More: No link whatsoever between vaccines and autism

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I think you may be right Bert. I know there's plenty of others on this site also. Big Pharma is everywhere. I'm pretty sure autism_diva is another shill working for Big Pharma.

Here's some good quotes Bert to think of if someone ever says you're paranoid:





http://www.whale.to/b/name_calling_q.html

Uh huh.

Indoctrinated much?

now the head of the website chimes in to say its "foolish". This board is a fallacy, most likely run by big pharm. or the government. Where is the only place that autistics get together and communicate? They need to control and influence the discussion between autistics. This is the only medium! And I'll be told how ridiculous it is for me to suggest it. Or this post will be deleted, refuted. Location: washington dc, man? are you serious? I know its especially difficult for us, but we need to WAKE UP

I'm an agent for Big Pharma too! Now where's my cheque?

Faith and Science don't mix.

So you're basically saying that autism is an infectious disease? I got a lot of crap from the anti-cure, it's all genetic crowd, for saying the Lyme bacteria is one cause of autism.

The same basic problem is carried over on several different threads. There is one group that appears to be "traditionally science" based that has one viewpoint, imho based upon verifiable studies. Another group, appears to be more "Faith" centered and draws information from sources they believe in, but which have not stood up to verification by other labs/studies duplicating their results.

It's a dichotomy we see in America all the time, and try fruitlessly to resolve. Faith and Science don't mix. If someone claims to believe in science, but does not accept verifiable and repeatable facts, then they are NOT following science, but faith. You can't reconcile the two. They don't mix. Oil and water. Fire and Ice. Incompatible. To try and do so just frustrates good people on both sides of the divide. The ONLY peacemaking alternative we've found here is to "agree to disagree" and STOP beating dead horses. No anecdotes or web pages are going to make a 'science based' person believe in homeopathy, thimerosal poisoning or dental fillings causing autism. Papers published in The Lancet, or the New England Journal of Medicine would. And people who DO believe in those things, are never going to change their minds based upon published professional studies... because they have faith. Faith that what they believe is Truth. And that others are led astray, and too blind to see it. It sounds like any other kind of faith I've ever run across.

I think Beau99 may have his facts wrong. He said himself that he wasn't certain. All I can find on the net is a claim that the Rubella vaccine could cause autism. Something the links posted in the OP cast doubt on.

My facts are right, I just didn't clarify.

Prenatal rubella can cause autism. That's proven fact.

Faith and Science don't mix.

If maternal infection caused autism prenatally, you would see the same amount of autistic congruence in fraternal twins as you do in identical twins, but you don't-- the fraternal congruence is 0-10%, the identical congruence is 90%.

That's one hell of a Straw man argument you have there.

I think Beau99 may have his facts wrong. He said himself that he wasn't certain. All I can find on the net is a claim that the Rubella vaccine could cause autism. Something the links posted in the OP cast doubt on.

As far as Lyme disease goes, there has been no serious research into the possibility, only very conflicting claims. I've got my doubts that all people with Autism/AS also have or have had Lyme. I've certainly never had it. Still, if strong evidence comes along, I will give it a serious look at. Till then, I'll remain skeptical.

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and colleagues published a paper in the Lancet titled "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children."(1) Wakefield's hypothesis was that the MMR vaccine causes a series of events that include intestinal inflammation, loss of intestinal barrier function, entrance into the bloodstream of encephalopathic proteins, and consequent development of autism. In support of his hypothesis, Dr. Wakefield described 12 children with neurodevelopmental delay (8 with autism). All of these children had gastrointestinal complaints and developed autism within 1 month of receiving
MMR.

Critical flaws

* About 90% of children in England received MMR at the time this paper was written. Because MMR is administered at a time when many children are diagnosed with autism, it would be expected that most children with autism would have received an MMR vaccine, and that many would have received the vaccine recently. The observation that some children with autism recently received MMR is, therefore, expected. However, determination of whether MMR causes autism is best made by studying the incidence of autism in both
vaccinated and unvaccinated children. This wasn't done.
* Although the authors claim that autism is a consequence of gastrointestinal inflammation, gastrointestinal symptoms were observed after, not before, symptoms of autism in all 8 cases.
* Children with autism were claimed to have low levels of circulating immunoglobulin A (IgA). However, levels reported were within the normal range for that age group.
* Intestinal nodular hyperplasia (like enlarged tonsils in young children) is considered to be a variant of normal.

In 2002, Wakefield and coworkers published a 2nd paper examining the relationship between measles virus and autism.(2)

The authors tested intestinal biopsy samples for the presence of measles virus genome from children with and without autism. Measles virus genome was detected by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and in situ hybridization. 75 of 90 children with autism were found to have measles virus genome in intestinal biopsy tissue as compared with only 5 of 70
control patients.

Critical flaws

* Measles vaccine virus is live and attenuated. After inoculation, the vaccine virus probably replicates 15-20 times. Measles vaccine virus is likely to be taken up by specific cells responsible for virus uptake and presentation to the immune system (termed antigen-presenting cells or APCs). Macrophages, B cells, and dendritic cells (DC) are different types of APCs. Because all APCs are mobile, and can travel throughout the body (including the intestine), it is plausible that a child immunized with MMR would have
measles virus genome detected in intestinal tissues using a very sensitive assay (such as RT-PCR). To determine if MMR is associated with autism one must determine if the finding is specific for children with autism. Therefore, children with or without autism must be identical in two ways. First, children with or without autism must be matched for immunization status (i.e. receipt of the MMR vaccine). Second, children must be matched
for the length of time between receipt of MMR vaccine and collection of the biopsy specimen. Although this information was clearly available to the investigators and critical to their hypothesis, it was specifically omitted from the paper.
* Because natural measles virus is still circulating in England, it would have been important to determine whether the measles virus genome detected in these samples was natural measles virus or vaccine virus. Although primers are available to distinguish these two types of virus, the authors chose not to use them.
* RT-PCR is a very sensitive assay. Laboratories that work with natural measles virus (such as the lab where these studies were performed) are at high risk of getting false positive results. No mention is made in the paper as to how this problem was avoided.
* As is true for all laboratory studies, the person who is performing the test should not know whether the sample is obtained from a case or a control (blinding). Because no statement is made in the method section, it is unclear that blinding of samples occurred.