The great debate

There are not a lot of topics that I get overly emotional about. I'm not heavy into politics. I sometimes feel that I don't have a real opinion on a lot of things. However, there are a couple things I am pretty opinionated about. One is childhood obesity. The other is vaccinations and autism. Childhood obesity will have to wait it's turn for another day.

Myth: Vaccinations cause autism.
Fact: Vaccinations have no correlation with the incidence of autism.
Maybe it's the 8 years of university level science courses I had, but I am definitely one who bases their opinions and decisions on scientific fact. On research. Not on hearsay or personal stories. I'm also skeptical to believe emails or websites sent by groups founded by parents with children of autism. They are not objective. They will find only information that supports their cause. Nor will I believe anything called similar to www.VaccinesKill.com or the like. I have no idea if that's real or not, but you get the idea.

The CDC's official statement:

Many studies have looked at whether there is a relationship between vaccines and autism. The weight of the evidence indicates that vaccines are not associated with autism. But CDC knows that some parents and others may still have concerns about this issue. CDC is committed to protecting the health of children and to identifying the biological and environmental causes of autism and other developmental disabilities, so we will continue to study the role of vaccines.

Also on the CDC website is an article which I will post here. It's a little lengthly, but worth reading. Here is the direct link if you'd like to see references.

Thimerosal and Autism
By Paul A. Offit, MD, Director, Vaccine Education Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Some parents are concerned that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative contained in the influenza vaccine, causes autism. However, during the past few years a series of biological and epidemiological studies have shown this concern to be unfounded. Here is a summary of the evidence showing that, while some things do cause autism, mercury in vaccines isn’t one of them.

All mercury isn'’t the same:methylmercury vs. ethylmercury

Mercury is a naturally occurring element found in the earth’s crust, air, soil and water. Since the earth’s formation, volcanic eruptions, weathering of rocks and burning of coal have caused mercury to be released into the environment. Once released, certain types of bacteria in the environment can change mercury to methylmercury. Methylmercury makes its way through the food chain in fish, animals, and humans. At high levels, it can be toxic to people. Thimerosal — a preservative still used in the influenza vaccine —contains a different form of mercury called ethylmercury. Studies comparing ethylmercury and methylmercury suggest that they are processed differently in the human body. Ethylmercury is broken down and excreted much more rapidly than methylmercury. Therefore, ethylmercury (the type of mercury in the influenza vaccine) is much less likely than methylmercury (the type of mercury in the environment) to accumulate in the body and cause harm.

Evidence that mercury doesn'’t cause autism

•In 1971 Iraq imported grain that had been fumigated with methylmercury. Farmers ate bread made from this grain. The result was one of the worst, single-source, mercury poisonings in history. Methylmercury in the grain caused the hospitalization of 6,500 Iraqis and killed 450. Pregnant women also ate the bread and delivered babies with epilepsy and mental retardation. But they didn’t deliver babies with an increased risk of autism.•

Four large studies have now compared the risk of autism in children who received vaccines containing thimerosal to those who received vaccines without thimerosal. The studies were consistent, clear and reproducible — the incidence of autism was the same in both groups. Denmark, a country that abandoned thimerosal as a preservative in 1991, actually saw an increase in the disease beginning several years later.
•
Studies of the head size, speech patterns, vision, coordination and sensation of children poisoned by mercury show that the symptoms of mercury poisoning are clearly different from the symptoms of autism.

Methylmercury is found in low levels in water, infant formula, and breast milk. Although it is clear that large quantities of mercury can damage the nervous system, there is no evidence that the small quantities contained in water, infant formula, and breast milk do. An infant who is exclusively breast-fed will ingest more than twice the quantity of mercury that was ever contained in vaccines and fifteen times the quantity of mercury contained in the influenza vaccine.

What is known about the causes of autism?

•First, like cystic fibrosis or sickle-cell disease, autism clearly has a genetic basis. Researchers found that when one identical twin had autism, the chance that the other twin had autism was about 90 percent; for fraternal twins, the chance was less than 10 percent.

Second, although autism clearly has a genetic basis, environmental factors can also cause the disease. For example, children whose mothers took thalidomide during pregnancy had birth defects, including malformed ears and shortened limbs. But they also had a significantly greater incidence of autism than babies born to mothers who never took thalidomide. Thalidomide clearly caused autism, but only if mothers took it early in pregnancy. If mothers took thalidomide in the second or third trimester of pregnancy, their babies weren’t at increased risk of autism.

•The thalidomide experience showed that there was a vulnerable time early in pregnancy when a drug could possibly cause autism. Echoes of the thalidomide story are found in babies infected with rubella virus. Babies born to mothers who suffered rubella early in their pregnancies develop birth defects involving the eyes, ears, brain, and heart.They also are at greater risk of developing autism, but like thalidomide, only if the baby is exposed to rubella early during pregnancy. Babies don’t develop autism if they are infected with the virus soon after birth.Taken together, these findings suggest that a virus or a drug can cause autism, and that there is a vulnerable time early during pregnancy when the baby is at risk. However, during the second or third trimester of pregnancy, or after the child is born, the window for environmental factors causing autism has apparently closed.

Women in the United States also occasionally received mercury when they were pregnant. It happened when doctors found that the mother’s blood type was not compatible with their baby’s blood type. To prevent this blood mismatch from hurting the baby, mothers were given RhoGam, a product that contained thimerosal as a preservative. However, consistent with the observation in Iraq, babies exposed to thimerosal in RhoGam did not have a greater risk for autism than babies whose mothers never received RhoGam. Although thalidomide and rubella virus can cause autism in pregnancy, scientific evidence clearly indicates that mercury doesn’t.

As a medical professional, especially as a nurse working with infants and concerned parents, this is an issue I face almost daily. Everyone is worried about mercury and vaccines and autism. Rightly so. What parent would knowingly put their child at risk for developmental defects? But I cannot advise parents on skipping vaccinations because of the risk of autism. Firstly, and most importantly, there is NO correlation. It's unfortunate that autism emerges during the same time period that vaccinations are given. But studies have shown that children who received no Thimerosal still had the same incidence of autism as children that did.

Here in Milwaukee we have seen an outbreak of Measles in the past couple weeks. And just the other day we had our first case of Rubella. Last year was the Mumps outbreak. There is no doubt in my mind that these cases are a direct result of unvaccinated children. Diseases like these, which can easily be prevented with an MMR, are potentially fatal for small children with weak immunities. I would gladly give my child a shot that could save them from a completely preventable death.

Some people may subscribe to the theory of "herd immunity," where the immunity of a group as a whole will help to protect the unprotected. But if the trend continues as it does, with less and less immunized members, there will be no more herd immunity.

Spiritually speaking, man has been blessed with the knowledge and ability to create methods by which to protect ourselves from disease. Medical advances have saved countless lives, and vaccines are no exception. Who are we to not take advantage of these blessings? And should adverse effects result, surely they are the intention of a loving Heavenly Father, who knows all, infinitely more than we do.

Still, we are blessed with our own agency, and freedom of choice. We should be educated on all fronts. It just saddens me that children are going unvaccinated because of the slight possibility that an adverse effect may occur. It's like never driving a car because you might get into an accident one day. The odds are small. The benefits far outweigh.

Just my two cents.