The Only Paper You'll Ever Have to Cite Regarding Vaccines and Autism...

[TrollBuster9090]

This paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002, is the last an only paper you'll ever have to cite regarding the alleged link between MMR vaccines and autism and ASD. You don't need any cartoons or graphics, or links to statements discrediting Andrew Wakefield's paper. All you need is a paper citing a solid study, with a large sample size, which WOULD have shown a correlation between MMR vaccination and autism if there actually was one. The study did not find one.

In Denmark, all medical records are entered into a computer database. The names and personal identities are removed, but the raw data is made available to epidemiologists who study disease trends. That means that they're able to run statistics on diseases in five minutes, using very large sample sizes. Something that's virtually impossible to do here, where studies have to be done with small populations, leading to wimpy correlations.

Summary: Between 1991 and 1998 roughly 500,000 children were born in Denmark, giving them a sample size of over 500,000. 80% of them were vaccinated and 20% were not. There was absolutely no difference between the frequency of autism (ASD) in the vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated group. Nor was there any correlation between autism and the age or frequency of vaccination.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134

[JDPriestly]

1. K&R.

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. knr

[Sparhawk60]

3. I am Going to Wait.....

There are always two sides to a story, I am going to wait until a Playboy Bunny weighs in with her research findings before I form an informed opinion on this issue.


/sarcasm
// really hope I did not need the sarcasm tag

[TrollBuster9090]

4. Exactly! Let's hear from 'both sides' on this argument.

My local news network facebook site was talking about this the other day, and one of the commenters said that you can't blame parents for being 'divided' on the issue of vaccination with so many people arguing against it. I commented that I don't blame parents, either. I blame the news media, for giving air time to a false debate, when they should know better. When every physician, immunologist, and microbiologist in the world thinks vaccination is both safe and necessary, why does the press insist on giving any mention at all to the three immunologists who claim otherwise, just for the sake of making money selling their books.

I'm thinking specifically about assclowns like Bob Sears, trying to sell his book to gullible and sometimes paranoid parents, just for the sake of making money.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/cashing-in-on-fear-the-danger-of-dr-sears/

[dreamnightwind]

5. No mention of thimerosol that i could see

I am not an anti-vaxxer but there is no mention of the mercury-based preservative thimerosol. Maybe they assume it isn't used anymore (I know it is still used, though infrequently, in the U.S.)

[LeftishBrit]

6. It was never used in the MMR vaccine, which is the subject of Wakefield's paper.

[dreamnightwind]

33. Couldn't care less about Wakefield's paper

or Jenny what's-her-face.

The title of the Op is "The Only Paper You'll Ever Have to Cite Regarding Vaccines and Autism...".

If you want to do more than ridicule people who have doubts about vaccines, you'll need to address their concerns, one of which is there are or may be toxins in the vaccines, for example thimerosal.

There was no mention of thimerosal in the study cited, only of the MMR vaccine, so I don't think this study addresses the concerns that many people do have about vaccines the way the OP's title suggests, you would need more papers citing more research to demonstrate either that the toxins have been removed from all of the vaccines (they mostly have but not entirely), or that the supposed toxins aren't actually harmful. And the OP's title said nothing specific to the MMR vaccine, so to my ears its title is way off base.

[TrollBuster9090]

8. No, but the anti-vaxxers never claimed thimerosal was linked to autism. They just claimed the

vaccine itself was. There's a sub cult of anti-vaxxers who hate thimerosal for other reasons. Although, I'm sure they've conflated the two by now. And, of course, thimerosal has been removed from children's vaccines, beginning in 2000, I believe.

The thimerosal thing was a separate issue. After the Sabine live attenuated polio vaccine ran into trouble, the USA created a vaccine court. Basically, all the pharmaceutical companies were afraid to make vaccines after that. So, rather than go without vaccines, the U.S. government created a separate court, where you could get compensation if you could prove you were damaged by a vaccine. The money would come from a trust fund that was paid for by a tax on vaccines.

Anyway, nobody has ever been able to prove they were damaged by the mercury in thimerosal. But they did award damages, ONCE, to a little girl who had a genetic predisposition to a mitochondrial disease, and her parents alleged that her condition was triggered by the mercury in the MMR vaccine. That was just ONE SPECIAL CASE, and the lesson from it was not to use a thimerosal containing vaccine on a person with a genetic mitochondrial disease. It wasn't an indictment of thimerosal, per se. But that was enough to set the anti-vax crowd off. And they always cite the fact that the vaccine court actually awarded damages to somebody as 'proof' that thimerosal is dangerous.

(I have a link to a paper about that someplace. I'll see if I can find it.)

[dreamnightwind]

12. I think it's reasonable to be concerned about putting thimerosal into your body

even more so into your child's body. And I know for a fact that some children's flu vaccines given out by Kaiser within the last 7 years had thimerosal. We have autism-spectral issues in my family, so I thought it pragmatic to not expose my child to thimerosal, just to be safe. Went to Kaiser for our flu shots, I asked the nurse for a dose without it for my child, she said they didn't have it anymore, seemed too dismissive though so I asked for written evidence of that to be sure. Ended up in a huge hassle, she had to speak to another nurse and then their supervisor, finally after a lot of hostility towards me they came up and apologized profusely, because the dose they were going to give him did indeed contain thimerosal. They said it was because we were getting the shots late, most of them had already been given out, and they kept some in stock after the main clinics that had the preservative in so they could keep it instock longer. But they claimed to be surprised themselves, they had thought it wasn't in any of their flu vaccine, unfortunately not true. And this was a child's dose too, they were dead set on putting that into my son.

I'm not claiming a link between thimerosal and autism, I don't know, and I wouldn't be convinced by a single study of n <= 1000 either as cited below. I will consider that study as a datapoint in a larger picture. I do know it's something I wouldn't want in my body or my child's body, whether there has been a demostrable link to autism or not, it's a toxic heavy metal, no thanks. It's entirely reasonable to monitor what goes into your body. We did do the full vaccine schedule for my son, which is why I point out that I'm not an anti-vaccine person.

[TrollBuster9090]

13. There's absolutely no evidence that thimerosal is linked to ANY conditions or health issues, but...

they took it out, mainly because there was so much unwarranted concern about it. (Sort of like liberals calling themselves progressives. Why waste all your energy trying to repair the damage that was unjustly done to the term, when you could just change the term?) In other words, they got rid of it because it was a distraction, not a health issue. And the distraction was putting people off vaccinations, which IS a health issue.

Another additive they're phasing out is squalene, which is used as an adjuvant. Adjuvants are just additives that make the vaccine work better, because the immune system reacts more strongly to antigens that are bound to something than to antigens that are just free in solution. Squalene is harmless, and ironically, it's ALREADY a natural product inside our bodies. So, it's not like you're injecting something into your body that wasn't already in there. But again, some anti-vax nuts started telling stories about it.

Having said all that, I don't mind them taking those things out, because A) having them in there is putting people off getting vaccinated, and B) they're not strictly necessary. There are other ways to do the same things.

Thimerosal is an additive that increases the shelf life of a vaccine by preventing bacteria from growing in it. Which is probably why that hospital tried to give it to your son. They ran out of the new batches that didn't have thimerosal, and just went and got some of the older batches (with the longer expiry dates) off of the shelves. That would be my guess.

However, you can also increase the self life of a vaccine by irradiating it. Irradiation is a great way to preserve the shelf life of a vaccine, just like it's a great (and perfectly harmless) way to increase the shelf life of food. But again, it has an undeserved bad reputation, and I'll bet if the pharmaceutical companies go from preserving their vaccines with thimerosal to preserving them by irradiating them, the same kind of hysteria would start.

[Ms. Toad]

29. Thimerosal doesn't extend the shelf life.

It keeps the vaccine safe once the seal is broken by drawing the first of 10 doses from the multi-dose vial. In the past, staph (for example) was transmitted via multidose vials of vaccine. The vaccines which don't contain thimerosal are single-dose or mist - nothing to do with age.

Multi-dose vials of vaccine are preserved by thimerosal, and approved for use by children as young as 6 months. Because most of the vaccine each year is made in the more efficient, less costly, multi-dose vials, a lot of it is given to children.

As for irradiation - some vaccines are already made by killing the bacteria or virus with radiation. That said, since exending the shelf life isn't the purpose of thimerosal, I doubt irradiation of the vaccine would serve the purpose thimerosal serves. Extending the shelf life is related to killing things at the time of packaging. Thimerosal is related to killing things introduced after packaging, via the process of drawing a dose into the syringe.

[TrollBuster9090]

30. Yes, you're right. Sorry about that.

The thimerosal is there to keep the vaccine sanitary through multiple doses. But I haven't seen a multi dose vial for a long time. (The last few flu vaccines I've had were all single dose needles.) Just as you said.

[Ms. Toad]

32. A significant portion of the flu vaccine each year comes in multi-dose vials

I've been looking for a ratio for several days - and this morning I finally hit the jackpot.

For this year about 2/3 of the doses were expected to be thimerosal free, 1/3 were expected to come in multi-dose vials containing thimerosal.

[TrollBuster9090]

9. Here's one of the studies I was thinking of. It's the CDC study on thimerosal.

They found no link between thimerosal-containing vaccines, and neural problems. (But it's only a study of 1000 children, so it doesn't have anywhere near the weight of the Danish study.)

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vsd/thimerosal_outcomes/

[wysi]

10. With 1000 people in the study...

... you can still reliably detect a correlation of about .08 (6% of the variance). I think it's pretty clear that there was no association.

[TrollBuster9090]

11. I agree. nt

[csziggy]

14. And in the CDC list of studies, there is one using the Danish data

That shows no congruence between the use of thimerosal and autism. Infact, the autism rate rose after thimerosal was removed:
Autism and Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines: Lack of Consistent Evidence for an Association
This study was prompted by findings reported to the Institute of Medicine
by Blaxill in July 2001, which showed increases in autism incidence in
California in association with increases in the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines during the 1990s. To further examine the plausibility of this finding, this study took advantage of the cessation of thimerosal use in Denmark and Sweden in 1992 to conduct a before and after comparison of the incidence or case numbers of autism. In both countries, autism increases throughout the years 1987 - 1999, contrary to the decrease in autism that would be expected after 1992 if thimerosal exposure was related to autism. The increasing trend for autism is most notable in
Denmark where the number of autism cases rises substantially even after the discontinuation of thimerosal use. Authors: Paul Stehr-Green, Peet Tull, Michael Stellfeld, Preben-Bo Mortenson, and Diane Simpson.
Link to study: http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797%2803%2900113-2/abstract?cc=y
Ecological Cohort American Journal of Preventive Medicine, (Aug 2003: 25(2):101-6)


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Immunization Safety and Autism: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/00_pdf/CDCStudiesonVaccinesandAutism.pdf

[TrollBuster9090]

15. Hah! I love it! nt

[n2doc]

22. In case you are interested

http://www.democraticunderground.com/114214330

[dreamnightwind]

27. I am interested. From what I can see in the abstract of this paper,

I can't tell if they looked at autism spectrum issues that first showed up after 36 months of age, do you know? No indication of it in the abstract.

Pretty small study (N = 189) of only Japanese people, still the results in this study are encouraging.

The thing to me is, I realize the herd's interest in having everyone vaccinated. That said, there is currently a huge movement, social and otherwise, to compel people to get vaccinated. In my opinon, if you want to compel that something gets injected into citizens' bodies, every effort needs to be made to make sure there is nothing toxic in what gets injected.

People have a right to not have toxic substances injected into their bodies, and should have a choice when it comes to evaluating whether something is toxic or not, especially for substances known to be toxic like mercury. There's a higher burden of proof of the safety of the vacccine if we are going to compel compliance. I would be leary of thimerosal regardless of autism issues, though I'll keep an open mind about it as we learn more about it. For compelled compliance, though, there should never be mercury in there IMO, just the necessary vaccine.

[uppityperson]

7. k&r&bookmark

[icymist]

16. And now for the cartoon:

https://medium.com/the-nib/vaccines-work-here-are-the-facts-5de3d0f9ffd0

For those who don't have the patience to read the scientific studies.

[TrollBuster9090]

28. Good cartoon!

I also like the equating of lack of herd immunity to ignorance. Get a critical mass of ignorance, and there's no way to stop it.

[Thomas Hugues]

17. No way am I going to vaccinate my kids!

Knowing that vaccines can lead to autism, I think I'll keep my kids non vaccinated thank you very much.

[NuclearDem]

18. Enjoy your stay.

[cyberswede]

19. LOL

Uh huh. Do some fucking research.

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

(CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.
An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/

[uppityperson]

20. Did you even read the post you are replying to that says vaccines don't lead to autism?

[NuclearDem]

23. Library Girl to the rescue!

[winter is coming]

24. I've heard kale smoothies can help with that. n/t

[snooper2]

25. Don't ever take them to the dentist either, the tools they use remove enamal

Best to be natural

[jen1980]

26. Nice! Maybe some of the Republcians here in Seattle...

will start vaccinating. The school closest to me has an 8% vaccinated rate. I worry about living so near a place with so many people that could die and be infelicitous. I hope my vaccinations still work. This place has really become infested with Republicans.

[proverbialwisdom]

31. Parent groups have read all of the primary sources & critiqued each. Compulsory reading follows.

eg. An in-depth review of the study in the OP is included here (two formats):

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/05/vaccines-and-autism-what-do-epidemiological-studies-really-tell-us.html
http://www.rescuepost.com/files/vaccines-and-autism-epidemiology-rebuttal.pdf

A NOTE FROM SAFEMINDS:

There are 16 epidemiological studies here on MMR vaccines, thimerosal and autism. These studies represent the most often cited papers by scientists, public health officials and members of the media when trying to refute any evidence of an association between vaccinations and autism.

There are serious methodological limitations, design flaws, conflicts of interest or other problems related to each of these 16 studies. These flaws have been pointed out by government officials, other researchers, medical review panels and even the authors of the studies themselves. Taken together, the limitations of these studies make it impossible to conclude that thimerosal and MMR vaccines are not associated with autism.

SafeMinds would like to acknowledge the previous work in this regard gathered by the “Fourteen Studies” project at Generation Rescue: http://www.14studies.org/about.html

One additional study on autism and thimerosal was published in September 2010 while this paper was in completed draft form. This study’s methods produced a result that demonstrated that thimerosal exposure was protective against autism. Further analysis of this study is forthcoming but not included here.