Studies that link Autism to Vaccinations.

Page 3 of 6 [ 90 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next

Previous topic | Next topic

Edenthiel
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 Sep 2014
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,820
Location: S.F Bay Area

03 Nov 2015, 2:38 pm

NowhereWoman wrote:

As a parent, the one thing I have against the whole anti-vax movement - aside from the obvious: more sick kids due to non-vaxing - is the emotional torment such "theories" cause.

"Did I do this to my child? Did I cause this? Would my child be 'a whole different person' if I had never [done theory X/not done theory W] and did I take away whomever that person was from my child? Did I POISON my child?" and then the scramble of many parents to go crazy trying to "detox" their children, right down to chelation and more...I never went that route but I did obtain lot numbers from my son's doctor to find out whether Thimerosal had been utilized in any of his vaxes and the answer was no, they hadn't. That's just an aside. But..some parents do put their children through such things...in a mad scramble to "undo the damage" - all based on non scientifically-supported hysteria.

Taking kids to doctors, clipping their hair to send it to a lab or drawing blood, "detoxing" anyway regardless of non-mercury (or other heavy metals) findings, putting all sorts of other unproven and sometimes painful (diarrhea, meltdowns, and on and on and on) "natural" "cures" for "what Big Pharma is CHOOSING not to DX in your child," "Did I start all this too late? Should I go more aggressive?" - Questions on forums like, "I just started my child on 'X' to 'detox' him from previous vaxes. Since then he has insomnia and bloody stools. Is this okay?" and all the other parents going "Oh yeah, doctors won't tell you this because they're led by the nose by GREEDY BIG PHARMA, are you going to believe them? They're the ones who POISONED your kids! Believe us instead. Your son's "symptoms" of this brain-saving therapy we're describing all normal, just keep doing that to your kid for a month or two...or six...We swear to God it worked for our kid, are you going to be lazy and not try this and never have your kid end up 'normal'? Well, we suppose that's up to you, sigh..."

And if there's evidence against your kid having ingested or received 'poison X' (in this case, 'mercury' via vaxes) it's always "No, there's another reason you're missing" thing. My BIL's girlfriend (hate her) went on and on about how I was 'poisoning' my son and how I had already 'poisoned' him by breastfeeding, and my dental fillings from the 1970s leeching into my breastmilk and him ingesting them. When I told her I hadn't breastfed, she went on to say that in that case, obviously the "heavy metals" had leeched through the umbilical cord. If I had said he was adopted, would she have claimed my 40-year-old fillings had leeched into my adopted baby through my skin when I held him? There's always an answer that keeps some parents led by the nose, chasing clouds..."I must have overlooked this..." It's maddening, it can be painful for the child depending upon the "therapies," it can be very emotionally damaging to the child who feels "Mommy is always trying to 'fix' me, I must be broken," and it's hell on the parents, who wins?

Do you see what I'm getting at? It's not science, it's a hysteria. Like people freaking out during the Middle Ages because the night air and "lack of exercise" "caused" the Black Death. Physicians everywhere had observed it, recorded it, "been able to repeat" the experiment by leaving windows open in subjects willing to risk their lives on a few coins and X percent got the plague so...night ethers and not exercising definitely caused the plague...right? Scientific correlation had been made, it must be real. Today, we realize how silly that sounds...but in the wake of hysteria it wasn't silly to the general population. At all.

Yeah. That's why some of us get up in arms about the whole "vaxes are autism-making poison" movement, and similar Poisoning Theory du Jour movements.

I blame the Internet. No, really. Similar hysteria happened when cities grew, when literacy spread, with the explosion of pop-science in the 1800's due to newspapers. Now we have a way for the average person to gain limitless information, both good and bad, instantaneously and pass it on with a personal endorsement. The OP mentioned they've read articles and watched documentaries from both sides, as if they were somehow automatically equal due to their very existence. Just like in earlier eras of knowledge explosions, two things are in play: Increased dissemination of information both good and bad, and people who put information "out there" without restricting themselves to only that which has a good chance of being true. This is *why* science and its methods exist; to ensure that only the best information is put to the top of the "deemed reliable" heap. But that doesn't apply to mass media & it certainly doesn't apply to small and medium operators in a somewhat free market economy. Just look at the number of grifters offering 'miracles', 'cures', 'treatments' and the like; they use the information explosion to ply their wares, dependent on people being overloaded to the point of letting emotion make their choices of what to believe in.

_________________
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
―Carl Sagan

Last edited by Edenthiel on 03 Nov 2015, 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

NowhereWoman
Velociraptor

Joined: 1 Jul 2009
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 499
Location: Los Angeles, CA

03 Nov 2015, 2:40 pm

skibum wrote:

Niall wrote:

Skibum: if you think that your "opinion" formed from watching documentaries and reading articles on the internet is as valid as peer-reviewed research, then the problem lies with you. It's not an unusual problem, but it certainly is one.

My opinion is my opinion and it does not matter what my opinion is or how it was formed. The only problem with this conversation is that you need me to change my opinion.

(underlining above mine)

Actually, your opinion - and the matching opinion of thousands of others - based on non-science/deliberately skewed science isn't just your opinion. In the case of vaxes, it's a much larger problem than that. A global one, when you consider that it leads people to not vax, and therefore to spread potentially fatal diseases.

If it were a woo-science opinion that didn't hurt anybody else, then it could just be laughed/shrugged off or just politely disregarded.

But it's bigger than that, so this type of opinion is, in fact, other people's business and no, it's not a matter of just changing (or not changing) your mind or of winning an argument. When your opinion is "just" your opinion, fine. When your opinion potentially harms other people, yes, it's something worth at the very least contradicting with actual science and facts.

skibum
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 Jul 2013
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,374
Location: my own little world

03 Nov 2015, 2:55 pm

Why do you guys think I am actively spreading my opinion? Go back and read my first post again. And I am not anti vax, I never have been. I never said I was. And people will think whatever they want no matter what people say or don't say. For you to say that that one post which I wrote is me "Spreading wrong information to people," those people whom you could possibly think could read that one post and come to all the conclusions you are saying they could come to, that makes no sense at all. I wrote one post on one forum thread. I had a conversation about that topic twice in my life with two people in private and nobody cared about it after we were done talking. How does that make me be "Spreading my opinion?" like you say I am. Go back and reread the first post and see if that is really what you say it is and if it can really be as influential as you claim.

Anything else I have ever said or thought about the subject has only been spoken of right here, right now and simply as a response from people demanding that I prove the evidence behind my personal opinion and trying to convince me to change it. How does that make me be "Spreading my opinion and damaging people?"

And I understand that many people might share this opinion. But personally I don't believe that I am wrong to think the way I think or to believe that way I believe and that is my right. And what other people do with the information that is out there, it is their right to interpret it and do with it as they see fit. And I also have the right to share my belief if I want to as well even if other might think it is wrong. I am not forcing anyone to believe what I believe. I simply shared my personal believe. If you want to vaccinate your kid then vaccinate your kid. If you don't then don't. I know people who do and I know people who don't and I respect each person's right to choose whatever option they choose. And if an epidemic breaks out than so be it. And if you are concerned about your kid than vaccinate your kid.

_________________
"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

Wreck It Ralph

Last edited by skibum on 03 Nov 2015, 3:05 pm, edited 3 times in total.

NowhereWoman
Velociraptor

Joined: 1 Jul 2009
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 499
Location: Los Angeles, CA

03 Nov 2015, 3:00 pm

skibum wrote:

And people will think whatever they want no matter what people say or don't say.

I disagree.

For some of us, we take a particular piece of information, try to find out about it, and then decide whether or not we believe it.

How are you spreading your opinion: Well, first and most obviously, by posting it here, where hundreds (thousands? Don't know how many members are on WP) will read it, and where others who don't set up accounts will Google and find it - especially if they're already looking for "supporting evidence" for their theories.

I mean I'm sorry to put it this way, but...how silly to come onto what is probably the single largest autism discussion forum on the internet, post, and then say you're not spreading your opinion. Of course you are. We all are.

Last edited by NowhereWoman on 03 Nov 2015, 3:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ashariel
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 16 Jun 2012
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,779
Location: US

03 Nov 2015, 3:02 pm

Just catching up here... I think you guys are blaming skibum for things she didn't actually say. Her original post simply expressed concern that environmental factors might be contributing to the rise in autism. She never said that vaccines are causing autism - just that she isn't convinced we can completely rule out that possibility yet.

Also, in terms of 'personal opinion', you have to look at the context. A WP forum post is by definition a personal opinion, and not a published scientific source. To say that personal opinions are not allowed on WP seems a bit harsh to me.

skibum
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 Jul 2013
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,374
Location: my own little world

03 Nov 2015, 3:07 pm

Ashariel wrote:

Thank you Ashariel, what you say is exactly correct in my opinion.

_________________
"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

Wreck It Ralph

skibum
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 Jul 2013
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,374
Location: my own little world

03 Nov 2015, 3:09 pm

NowhereWoman wrote:

skibum wrote:

And people will think whatever they want no matter what people say or don't say.

I think people are much more intelligent than you give them credit for. No one in their right mind is going to read my original post and use it the way you are saying they will. If they do, they have much deeper issues that they need to address.

_________________
"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

Wreck It Ralph

NowhereWoman
Velociraptor

Joined: 1 Jul 2009
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 499
Location: Los Angeles, CA

03 Nov 2015, 3:13 pm

Ashariel wrote:

Perhaps you're right. Perhaps this is the one time in our lives when we should have been more rather than less literal. :lol:

(That's a first...)

As far as personal opinions being disallowed, though, I don't take it that way at all. Of course we're all entitled to our own opinions. But because an anti-vax (or at least a "there must be some tie-in") opinion can be very, very damaging to other people if ultimately, for example, it leads to massive non-vaxing, naturally, dissenting opinions will be stronger than usual.

NowhereWoman
Velociraptor

Joined: 1 Jul 2009
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 499
Location: Los Angeles, CA

03 Nov 2015, 3:15 pm

skibum wrote:

NowhereWoman wrote:

skibum wrote:

And people will think whatever they want no matter what people say or don't say.

You underestimate the power of parental panic.

Nothing, absolutely nothing compares to the fear one can have for one's child. Fear for myself has never in a million years come close to even halfway touching the various fears (founded fears, that is) I've had for my children over the years.

It has nothing to do with intelligence, and it has nothing to do with "issues."

skibum
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 Jul 2013
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,374
Location: my own little world

03 Nov 2015, 3:19 pm

NowhereWoman wrote:

Ashariel wrote:

Perhaps you're right. Perhaps this is the one time in our lives when we should have been more rather than less literal. :lol:

(That's a first...)

No worries, it's all good.

Quote:

As far as personal opinions being disallowed, though, I don't take it that way at all. Of course we're all entitled to our own opinions. But because an anti-vax (or at least a "there must be some tie-in") opinion can be very, very damaging to other people if ultimately, for example, it leads to massive non-vaxing, naturally, dissenting opinions will be stronger than usual.

I am sure my personal opinion post won't lead to a massive non vaxing campaign. :lol:

I am totally cool with you.

I hope Niall is cool too.

_________________
"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

Wreck It Ralph

Last edited by skibum on 03 Nov 2015, 3:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

skibum
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 Jul 2013
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,374
Location: my own little world

03 Nov 2015, 3:27 pm

NowhereWoman wrote:

skibum wrote:

NowhereWoman wrote:

skibum wrote:

And people will think whatever they want no matter what people say or don't say.

I understand where you are coming from. I get that parents can really panic about stuff like that. But the way that post reads, it really should not have that kind of power. If I say that I am not convinced that environmental factors and the vaccine regiment might not be contributing to the rise in neurological issues than that is all I am saying. "I am not convinced that..." I am not anywhere saying that there is any scientific evidence one way or the other. I am not saying do this or do that, I am not saying you must believe this.

And who am I? I am not touting myself as a medical doctor or a scientist or anyone. I am just me. If you read my other threads you will see that I never even finished college. If I were to come here and say I am Dr. Skibum with all these phds and scientific studies behind me and I am not convinced that..., then yes there might be some concern about my opinion because it would be written as a professional opinion. But that is not the case. Who am I? I am nobody of importance so nobody needs to care about my personal opinion or put any credence in it if they don't want to. If I was just some woman in the grocery store who said what I said then you might say, whatever. If I stated that in Woman's World magazine you might just say, whatever. If I were to say it and claim to be an authority of some kind that would be a different story. But I am not, I am simply one person with no credentials in anything who happens to have an opinion and I chose to share it. That is not going to affect anyone.

If anyone said to a doctor, don't vaccinate my kid because Skibum wrote her opinion about how she is not convinced that environmental issues might be not be affecting our kids neurologically, and she put it on WP, the doctor would look at that parent and say, Really? Seriously? Who the hell is Skibum and since when did WP become a medical authority?

_________________
"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

Wreck It Ralph

bb400guy
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

Joined: 11 Aug 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 55
Location: Winterpeg

03 Nov 2015, 3:40 pm

I'll just throw my 2 cents in, which is actually what the genetics research doctor told me when my son was diagnosed in June 2014 with a regressive form ASD:

Some of the rise of ASD is exactly due to "improved awareness, better access to diagnosis and more realistic, broadened diagnostic criteria", but not all of it. The known single-gene disorders that cause autism are not on the rise, but there is a percentage within the ASD population that is on the rise - without question. As for why that segment is on the rise, he couldn't say, but hypothesized that in time more studies will find multiple avenues to causation and it's a certainty that they will all be genetic or epigenetic in origin.

I also asked him about vaccines - he said studies show there is no known causation (Wakefield was a fraud - period), but again that may turn out not to be an absolute fact in all cases of ASD. For example he mentioned the Gardasil vaccine issue, that it's safe for virtually every woman, with the exception of a few that develop rashes, headaches and the poor few who have had a rare/severe reaction to it and died. I guess it’s the greater good for girls vs. too bad for them? It may be the same situation with autism.

The guy has over 30 years of experience so his best assessment of the “rise in ASD” situation is good enough for me.

As for my son, who didn't show any symptoms until after the MMR vaccination, in hindsight I wish I could have not vaccinated until a later age just in case this did only play a role in the severity of this ASD. We tracked his head circumference every month or so - he was always at about the 50th percentile - but after the MMR shot (@ 13 months) his head circumference increased dramatically and was at the 87th percentile (at 18 months) or just below the danger zone of 97th percentile. Currently, at 3 and a half years, his head circumference is at the 55th percentile of average. This accelerated brain growth is what most likely caused his ASD as this is when the subtle signs started and became more obvious as time went on. As to what caused the accelerated brain growth - an auto-immune reaction to the vaccine which damaged/altered brain development?.....another cause(s?)....fate?....or a combination of everything? I'll most likely never know why my son stop looking, smiling, reacting, and stop speaking his few words.

I don't care what anyone else says about vaccines or herd this or that, again I wish I would have mitigated his risk and at least delayed his vaccines - my son has his kind of severe autism and he has to live with it, not me, not you or maybe your kind of ASD. Trying to say a parent should get their children vaccinated based on another person's opinion which for arguments sake may be 99.9% true, is like saying someone should be able to shoot a gun blindly in any random direction because 99.9% of the time the bullets don’t hit children. Too bad for the rare 0.1% of kids who may be susceptible to a yet unknown cause or increased severity of their kind of ASD.

_________________
Loving father to a beautiful 6 year old boy with an ASD who loves trains, boat rides and riding his bike to go buy popsicles.

Ashariel
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 16 Jun 2012
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,779
Location: US

03 Nov 2015, 4:11 pm

skibum wrote:

If anyone said to a doctor, don't vaccinate my kid because Skibum wrote her opinion about how she is not convinced that environmental issues might be not be affecting our kids neurologically, and she put it on WP, the doctor would look at that parent and say, Really? Seriously? Who the hell is Skibum and since when did WP become a medical authority?

I shudder to imagine if someone screws up in the "Count by Fives" thread - it could turn the entire field of mathematical science on its head!

Joking aside, I do appreciate all the views expressed here, including those of parents (on both sides of the argument). I think it's terrible that parents are being made to feel guilty for vaccinating their children - and I equally empathize with those who have been personally and deeply affected by this issue, whose experiences are being marginalized.

voleregard
Sea Gull

Joined: 29 Jun 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 226
Location: A magical place without backup warning beepers or leaf blowers

03 Nov 2015, 4:21 pm

There's marginalizing happening on both sides. I too appreciate the opinions, but, as it is, even my own strongly held opinions don't help me find solutions which is why I'm drawn more to hard evidence, as nearly as I can get to it.

The_Face_Of_Boo is correct that the case has not been settled either way. And I don't believe a real answer will be published in medical journals for reasons I will share.

Advance apologies for the length of this post, but there's so much misinformation to address.

For the record, I do not believe that vaccines cause autism.

Something in the vaccination process does however seem highly correlated to development of the cluster of behaviors that are being called "autistic." Those who constantly retreat to saying "correlation does not causation" run the risk of ignoring the obvious.

Aluminum alone (forget mercury) has shown to be toxic when injected:

Aluminum hydroxide injections lead to motor deficits and motor neuron degeneration wrote:

"aluminum-treated mice showed significantly increased apoptosis of motor neurons and increases in reactive astrocytes and microglial proliferation within the spinal cord and cortex." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19740540).

Apoptosis means cellular death. Presence of reactive astrocytes and microglial proliferation indicates neuronal damage. The abstract states that "The most likely culprit [for the reported symptoms] appears to be aluminum hydroxide." And it goes on to say that "demonstrated neurotoxicity of aluminum hydroxide and its relative ubiquity as an adjuvant suggest that greater scrutiny by the scientific community is warranted."

The researchers call for greater scrutiny, but instead, those who do pursue the path of greater investigation are roundly criticized and drummed out of the conversation when their findings don't support vaccination, the community responding by saying the matter has already been settled. The only people allowed any significant voice are those who promote the position that will accrue profits for the manufacturers of the product being sold. Any rational-minded person should find that odd. We barely have one generation of data, and already the scientific community wants to conclude there's no reason to look at even the possibility of multi-generational effects? Dismissal before investigation isn't scientific.

And evidently, neither are the medical journals any longer, as editors of the Lancet and NEJM have admitted that much of published research is false:

http://www.shiftfrequency.com/nearly-ha ... ure-false/

Leading Scientists Believe Up To Half Of Research-Based Literature Is Simply Untrue wrote:

"...Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet, who states, 'much of scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue,' in the April 15th, 2015 edition of the journal. He lists a a variety of reasons for this failure: studies with small sample sizes, flagrant conflicts of interest and an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance."

John P.A. loannidis, a professor in disease prevention at Standford University School of Medicine, writes that most published research findings are false, due to several criteria — including 'greater financial and other interest and prejudice.'"

That second quote is by a professor in the Stanford medical school. He's saying that most published research findings are false. Not "half." Not "many." Most. He implicated vested interests and bias toward preferred findings. The process is not objective as we are told to believe.

Leading Scientists Believe Up To Half Of Research-Based Literature Is Simply Untrue wrote:

"Dr. Marcia Angell, physician and longtime editor in chief of the New England Medical Journal states: 'It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.'

So if you're waiting for published research to prove the case one way or the other, unfortunately that is no longer a reliable source. To those who will ask "Then where can we get reliable research results?", you'll need to ask why people like Rife and Hoxsey who found cures so successful were only destroyed after failing to sell out to the AMA. (https://www.quantumbalancing.com/royal_raymond_rife.htm)

skibum
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 Jul 2013
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,374
Location: my own little world

03 Nov 2015, 4:23 pm

Ashariel wrote:

skibum wrote:

I shudder to imagine if someone screws up in the "Count by Fives" thread - it could turn the entire field of mathematical science on its head!

Well said Ashariel. I agree. Whatever my personal opinions are on environmental factors and however anyone interprets them, the reality is families are affected however they are affected by whatever is affecting them and when they are affected in a negative way, I do feel for them as we all should.

_________________
"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

Wreck It Ralph

skibum
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 Jul 2013
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,374
Location: my own little world

03 Nov 2015, 4:28 pm

Voleregard, so happy to see you. Thank you for that post.
You changed your cat! Sorry, to kind of say something off topic and not so important but I was just really happy to see you. It's been a while.

_________________
"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

Wreck It Ralph

Page 3 of 6 [ 90 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next

Jump to:

Similar Topics
Link between Hernias and Autism in Women? in General Autism Discussion	24 Oct 2024, 11:33 am vanessaaimee
Having Autism in General Autism Discussion	Yesterday, 9:14 am Fenn
Teenager with Autism and OCD in Parents' Discussion	Yesterday, 8:52 am timf
PTSD or autism in Social Skills and Making Friends	03 Nov 2024, 5:13 pm Ursula

Studies that link Autism to Vaccinations. Post Reply New Topic

Studies that link Autism to Vaccinations.