Whenever some new theory comes up, parents NEED to insist on double blind studies! It's not just with the vaccines. For each treatment dejour, the anecdotal stories explode all over the place. Throngs of parents, put on their blinders, jump on board and spend their energy and money, while insisting that anyone who questions the treatment doesn't know anything.

While the parents are stimming over the latest unproven treatment, their kids are growing up, needing the parents' time and acceptance and hard work to prepare for their futures.

The special masters concluding that vaccines don't cause autism was about as convincing as the judge finding OJ not guilty of murder. 

What these decisions have done is verify that the vaccine "court" acts politically, and that parents can not depend on HHS to compensate them if their child falls ill after a vaccination. These children all became ill and developed autism shortly after vaccination. These parents were denied access to the CDC's vaccine database and were not allowed to subpoena vaccine manufacturers for any data regarding their children's vaccinations. The vaccine court presents the federal
government as both defendant and judge - it's hard to imagine that it doesn't violate the constitution. If the CDC is so certain that there is no link between vaccines and autism, then they should do the scientific studies of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children.  Let's get real - this so-called vaccine court is
not capable of being impartial, much less determining if vaccines play a role in autism.

There would be a very simple measure the CDC could impliment to absolutely determine if there was a link, change the age recommended for vaccination schedules while simultaneously tracking the precise age for the population in which autism first presents itself.   If they change the vaccination schedule by delaying 1 year the normal course of vaccines and find that the median age of the onset of autism in new patients changes, then they have incontrovertible proof.   Most of these early childhood diseases are also extremely rare in the United States and delaying the age of vaccination by one year would have very few if any consequenses.

And I for one would not be willing to delay pertussis given its continuing spread in the community and the deadly threat it holds for infants.

"Panic" is not the word that I would use to describe the sentiments of parents I know.  "Concern" would be more like it.  "Regret" and "anger" are big emotions, too, when parents look back at their baby's escalating vaccine reactions and wonder why they didn't question the need for and safety of so many vaccines in such a short time period at such a young age.

I don't know why these judges made the decisions they made, but I can say for sure that the vaccine-autism link has not been refuted, and that this issue is not going away.

Dr. Wakefield did not cause the vaccine scare; he responded to concerns raised by the parents of his patients.

As more and more children suffer vaccine reactions, some resulting in autism, it will become increasingly difficult for our governmental agencies and medical organizations to continue to deny the obvious.

See:

http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/press021209.php

http://www.safeminds.org/pressroom/documents/SafeMindsOmnibusStatement_full.pdf

http://www.safeminds.org/pressroom/press_releases.html

P.S.  It is not true that the search for vaccine-related autism causes has "diverted attention and millions of dollars away from finding the true causes and treatments".  For years most of the research dollars and attention have gone towards anything but vaccine safety issues.  Millions of dollars have been spent on studying genes and the brain.

See http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml


Most people I know who are into biomedical are also into advocating for and working towards the "best and most appropriate education and services for individuals on the autism spectrum, of all ages". 

A study at UC Davis recently confirmed that the rate of autism has increased dramatically during the past 20 years.  This increase can not possibly be purely genetic.

Hello friends -

The people who are really in a state of panic are the regulatory agencies who see month in and month out another set of research that tells us the immune system of children with autism is profoundly different than children without that diagnosis; different in ways that are completely invisible to our current set of vaccine / autism research.

Unfortunately, for them, shouting about Wakefield, or special court rulings is not going to do anything to reverse this trend; and as evidence of immune dysregulation continues to accumulate, more and more people are going to wonder how evaluating thimerosal or the MMR provides us any information about the impact of stimulating immune responses at earlier and earlier ages. 

There is a limited time horizon that this question will be avoidable through New York Times editorials and spoon fed Newsweek articles.  The more time that goes by before it is addressed, the larger the eventual impact on the credibility of the people who were telling us again and again that our understanding of vaccination and autism is comprehensive. 

- pD

Vaccine studies related to autism (not "vaccine safety issues"), many based on assertions and interpretations of that false paper from 1998, have indeed diverted millions in resources from other avenues of investigation, including far more viable environmental avenues. The Davis paper was widely misrepresented in the popular press, but that's been discussed before (and it's something the popular press/media do with most stories from the headlines on down--screaming hysteria, playing on fear. Makes money, ya know?).

And it's not just the millions that have been diverted globally--it's also the emotion, the energy, the time. These all could have been put to better, more practical, more scientific purposes, focused on more relevant hypotheses, whether environmental or genetic or both--which is likely the reality. Wakefield built himself a cult, quite successfully, using the standard tactics of any such narcissist in doing so. He poured the Kool-Aid, and millions drank it. His offering in Lancet barely had anything to latch onto in the way of data or a hypothesis, but the emotion and hysteria that built up around it--like catnip to him, no doubt--drew attention away from quieter, more rational, more educated hypotheses. But...it worked for him because it made him money, ya know? In fact, millions in US$. Right now, at Thoughtful House, his current earnings are enormous, based on published reports. Selfless fellow.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Everything that began with that Lancet paper and everything that has or has not happened with that hypothesis in the ensuing decade plus points coldly, clearly to Wakefield et al.'s ideas as a classic example of pseudoscience. Absolutely classic. And the most telling aspect is the fact that since 1998, they've failed to produce an iota of data to support that whackadoodle put-up job of a paper, and anyone else trying to replicate their results--a basic necessity in science--has been unable to do so. Junk science at its "best," that.

I can't tell if the reference to studying "genes and the brain" is snide, but that is the fundamental place to look for the physiological correlates of autism, regardless of what your emotions or your rational mind tell you is involved in its etiology.

Immune dysregulation? "Stimulating immune responses at earlier and earlier ages?" Those response are stimulated by millions of things; vaccines form a very small part of that. Without them, thousands of children would find their immune systems stimulated literally to death.

As far as I'm concerned this article/link below says it all.  I will never, for one second, believe that there is not a connection between autism and vaccines. The more I read about vaccines, the more shocked I am by the completely bogus vaccine studies that are touted as proof that vaccines are safe.  If you're planning on find this sort of information in Newsweek you can forget it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-gordon/there-is-no-proof-that-ci_b_167157.html

@ Diana; I don't how old you are? Do you know why that CDC will not give up there database or can not be suponea be they and the giverment all ready know what caues autism!!
 How much reading have done on the use of fluoride in the 1930s in nazi germany for control of a population [Jewish ] when it was brought to the states in the 1940s and interduced into the water sytems by the cdc,so the could run there own experiments. Ther was not to much happing for the first 46 years a only as ther were only around 40 to 50 cities by 1990 were useing fluoride oall over the country so the number of persons spread out over the us was small. Then  in 1985 or 86 the U.S. congress passed a law that was to take all the lead out of ever thing like paint,gas and the lead based solder that they put water pipes to  gether so the chlorine  would leech the lead out and people would not drink leaded water.
   Someone foregot to tellthe CDC to take the fluorid {lead and arsenic] out of the water.So whe the water plants got the water the stell put the fluoride in the water and when the lead and chlorine combine it produces lead chlouride the same the in the use insecticids. So that is what yuo drink ever day if your water is fluoridated!
  Then in 1993 the white house said that we should give more of the population more of that free dental care  we will increase the 50 cities to more then 4200 that way  we can get around 70%of the puplation and the experimants went on.
  By the time all the plants were on line in 1998 the epidemic was well on its way. That is when it went from 1in 2500 to 1 in 150 so you can see why the CDC doe"s not went to talk.
   If it was up to me the whole lot would be in jail for crimes aginst humainty for all the pain and grief [genocide.] that they have caused.

Hi Emily -

Do you really not believe we have evidence of immune dysregulation in autism?  If so, your position mandates that dozens of studies have been wrong in exactly the same way; ironically, this is likely what you feel folks who ramble on about the MMR. 

Just during the past year, the following papers have been published concerning different immune responses in autism.

Elevated immune response in the brain of autistic patients [Li / 2009]  Additional evidence of an ongoing inflammatory response in the brains of children with autism.

Increased IgG4 levels in children with autism disorder. [Enstrom / 2008] Increased IgG levels are identified in autism, but not in normal or children with developmental delays other than autism. 

Impact of innate immunity in a subset of children with autism spectrum disorders: a case control study [Jyonouchi / 2008]  Different cytokine generation profiles in response to several types of stimulation are identified in autism versus normal controls, and among subsets of autism. 

Serum levels of P-selectin in men with high-functioning autism. [Iwata / 2008].  Decreased levels of a chemical with a role in inflammatory response are found in autism when compared to controls.  As levels decrease, autism severity is found to increase.

Decreased transforming growth factor beta1 in autism: a potential link between immune dysregulation and impairment in clinical behavioral outcomes [Ashwood / 2008].  More correlation between an factor involved with control of immune responses and autism severity. 

Altered gene expression and function of peripheral blood natural killer cells in children with autism [Enstrom / 2009].  Natural killer cells are found to be less numerous, and exhibit less cytotoxic capacities in children with autism.

I left a few out.  Why go further back to 2007 and beyond to prove the point?  This post is getting long enough as it is.

In any case, it is exactly the type of response regarding 'millions of things' stimulating our immune systems that has me in a panic; primarily because it utilizes a grain of truth to promote a completely false analogy, and it is being done as a means to suggest we have no reason to evaluate a program that is a cornerstone of national health policy. 

Yes, our children, and everyone for that matter, is continuously exposed to things that initiate some level of immune response.  At a percentage level, vaccines comprise a very small amount of the total number of immune responses generated. 

But addition is a woefully inadequate mechanism to measure something as complicated as our immune system.   Why should we ignore the magnitude of the immune response generated, or the fact that the mechanism of action of vaccines is different than the millions of things our bodies have handled since our immune systems began development, millions of years ago? 

Many vaccines currently given to children generate an immune response to the extent that the child develops a fever within a few days; as many of thirty percent of children show an increased temperature for many of the new combination shots designed to reduce the number of pinpricks.  If we able to meaningfully equate everyday exposure to bacteria and resultant immune responses and those with Pediarix, shouldn't our children have an increased temperature 30% of the days?  If our children do not run fevers two days a week, doesn't this mean we cannot draw valid conclusions between 'normal' exposure to the world and exposure that comes in a vial? 

To make the point even clearer, it turns out, getting a combination shot like Pediarix increases your chances of developing a fever when compared to getting shots for the individual diseases which Pediatrix combines.  That is, there is a difference in immune response between vaccines for the same diseases; why on Earth should we assume that there is no difference in response between vaccination and everyday exposure?  Why? 

Sure, kids get fevers without vaccines; some even get them early on; but we have undertaken a course to insure that nearly a third of our children are getting them by the time they are two months from the womb; and again sixty days later.  We now know, we absolutely know, that children with autism are predisposed to reacting to immune challenges, and controlling immune responses in fundamentally different ways than their non diagnosed peers.  The reasons that we are told that vaccines should be not be evaluated are composed of statements that mandate a hugely simplistic view of the very complicated developing immune system, and fail the most primitive of logical tests.  That is what has me in a panic.

- pD

I don't care if getting shots "increases your chances of developing a fever." So what? That's a nonspecific response of the immune system to challenge. There is nothing inherently wrong with fever, at all. And your analogy to the other challenges isn't accurate, either. The point is actually not very clear. And I don't make the assumptions you're claiming on my behalf.

If the anecdote-unproven-treatment parents also spent put time into improving the quality of lives for their kids on other levels, show me sites where parents bond over creating good foster homes or autism friendly businesses or autism friendly higher education or day programs where they aren't over crowded and unaffordable.

The kids grow up, the agencies take over and the parents stop hanging out together relating the stories about the amazing cures that will fix everything.

Cyclamates, MTBE's, and Global Warming.  When are we going to learn to wait until we know for sure before we start passing laws?  I'm glad this came out before some silly laws were passed about this too.

Hi Emily -

(Why won't this package allow us to thread more than one deep?)

"And regarding the cytokines--of which there are about a billion zillion--there's nothing I see that solves the chicken-egg issue there. Cytokine biology is so enormously complicated--and grounded in one's genetics, I might add--that we're just sticking toes in the water there. TGF-beta alone can barely be excluded from any developmental process in human biology. "

Please don't take offense, I mean absolutely none, but I take no comfort in the fact that you, or for that matter, anyone, cannot see a solution to the chicken-egg issue; precisely for the reasons that you indicate, it is an area still being actively researched due to its complexity, and our reactions differ widely among individuals due to genetics. Given that, what makes you think that vaccines can't be affecting this area, especially considering the relative dearth of research? But some of what we do have seems to conform to the notion that we have undertaken a massive expirement on our children, and we only understand one half of the results.

By way of example, in "Modulation of the infant immune responses by the first pertussis vaccine administrations" [Mascart/2007] researchers found that when comparing cytokine levels in children who got DTAP vs DTP, a significant increase in TH2 cytokines was observed; persistent for at least four months. So we have an enormously complicated system that has evolved over tens of millions of years, and by introducing a new vaccine, we have skewed ratios. Were the changes persistent more than four months? What about children who had particular genetic predispositions, like those with autism? Children, who by the way, have been found to have a TH2 skew in cytokine levels [Molloy 2006]. It would seem that the notion of vaccines creating a more than transitory change in cytokine levels is not speculative; but the effects of this, if any, are unknown.

Your statement concerning the ubiquity of TGF-beta is well taken. It turns out, analysis of what happens to these circulating levels of TGF-Beta when vaccinated by pediatric vaccines is completely absent from our knowledge set. An experimental cancer vaccine, however, has been analyzed in this regard, and was shown to cause a significant decrease in TGF-beta and t regulatory cells. See "Levels of circulating regulatory CD4+CD25+ T cells are decreased in breast cancer patients after vaccination with a HER2/neu peptide (E75) and GM-CSF vaccine. " [Hueman / 2006]. Out of three hits on pubmed where you search for 'vaccines TGF-beta', one of them finds drastic reductions in a substance which 'can barely be excluded from any developmental process in human biology'.  Good stuff.

How can we have certainty that some of our other childhood vaccines are not having similar effects? One wonders what might happen if a person with genetic predisposition to having low TGF-Beta to start one had a similar reaction at two months of age? One thing is certain, we don't have a damn clue; our existing research just doesn't address it.

"Disregarding any of this, I fail to see how dying from pertussis or measles-related pneumonia is somehow preferable."

False dichotomy.  And in any case, this does nothing to dispell my worries that our understanding of the impacts of increasing vaccination and chronic ailments involving immune system problems are nascent, at best.

"Further on the cytokine argument: If there are extrinsic triggers (triggering adaptive rather than innate immunity), and vaccines might be one, eliminating or including vaccines or anything else should be fairly straighforward--just divide and assess the populations. "

Well, I think this is what I've been arguing needs to be done.

"Two things are interesting to me about the brain/immunity thing. (1) It seems largely cerebellar, which doesn't really explain right-hemisphere deficits, and (2) it would explain a whole lot about my own family's genetic history in re: autoimmunity and brain inflammation, even in family members who NEVER RECEIVED VACCINES. But then...that would be genetic, I guess, so better not bring it up here. ;-) What confuses me is the nonprogressive course it seems to follow, which doesn't completely jibe in my mind with an autoimmune disorder."

Of all people, I believe that you understand the peril of extrapolating personal experiences to a condition with the heterogenity of autism. I have no problem with the genetic, and I don' think I have ever implied that it isn't critical; but you've said it plenty of times, genes don't operate in a vacuum. 

- pD

Autism is a "relationship"(emotions)problem.
With my nefew who is "light" autistic now(he is 14),we've been very close and I helped him a lot. 

Let's show some commons sense here.  The world is not all black or all white.

Not every case of Autism is due to mercury from vaccines, and it appears that many cases are related to mercury in vaccines.  There is a lot of research that I have read that supports the connection to mercury.  There are a lot of good research recommendations for people that are interested.

The body is designed to handle various toxins from our environment.  When we overload our body, it becomes more susceptible to toxic overloading.  The weakest part of the body, at the time of that overload, will be the one that suffers the greatest consequence of that overload.

Mercury is not the only toxin overloading our body, and vaccines are not the only source of mercury.  Other medications, pesticides, lead and other toxins are everywhere.  In addition, CFL’s (those “environmentally friendly” light bulbs) use mercury too.  It is suggested that it is the sum of all of these toxic overloads that affects our overall wellness.

There is valid research that shows damage to the nervous system from mercury appears to be identical to damage caused by mercury.  However, they just don’t know yet if it is the only substance that can cause this relationship.  In my research I have discovered reasons why some people might be more susceptible than others, and ways to safely detox the body.

So, let’s be realistic.  Mercury appears to be a major player in Autism, yet it isn’t the only factor leading to Autism.  That makes it difficult to identify as the cause, or even as a possible cause.

I support wellness, not illness.  Common sense would dictate that keeping ourselves well is the greatest insurance against illness.  Our body probably does not need vaccines for many illnesses, and probably a discussion leading to the support of wellness would be more constructive for health issues.

Oops, in one paragraph I mention damage caused by mercury.  It should read:

Neural damage found in Autism appears to be identical to damage caused by mercury to the nervous system.

Hi Kristina -

Speaking of panic, I found a pretty startling paper this weekend. It turns out, researchers were able to permenantly increase the succeptibility to seizures in rats by the initiation of a single mild inflammatory response during critical developmental timeframes in an animal model.

Postnatal Inflammation Increases Seizure Susceptibility in Adult Rats

From the discussions section

The most exciting finding of the present study is that a mild inflammatory response evoked by LPS during a critical period of development causes a long-lasting increase in hippocampal excitability in vitro, and enhanced seizure susceptibility to the convulsants LI-PILO, KA, and PTZ in vivo. The latter effect was observed over a range of mildly inflammatory doses of LPS and was only evident if administered during the second postnatal week (P7 and P14), and not before (P1) or after (P20) this time. Importantly, inactivation of the proinflammatory cytokine TNF with an intracerebroventricular TNF antibody blocked the long-term changes to seizure susceptibility induced by LPS, whereas intracerebroventricular administration of rrTNF alone mimicked the effect of LPS on seizure susceptibility. These novel results indicate that a single transient inflammatory episode during development can modify the brain through a TNF-dependant mechanism, making it more susceptible to generate seizures in adulthood.

Amazingly horrifying stuff! Getting a single immune response during critical timeframes can cause sustained neurological outcomes into adulthood. It need not necessarily be a distinctly powerful response either. The researchers were able to get identical results by injecting inflammatory cytokines directly, and were able to block results by concurrently providing antibodies to the same cytokine. Despite the fact that all of the animals were exposed to everyday bacteria and viruses; all of which generated immune challenges to one extent or another, only those animals that got injections of bacteria cell proteins were adversely affected. At this point, can we not say with some certainty that there are some fundamental difference between everyday bacteria exposure and exposure that comes from a needle?

We also know that this doesn't have anything to do with the bacteria itself; the rats didn't get sick, they just got the protein walls of bacteria injected; essentially analogous to the bacterial proteins used during immunization to generate a memory of the bad bugs. If such a relationship existed between vaccination in humans and altered neurological outcomes, our existing suite of thimerosal research into the subject would be completely blind to this; as we have never bothered to measure the effects of the immune response, only the presence or absence of thimerosal. Likewise, MMR studies analyze only a snippet of our vaccine schedule, and indeed, one that exists at a relatively late timeframe of development compared to things like Hep B, DTAP, and Hib. You only learn about what you study, and the impact of stimulating an immune response at early ages simply hasn't been studied all that well.

It is also of particular interest that tnf-alpha is a critical component towards seizure generation, considering that we have several studies showing increased levels of tnf-alpha in the cns of those with autism, at least two studies showing that children with autism have been observed to generate increased amounts of tnf-alpha in response to stimulation by a vareity of proteins. Anyone interested could take a look at Elevated immune response in the brain of autistic patients, Elevation of tumor necrosis factor-alpha in cerebrospinal fluid of autistic children, Innate immunity associated with inflammatory responses and cytokine production against common dietary proteins in patients with autism spectrum disorder, and Preliminary evidence of the in vitro effects of BDE-47 on innate immune responses in children with autism spectrum disorders Other factors known to be markers of succeptibility to seizures, such as IL-10 and IL-1beta have been observed in ratios that are suggestive of additional risk to seizure in some studies. I could post those if anyone is interested, but this post is getting pretty lengthy as it is.

It just so happens that having a seizure early in life has been found to increase succeptibility to later neurologic injury by causing chronic glial activation. Glial activation links early-life seizures and long-term neurologic dysfunction: evidence using a small molecule inhibitor of proinflammatory cytokine upregulation.. Here researchers found that if seizures were initiated in young rats, the animals went on to display behavioral abnormalities, chronically activated microglia cells, and increased succeptibility towards epilepsy later in life. All three of these findings have parallels to what has been observed in autism.

Boiled down, we know that a single immune response during early life has been shown to result in permenant changes to brain functioning into adulthood in animal models. Those changes include increased succeptibility to exaggerated neural excitation, the consequences of which can include behavioral, physiological, and neurological changes similar to what is observed in many cases of autism. If an increasingly aggressive vaccination schedule with its consequent immune responses earlier and earlier in our children's lives is having a similar impact, we would never know based on our existing set of research.

We are doomed.

- pD

[PS - I am hopeful the embedded links will work; posting the entire string for pubmed references was just not rendering very cleanly.]