As linked below high fevers and seizures, which in rare cases are associated with brain damage, are reported publicly by the CDC in 1 out 3000 individuals that receive vaccinations. This is already a recognized cost/benefit of vaccination where benefit outweighs cost. The cost is very real in rare cases.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/do ... is-mmr.pdf
It is not junk science to suggest that some people on the spectrum may be more vulnerable than others to these type of side effects because of potential associated genetic disorder or disease, including existing well known associations such as epilepsy, mitochondrial dysfunction, and auto-immune/inflammatory disorders.
It is a potential rare associated factor, where one could suggest that those children that fall ill after vaccinations, in rare incidences, are not as important as the over-riding majority that don't. Science says find the answers, leave no stone unturned. That is also within an equation of compassion for human suffering.
In an article by Nature magazine linked and quoted below, specific to Allison Singer's criticism of Autism Speaks, the funding reported was 2% of 18 million ( about 360K) toward vaccine related research, in 2010, per IAAC research funding report link below, but it was not research directed at Vaccines as a causal factor of Autism.
http://iacc.hhs.gov/portfolio-analysis/ ... ml#figure2
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/ ... 9028a.html
Quote:
The ASF is still dwarfed by the size and reach of other organizations supporting autism research. The Simons Foundation does not fund vaccine research, but Autism Speaks spends about 2% of its budget — nearly twice as much as the ASF spent on all research this year — on studies that are relevant to vaccines, says Geri Dawson, chief science officer for Autism Speaks and a professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "We are not funding any studies that directly address whether vaccines cause autism," says Dawson. "The evidence strongly suggests that there is not a link between autism and vaccines. What we are trying to understand through our research funding is the role of the immune system in autism, which certainly could be relevant to the question of vaccines."
For instance, Dawson says, Autism Speaks is funding studies investigating the idea that disorders in the cellular powerhouses, mitochondria, might influence responses to immune challenges such as infection and immunization. "We are willing to leave the door open for the possibility of rare cases in which an immunization may have triggered the onset of autism symptoms due to an underlying medical or genetic condition."
Since that time Alison Singer has been critical of the Neurodiversity Movement, very recently, in suggesting the movement has successfully implemented an "agenda" of removing essential dollars of research away from the needs of "lower functioning children" on the spectrum toward adults on the spectrum.
Factually speaking, the percentage of that money was 1 percent per the latest IACC Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee report in 2010, so her statement has no source of facts to back it up, as the actual funding is still below the goals set forth by the IACC from 2006, when the "Combating Autism Act" was initially passed as law in the US, and the IACC came in to existence, as part of that overall government effort.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... aks.2.htmlQuote:
On a political level, “neurodiversity advocates have definitely succeeded in implementing their agenda,” says Alison Singer, founder of Autism Science Foundation and a member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. “You can see it in the strategic plan [of IACC]—there are more studies focused on higher-functioning adults and the services they need, such as finding employment. But because we’re reallocating money, not increasing the budget, that means shifting funds away from the needs of lower-functioning children, who need treatments, for example, to help them control self-injurious behaviors.”
It also worth noting that she was also the individual in the infamous video that started all this "I hate Autism Speaks" rhetoric over her rather callous sounding matter of fact statement, with her daughter close by, that she once had an irrational thought of driving off a bridge, over stress of finding her daughter help. Only later did she recognize that she should have clarified that it was a very irrational thought, at the time she, matter of fact, expressed it in the video.
At times she does not appear to have much concern for those impacted unlike herself. Perhaps it is not intentional, but it is what it is.
Considering the fact that she has a sibling and a child on the spectrum, it would not be unusual at all, if she herself was somewhere on the broader autism phenotype. She sets off my Autdar, if there is such a thing. As do some of the current Autism Speaks executives who also have relatives on the spectrum, including the founder. However, only a potential broader autism phenotype, not autistic traits that rise to the level of actual defined and diagnosed disorder.
There is an upcoming presentation by Christopher Gillberg, designer of the Gillberg Criteria for Asperger's Syndrome, in the International Meeting of Autism research, IMFAR, where he will make a case that it is the related disorders and conditions, such as epilepsy, tuberous sclerosis, communication disorders such as non-verbal learning disorder, and many other conditions that make autistic traits, that are common in the population, anywhere from 10 to 30%, per research that exists, an actual diagnosed disorder, with potential negative outcomes in life, in many cases of what is currently diagnosed as ASD.
If this is correct, Autism Speaks funding Grants for research are even more valuable to those actually diagnosed or those in the future that may be diagnosed with a disorder, as the research funded pursues these related conditions, some of which are assessed in almost everyone on the spectrum, with an actual diagnosis.
03 Apr 2013, 6:08 am
