MMR & autism Not just bad science but also falsified

melancholly

poet123 wrote: »

Are you in favour of research into autism at all or has enough time and money been expended there as well?

you see, research into how best to diagnose autism is massively important, as is how to help families to adjust and allow the children to grow up and develop in the most appropriate way. i think the whole MMR issue has now been shown to be rubbish so many times that it's throwing good money after bad.

there is a limited pot of money for medical research and getting stuck in the vaccine rut, in the hope that something will come up after 10 years of studies from all over the world that have been unable to find anything, is actually hindering progress elsewhere. there are so many more urgent places for the money to be spent.

i guess it doesn't matter how many legal cases you show me, those aren't, in my opinion, and in the opinion of almost everyone who works in science, good evidence. perhaps if people made their cases in real papers, it would help. it doesn't matter how many you link to, they can so easily be dismissed, that they can't contribute to the debate with any weight in terms of public health decisions.

i also think that public health decisions and decisions on where to spend money for research must be based on scientific fact and not public opinion, largely whipped up the press (and most 'science' journalists don't even have a science A level so aren't really able to critically evaluate work - but then again, our minister for science didn't study it or work in it at all either - but that's a shame as well!!).

donteatthat

Just been having a quick flick through the latest developments!
I never understood why only the girls were vaccinated against rubella at school. My step-sister has only one arm as a result of her mother catching rubella whilst pregnant. I would think the reason for the change in policy is not only due to cost-saving element by having "one-jab-fits-all" but that if the program worked and enough people were vaccinated then rubella could be eradicated. As boys could pass it on then why would they not be vaccinated in order to prevent the spread and the subsequent birth defects? After all it could affect their off-spring so I find ford prefect's comment strange. It would be rare for someone to be unfortunate and catch rubella whilst pregnant I suppose, but if they do then the outcome can be very sad. Poet123, earlier you asked me if there could be a worse consequence of an infection than death (or something to that effect). Personally I do feel that there are worse things than death, particulary having to live with severe disabilties. I have recently faced this question when I delivered my baby 12 weeks prematurely and not being sure how things would turn out for him. Premature babies follow the same immunisation program as full-term babies, and their is no higher incidence of problems which would cast doubt on the immature immune system theories.

conradmum

poet123 wrote: »

The facts are that those reports re MMR were made, they are then examined and adjudicated on, but although the reports are in the public domain the results of the adjudications are not.

Why do you suppose that is if the vaccine is vindicated? Could it be another example of fudging the issue?

Re Mr Kennedy; Surely the fact that secret meetings have taken place at which the health of the nations children is not the primary factor (for those charged with protecting it) is a matter any politician worth his salt should be commenting on? It makes quite damning reading imo.

Do you not believe this meeting took place or that the facts of the meeting were untrue?

I don't think anyone is saying research should be as specific or narrow as that confined to autism/mmr. I personally believe that it is time to do more research into possible genetic pre disposition to vaccine damage. This would inevitably throw up any, as yet, undiscovered autism links, as in many cases vaccine damage results in a child being on the spectrum.

I think it is interesting that most lawyers who are winning their cases for compensation are deliberately omitting the word "autism" from their submissions as they fear the mere mention of the word will bias the decision against their clients. This is in spite of many of the children being diagnosed as being on the spectrum, they are simply detailing the symptomes without attaching the label. And this tack seems to be working.

The omnibus autism case is still going through the courts, but in excess of 1300 stand alone cases of children with the same or similar diagnosis have been paid out. The difference?........... it is all in a name apparently;)

I think it is very easy for those who are not affected to say enough money has been spent on research.

Are you in favour of research into autism at all or has enough time and money been expended there as well?

I'm very much in favour of research into autism. As I may have said already in such debates, I have (or rather had as he has recently died) a close friend whose son is quite severely autistic. I think it's a terrible shame that research in this area has been sidelined into a now many times disproved link with vaccination. If only that time and money had been spent on a more worthwhile avenue of research, a cause and/or cure might have been found by now.

Re Mr. Kennedy, when a journalist indulges in such highly prejudiced reporting that he omits pertinent facts, I simply don't know what to believe about whatever else he states.

poet123

donteatthat wrote: »

Just been having a quick flick through the latest developments!
I never understood why only the girls were vaccinated against rubella at school. My step-sister has only one arm as a result of her mother catching rubella whilst pregnant. I would think the reason for the change in policy is not only due to cost-saving element by having "one-jab-fits-all" but that if the program worked and enough people were vaccinated then rubella could be eradicated. As boys could pass it on then why would they not be vaccinated in order to prevent the spread and the subsequent birth defects? After all it could affect their off-spring so I find ford prefect's comment strange. It would be rare for someone to be unfortunate and catch rubella whilst pregnant I suppose, but if they do then the outcome can be very sad. Poet123, earlier you asked me if there could be a worse consequence of an infection than death (or something to that effect). Personally I do feel that there are worse things than death, particulary having to live with severe disabilties. I have recently faced this question when I delivered my baby 12 weeks prematurely and not being sure how things would turn out for him. Premature babies follow the same immunisation program as full-term babies, and their is no higher incidence of problems which would cast doubt on the immature immune system theories.

In terms of bald stats death would rate higher, be considered more important than disability.

I agree there are those conditions where the disability is so great that to an outside observer.death may have been preferable/kinder However, that was not really what we were discussing.

poet123

conradmum wrote: »

I'm very much in favour of research into autism. As I may have said already in such debates, I have (or rather had as he has recently died) a close friend whose son is quite severely autistic. I think it's a terrible shame that research in this area has been sidelined into a now many times disproved link with vaccination. If only that time and money had been spent on a more worthwhile avenue of research, a cause and/or cure might have been found by now.

Re Mr. Kennedy, when a journalist indulges in such highly prejudiced reporting that he omits pertinent facts, I simply don't know what to believe about whatever else he states.

So what type of research would meet with your approval?

Which pertinent facts did Mr Kennedy omit? he was speaking of the time when the mercury was still in the vaccines and the meeting took place. I presume he was making the point that if it happened once it could happen again. Do you not believe that it did happen as he said?

I also think you do him a disservice referring to him as a journalist. He is first and foremost a distinguished lawyer and academic. I suppose to dismiss him as a "journalist" suits your stance better?

poet123

melancholly wrote: »

you see, research into how best to diagnose autism is massively important, as is how to help families to adjust and allow the children to grow up and develop in the most appropriate way. i think the whole MMR issue has now been shown to be rubbish so many times that it's throwing good money after bad.

there is a limited pot of money for medical research and getting stuck in the vaccine rut, in the hope that something will come up after 10 years of studies from all over the world that have been unable to find anything, is actually hindering progress elsewhere. there are so many more urgent places for the money to be spent.

i guess it doesn't matter how many legal cases you show me, those aren't, in my opinion, and in the opinion of almost everyone who works in science, good evidence. perhaps if people made their cases in real papers, it would help. it doesn't matter how many you link to, they can so easily be dismissed, that they can't contribute to the debate with any weight in terms of public health decisions.

i also think that public health decisions and decisions on where to spend money for research must be based on scientific fact and not public opinion, largely whipped up the press (and most 'science' journalists don't even have a science A level so aren't really able to critically evaluate work - but then again, our minister for science didn't study it or work in it at all either - but that's a shame as well!!).

How can a family with a child damaged by vaccine make their case in a peer reviewed paper?

They have no other avenue than a court, and in the case of the US, a court set up specifically to deal with such cases. You are asking the ordinary man in the street to meet a standard of evidence which is beyond their capabilities, not because the evidence is not there, but because it is impossible for them to follow the required protocols.

The cases which have been linked to and approx 1300 others have won in court and so proved their cases to the standard required for the payout of millions of dollars.

Are you really saying none of those cases, or few of them have merit? or that the conclusions and findings which indicate MMR was accepted as causation for the damage inflicted, are bogus?

You really believe those payouts would have happened on the scale they have if that was the case?

melancholly

poet123 wrote: »

Are you really saying none of those cases, or few of them have merit? or that the conclusions and findings which indicate MMR was accepted as causation for the damage inflicted, are bogus?

yes that's excatly what i'm saying! i'm saying that a court decision like this does not provide anything pertinent to the debate in terms of scientific evidence.

i'm not talking about a family in a terrible situation trying to find an external source of blame and taking legal proceedings. i'm talking about studies that show any form of a link in any general population. without those studies, a few individual court cases aren't suitable evidence.

i'm saying that you are not giving scientific studies with correlations or causal mechanisms and so nothing from a individual case seeking damages is going to convince me versus dozens of scientific papers (with fully detailed methods and statistics that anyone can read). nothing that's independent, nothing that's peer reviewed, nothing that would be acceptable in terms of deciding if a vaccine was safe.

that's what makes this a deadlock! you can quote all the US legal cases you like, but the scientific published evidence completely disagrees and cannot find a single link between mmr and autism. maybe 10 years ago i would have been more open to a link, but after all the research that's been done, it genuinely terrifies me that people choose to ignore the wealth of evidence out there.

EDIT: quoted badly. i'm not saying that the evidence is bogus or made up, just that it doesn't provide the burden of proof sufficiently (or in any way, actually), to over-ride the massive numbers of papers finding no link.

poet123

So, you don't accept the summation which appears in the conclusions of some of these case that "causation due to MMR " is valid? (after being adjuducated by medics and having supporting medical evidence)

Remeber, we are not discussing autism here, but "autism like symptoms" or PDD.

ETA, even if you consider it doesnt meet scientific standards (which I agree it doesnt) surely it must give pause for thought, these are real children, real families, there is something causing this, and if the evidence is out there in a collection of individual cases, then to me, more needs to be done to join up the dots and find the cause.

barbiedoll

poet123 wrote: »

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/graphs/

"single greatest cause of the significant fall in infant mortality " so access to good nutrition, better sanitation etc, are not more important? and more responsible for the reduction in infant mortality?Then why do very many millions of vaccinated kids die every year in the 3rd world?

Many children in the Third World die from other causes, not from diseases against which they have been vaccinated. Malaria claims many lives each year, if there was a vaccine to protect against it, I doubt that many Third World mothers would refuse it. It's also a sad fact of life that well-meaning health workers in the Third World can vaccinate children against many of the killer diseases, yet are supplying mothers with formula milk, sold to them at special reduced rates. Unfortunately, many babies die from drinking formula milk which has been prepared with dirty water or because their mothers don't have access to sterilising equipment. The provision of clean drinking water has also saved many children's lives worldwide, sadly, so many are still denied this basic human right.

conradmum

poet123 wrote: »

So what type of research would meet with your approval?

The normal type of good quality research, research that's investigating known identified correlations. Not research that's prompting by scaremongering and inaccurate reporting etc. I've read recently of research into a possible link with vitamin D deficiency in mothers, because apparently there's a higher than normal incidence of autism in the children of Somali mothers in Sweden. Also I seem to remember reading something about more findings on the genetic front.

poet123 wrote: »

Which pertinent facts did Mr Kennedy omit? he was speaking of the time when the mercury was still in the vaccines and the meeting took place. I presume he was making the point that if it happened once it could happen again. Do you not believe that it did happen as he said?

I also think you do him a disservice referring to him as a journalist. He is first and foremost a distinguished lawyer and academic. I suppose to dismiss him as a "journalist" suits your stance better?

The article was building up a conspiracy scenario to keep quiet the dangers of thimerosal while still exporting it to thirld world nations. He also said, from memory as I can't be bothered to go back and read it, about the dangers of the mercury in thimerosal. I've read around this subject before and am conversant with the misinformation on this subject already.

Had he, at any point, stated that in fact the rationale to the article was to no end, as it had been demonstrated that thimerosal was not a causative agent in autism (made clear by the fact that autism rates continued to rise after it was removed from vaccinations ten years ago) then that would have at least been a nod in the direction of balanced reporting. But that would have rather negated the entire intent of the article so he just left it out.

Much the same as has happened with the anti-vaccination lobby, in fact. If they were, at any point, to hold their hands up and say, actually, we got it wrong (as has happened with BSE and thalidomide, for example) then they would earn some respect and be taken more seriously. Instead, they claim any research that doesn't support their viewpoint to be biased, read things into statements which don't exist, find conspiracies in every corner, and when finally backed into a corner by the wealth of research that negates their claims, they switch onto another tack. I.e., now that the lack of link between autism and MMR is now blindingly obvious to anyone with Level 1 Numeracy, now the cry is that there are 'subsets' of predisposed children.

Maybe you can tell from my previous posts on various subjects that I'm among the first to suspect mega multinational industries to be out to make a profit at the expense of their customers' well being. I will also only take myself or my children to the doctor as a last resort. I loathe the USA health system with a passion too. But the anti-vaccination argument is so poor that it's impossible to take it seriously. And Mr. Kennedy's article is just another example of it.