MMR & autism Not just bad science but also falsified

ford_prefect_3

Nicki wrote: »

The increased risk of ITP within 6 weeks of MMR is 1 in 25,000

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1884189/

And the condition varies greatly in severity, often clearing up of it's own accord without treatment according to wiki (must confess I had never previously heard of it). I am not sure I would describe that as a significant risk to be honest!

Do you actually know anything about adverse reactions in medicine?

I chose ITP as one example, and as you rightly show its incidence increases with the adminstration of MMR as its an auto immune condition, therefore, by definition MMR is not "safe".

It does however nicely destroy your put down about the overload theory of multiple vaccinations as ITP is caused by exactly that, it occurs when the immune system has been exposed to a virus and over responds and attacks the bodies own platelets, increase the viral load three fold you increase the risk.

ITP is a lifelong condition that can return once you have had it once, fortunately most sufferers only have one episode, but all it takes is a bad knock to the head, and with no clotting mechanism your toast (fortunately that is rare)

In terms of the risk, 1 in 25,000 sounds small in a group of 25,000 but take that group upto 4 million and thats 160 blighted children living with a condition that can make life very difficult.

ford_prefect_3

plumpmouse wrote: »

Not wanting to get drawn into any debate as sides in these arguements will never agree, but I do find this comment odd

I think you probably find that it is your son's future children that you could be protecting as Rubella is more serious for unborn babies!!!

Given that MMR is given at such a young age, and if we are to rely on herd immunity to pick up the slack from the mothers who choose not to be vaccinated then my sons innoculation isnt protecting his future offspring its protecting adults today who are getting pregnant and havent bothered to protect themselves from the disease.

By all means inoculate all females against Rubella and then the problem is solved without risking the health of those who are not adversely affected by german measles.

Nicki

Just drafted a long post, and lost it, so apologies if this is more brief. I'm posting on an ipad and it won't allow me to do long quotes but I'll try to answer poet's above.

I'm not going to post again the scientific links which poet is well aware of as they are also being discussed on Dt and she is contributing there too. This is an overview of all the research including Wakefield.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1808956.stm

If you want bios then google them yourself, but they are all qualified and experienced researchers with no apparent financial agenda. Yes I agree wakefield's hypothesis should have been investigated but my view is that it has been, extensively, and I don't agree with poet that more research is needed.

I think its misleading to lump all adverse drug reactions over a 4 year period together and conclude from this that the mmr is unsafe. All vaccinations have some adrs which vary greatly in severity from a mild fever or rash to for example the ITP someone else referred to. What is important is the potential severity of the reaction taken in conjunction with the likelihood of it occurring. My view is that a 1in 25,000 risk of ITP for example is worth running for the sake of protecting the most vulnerable children in society. And lets not forget where we started this discussion was whether or not mmr causes autism, not other reactions, and I'm still not convinced that anyone has established that it does.

Finally on single vaccinations, I wouldn't object to them being available still on the nhs, but for concerned parents they've always been available privately for not a huge sum, though I believe the single mumps vaccination is no longer manufactured so its now only measles and rubella. However some parents, of which poet is one, wouldn't immunise even when the single jabs were available free on the nhs and others for whatever reason didn't bother to complete the protocol, so I can understand why for public health reasons, the decision was taken to change to a combined jab.

plumpmouse

ford_prefect wrote: »

Given that MMR is given at such a young age, and if we are to rely on herd immunity to pick up the slack from the mothers who choose not to be vaccinated then my sons innoculation isnt protecting his future offspring its protecting adults today who are getting pregnant and havent bothered to protect themselves from the disease.

By all means inoculate all females against Rubella and then the problem is solved without risking the health of those who are not adversely affected by german measles.

So it protected your son whilst in the womb.

Is it adults who aren't bothering to protect themselves from the disease or parents refusing to vaccinate their children?

Nicki

Quote button now not working at all.

All I know about ITP is what I've read tonight, but ford prefect's post seems alarmist if it is true that 70% of children will recover completely within 6 months with no treatment, and that of the remaining 30% 1/3 will recover completely thereafter and a further 1/3 will only have mild symptoms. So that makes about a dozen children in a sample of four million who will have this complication longer term i'm afraid that still sounds to me like odds worth running for the greater good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiopathic_thrombocytopenic_purpura

ford_prefect_3

Nicki wrote: »

Just drafted a long post, and lost it, so apologies if this is more brief. I'm posting on an ipad and it won't allow me to do long quotes but I'll try to answer poet's above.

I'm not going to post again the scientific links which poet is well aware of as they are also being discussed on Dt and she is contributing there too. This is an overview of all the research including Wakefield.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1808956.stm

If you want bios then google them yourself, but they are all qualified and experienced researchers with no apparent financial agenda. Yes I agree wakefield's hypothesis should have been investigated but my view is that it has been, extensively, and I don't agree with poet that more research is needed.

I think its misleading to lump all adverse drug reactions over a 4 year period together and conclude from this that the mmr is unsafe. All vaccinations have some adrs which vary greatly in severity from a mild fever or rash to for example the ITP someone else referred to. What is important is the potential severity of the reaction taken in conjunction with the likelihood of it occurring. My view is that a 1in 25,000 risk of ITP for example is worth running for the sake of protecting the most vulnerable children in society. And lets not forget where we started this discussion was whether or not mmr causes autism, not other reactions, and I'm still not convinced that anyone has established that it does.

Finally on single vaccinations, I wouldn't object to them being available still on the nhs, but for concerned parents they've always been available privately for not a huge sum, though I believe the single mumps vaccination is no longer manufactured so its now only measles and rubella. However some parents, of which poet is one, wouldn't immunise even when the single jabs were available free on the nhs and others for whatever reason didn't bother to complete the protocol, so I can understand why for public health reasons, the decision was taken to change to a combined jab.

Adverse Reactions are just that Adverse Reactions and to say you cant lump them all in together to decide on safety is diametrically opposed to the role of the reporting system for ADR's and its effect on the withdrawl of a medicine!

Autism and Aspergers etc are a smokescreen compared to the other risks of combined jabs which are only in place for cost reasons rather than public health reasons for the simple reason it cuts the number of syringes and the number of doctors visits and also decreases the logistics costs of delivery and storage by 66%.

The bottom line is that its a risk/reward based decision with all vaccinations and the risks with all vaccines are pretty low but that doesnt make them risk free or "safe"

pwllbwdr

poet123, your reasoning seems to rely substantially on court decisions having concluded that there was a link in certain cases which have been tried.

Court decisions go wrong. Obvious example: Roy Meadow. He expressed an opinion on something which actually required the understanding of statistics. His statistical understanding was inadequate, and he got it catastrophically wrong. That didn't stop him from expressing his opinions in court, and he was believed. People spent time in prision because he didn't understand statistics, and perhaps more importantly, was prepared to express an opinion involving statistics even when he didn't understand it properly.

I don't want to set this thread off on a tangent, and suggest that we don't get involved in debating his dodgy statistics. However, his opinions have now been thoroughly debunked.

Ten years ago you could have expressed similar views to your MMR views for the Meadow cases. Court cases do not make scientific data.

poet123

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/vaccine-court-autism-deba_b_169673.html

This an excellent article and gives a lot of detail of the way vaccine court rulings are made and how many of them there have actually been....many of which have been kept out of the public domain for various reasons.

Nicki

Quote button still not working!

Adverse drug reaction reports are SUSPECTED side effects of drugs ranging in seriousness from mild to severe. As this link makes clear a reported ADR does not mean there is in fact a link between the drug/vaccine and the reported side effect, it is merely an indication that the possibility of a link should be researched.

http://www.mhra.gov.uk/Safetyinformation/Reportingsafetyproblems/Reportingsuspectedadversedrugreactions/Patientreporting/index.htm

poet123

http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/articles/2005_june_16.html

This is an account of a secret meeting by Robert Kennedy, it makes interesting reading too.

Re adverse reactions these are the stats;
From July 1990 thro' April 1994, 5799 ADRs following MMR vaccination were reported to US Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS); including 3063 cases requiring emergency medical treatment, 616 hospitalisations, 309 who did not recover, 54 children left disabled and 30 deaths. Due to massive underreporting these are considered only 10-15% of the total number of ADRs (6)

They seem to be quite clear.