Professor John Walker Smith Exonerated in Autism MMR Case

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. I find several factual errors.

JB Handley is a crank who is not qualified to offer an informed opinion on the subject. And on the rational side of the coin:

Autism-vaccine link disproved again
The latest research invalidates any connection between the ethylmercury-containing preservative thimerosal and ASD in vaccinated children.

By Carolyne Krupa, amednews staff. Posted Oct. 1, 2010.


There is no increased risk of autism spectrum disorder for infants exposed to ethylmercury from vaccines and immunoglobulin preparations containing the preservative thimerosal, according to a new study.

Researchers analyzed medical data on 1,008 children from three managed care organizations (256 with ASD and 752 without the disorder). They looked at prenatal and infant exposure to thimerosal.

"The study results indicated that exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines, including during pregnancy, is not associated with developing ASD or specific ASD subtypes," said Frank DeStefano, MD, MPH, one of the study's authors and director of the Immunization Safety Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study in the October issue of Pediatrics is the latest to disprove the autism-thimerosal link (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20837594).
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/09/27/prse1001.htm

Vaccines do not cause autism. That was the ruling in each of three critical test cases handed down on February 12 by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. After a decade of speculation, argument, and analysis—often filled with vitriol on both sides—the court specifically denied any link between the combination of the MMR vaccine and vaccines with thimerosal (a mercury-based preservative) and the spectrum of disorders associated with autism. But these rulings, though seemingly definitive, have done little to quell the angry debate, which has severe implications for American public health.

The idea that there is something wrong with our vaccines—that they have poisoned a generation of kids, driving an “epidemic” of autism—continues to be everywhere: on cable news, in celebrity magazines, on blogs, and in health news stories. It has had a particularly strong life on the Internet, including the heavily trafficked Huffington Post, and in pop culture, where it is supported by actors including Charlie Sheen and Jim Carrey, former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy, and numerous others. Despite repeated rejection by the scientific community, it has spawned a movement, led to thousands of legal claims, and even triggered occasional harassment and threats against scientists whose research appears to discredit it.

You can see where the emotion and sentiment come from. Autism can be a terrible condition, devastating to families. It can leave parents not only aggrieved but desperate to find any cure, any salvation. Medical services and behavioral therapy for severely autistic children can cost more than $100,000 a year, and these children often exhibit extremely difficult behavior. Moreover, the incidence of autism is apparently rising rapidly. Today one in every 150 children has been diagnosed on the autism spectrum; 20 years ago that statistic was one in 10,000. “Put yourself in the shoes of these parents,” says journalist David Kirby, whose best-selling 2005 book, Evidence of Harm, dramatized the vaccine-autism movement. “They have perfectly normal kids who are walking and happy and everything—and then they regress.” The irony is that vaccine skepticism—not the vaccines themselves—is now looking like the true public-health threat.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jun/06-why-does-vaccine-autism-controversy-live-on

Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association
Prof Brent Taylor FRCPCH a Corresponding Author, Elizabeth Miller FRCPath b, CPaddy Farrington PhD c, Maria-Christina Petropoulos MRCP a, Isabelle Favot-Mayaud MD a, Jun Li PhD a, Pauline A Waight BSc b
Summary
Background
We undertook an epidemiological study to investigate whether measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine may be causally associated with autism.
Methods
Children with autism born since 1979 were identified from special needs/disability registers and special schools in eight North Thames health districts, UK. Information from clinical records was linked to immunisation data held on the child health computing system. We looked for evidence of a change in trend in incidence or age at diagnosis associated with the introduction of MMR vaccination to the UK in 1988. Clustering of onsets within defined postvaccination periods was investigated by the case-series method.
Findings
We identified 498 cases of autism (261 of core autism, 166 of atypical autism, and 71 of Asperger's syndrome). In 293 cases the diagnosis could be confirmed by the criteria of the International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision (ICD10: 214 [82%] core autism, 52 [31%] atypical autism, 27 [38%] Asperger's syndrome). There was a steady increase in cases by year of birth with no sudden “step-up” or change in the trend line after the introduction of MMR vaccination. There was no difference in age at diagnosis between the cases vaccinated before or after 18 months of age and those never vaccinated. There was no temporal association between onset of autism within 1 or 2 years after vaccination with MMR (relative incidence compared with control period 0·94 [95% Cl 0·60—1·47] and 1·09 [0·79—1·52]). Developmental regression was not clustered in the months after vaccination (relative incidence within 2 months and 4 months after MMR vaccination 0·92 [0·38—2·21] and 1·00 [0·52—1·95]). No significant temporal clustering for age at onset of parental concern was seen for cases of core autism or atypical autism with the exception of a single interval within 6 months of MMR vaccination. This appeared to be an artifact related to the difficulty of defining precisely the onset of symptoms in this disorder.
Interpretation
Our analyses do not support a causal association between MMR vaccine and autism. If such an association occurs, it is so rare that it could not be identified in this large regional sample.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2899%2901239-8/fulltext#cor1

And lots more where that came from. Quite simply, correlation is not causation; the onset of obvious signs of autism occurs at or near the age at which most children are vaccinated, thus leading parents to suspect a link where none exists or is supported. Well-intentioned but essentially ignorant people like Mr Handley seized on the MMR/autism link; since that has been debunked quite thoroughly, and in fact found to have been based on false and fraudulent research, they have now shifted to claiming it's not MMR but all the vaccines or some combination of them. The evidence unfortunately fails to support this either.