with all the layers I have in place, I wouldn't fit the diagnostic criteria that are used to diagnose small children. I don't think that changes who I am at the core, it just means I don't fit the criteria of being disabled. (Even though me and keeping jobs is completely incompatible due to the stress and anxiety working with people creates for me).

Maybe someday a researcher will come up with criteria to diagnose adults that have adapted to the NT world the best they can. Maybe they'll want to do a research project that accomplishes what you were talking about where they screen large populations of undiagnosed adults, and people will realize that being Aspie or HFA isn't some brand new thing, just a newly diagnosed thing. And that the current level of treatment and compassion will hopefully raise a generation of Aspie and HFA adults that are even better at coping with the NT world than my generation is, because we had to it with no compassion, understanding, or assistance, and there is only so far you can pull yourself up without those things. That whole, scientist discovering great things and saying they were standing on the shoulders of giants to do it, thing. What will this generation of Aspies do from the shoulders of the giants of therapy they are receiving? Great things, I hope.

Call me a cynic, but I don't think helping additional adults get diagnosis is a priority if it is felt like they are coping well enough. I don't think that would happen unless they have some pill (or pills) that can be marketed. Then as long as it does not involve increasing disability claims etc. you might see the same kinds of ads they have now for depression meds. Anything that is not a med, won't be anything that is readily marketed or will be willingly covered by insurance.

A lot of the vaccines they have now are totally optional, like the vaccine for chickenpox and the flu vaccine. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that in our state, MT, only *4* vaccines are required for entry into public school, Hib, DTap, MMR and IPV (Polio). This varies by state. So, no, every child does not get *46* vaccinations by the time they are 6 years old. I personally only got my boys the ones that were required, plus we did flu vaccines when they were younger but I've given that up as we no longer are in the group of folks considered high-risk. I bet most people don't get all of the immunizations that are available.

Absolutely agreed. That's why I said "maybe someday". It's the kind of language I use to mean probably never, and definitely not soon. I should have been more clear.

Its nice you live in a state like that. Ours requires more than 20 (recommends about 30) by the time you go to pre-k (here, age of 4), including chicken pox. I find the chicken pox vaccine and mandatory requirements for it absurd. It has a death rate of .0023%. Your child is more likely to die in a car crash on the way to school. I also live in a state that is notoriously hard to get an exemption. Many states have a "personal belief" exemption. We do not, and the requirements for a religious exemption here are apparently tougher than many other states. Not an issue for me because my kids are vaccinated, but I think it would be a huge issue for me if I wanted control over what vaccines they got. Despite the fact that my kids are immunized, I seriously think it is overkill and unnecessary. But it gives the drug companies money, and the doctors, too, because of all of the extra office visits required for all of the vaccines. Even worse if you only want to administer one vaccine at a time like I did. My insurance wouldn't even cover all of the visits. It's a sham and the American people have bought into it whole heartedly.

Sorry. My beef isn't about the autism/vaccine connection debate. It is about mandating that parents make certain medical decisions in order to allow their children access to a taxpayer funded and otherwise "guaranteed" entitlement, when that mandate often has dubious worth in terms of being "life saving," and then spreading fear campaigns all over the place. I believe the end result is more money in the drug company's pockets and tons of extra $ for doctor's visits for the physicians giving the immunizations. It all just seems crooked to me. Mandate the ones that prevent serious, debilitating childhood illnesses if you must. Let parents decide about the rest. If I don't want my kids to get chicken pox, I simply get them vaccinated. Then it doesn't matter who else decides not to get it, because if their kid gets it, mine are immune.

But I want to state again that for me--this has nothing to do with the mercury debate or the autism/vaccine debate--and everything to do with the above paragraph.

I think the issue is with maintaining herd immunity for those who cannot get the vaccines for various reasons. We do all the vaccines, even flu, b/c my son does not handle being sick well at all, and it is worth it to us.

I don't think flu shots or chicken pox should be mandated. It is subjective where that line gets drawn.

You have to figure out the consequences for each vaccine (consequences of both taking them and not taking them, for the individual and the group) at various levels of compliance and weigh that against individual choice. Given that school is compulsory unless you are able and willing to opt out, they generally try to push compliance, so as not to deal with school-fueled epidemics, if they can help it. It isn't that I dismiss the influence of Big Pharma, but I do think their are legitimate concerns, though, again, I may not agree with specifically where those lines are drawn..