Study linking vaccines to autism was based on doctored information

[Brookie]

I'm not a mom, but I would think that it would be easier to attempt to explain it away by saying it's caused by vaccines or carpet cleaner than it is to think about or admit that you may be a "carrier" or that there is some genetic defect somewhere in your or the father's family, or that as the mother, you did something wrong/ate something bad/drank something bad/went jogging once too often or whatever other guilt trips one could think up. It really is genetics, yes?

[philbert_wormly]

jenny mccarthy is a moron. i don't know how so many people can read her books and believe her bullshit. i mean, look at this crap:
Children of the New Earth - Indigo Children

My tin hat and I have always wondered about Jenny Mc Carthy.

We have wondered why she claimed her son to be an Indigo Child and then later claimed her son was Autistic. But, then later claimed she downright cured her son of Autism when he started to reach an age where any and all traits of the Autistic Spectrum might have become noticeable.

Alright.

My tin hat and I sound very mean right now, eh?

I am going to take my tin hat off now...

Since I was a child I have volunteered for the intellectually disabled community. One of my younger cousins (who has passed on) was profoundly intellectually disabled and we were truly the best of pals. My late great uncle had an intellectual disability and I literally tended to him for ages until he had to be placed in assisted living after having had a stroke.

In all my years what this fellow did with all of his lying and everything is something I have literally never before seen. Anderson Cooper tore him a new one on CNN last night and this bastard liar still carried on as though he did nothing wrong and for everyone to please buy his book.

If the genesis of the theory has its basis in lies, then it is what the doctor who was also on CNN last night with Anderson Cooper said. This one doctor said that since we do not yet have a really concrete cause for Autism, this lying bastard gave lots of folks false hope. And this doctor said it almost like with a tear in his throat and was very empathetic.

I hate what this bastard liar did. He galvanized the whole of the Autistic community towards this issue with shots and then wound up bringing everyone to their knees when he was found out for being a fraud.

Asshole.

I cannot help but think what might have happened if there was something different this whole time. Like, if this liar of a doctor actually was not dishonest and all of that because that might have led to something major.

Here is the proper CNN url to what I am speaking of with Anderson Cooper. I kinda get emotional about the intellectually disabled community as a whole sometimes...

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/0...aborate-fraud/

[AliceInWonderland]

its sad b/c children have died from not being vaccinated due to these "studies" I wonder if he'll get the death penalty.

This is one of those debates that will never be settled. I know parents of autistic kids who are 100% certain that the MMR vaccine is to blame in some way. I also don't underestimate the power and influence of pharma companies who produce the vaccines.

that's called Denial right there. thats all that is. and wanting to blame something that is out of their control

[memebot]

Actually the debate was settled when Wakefield's paper was discredited. There is no debate. Vaccines do not cause autism.

Lack of vaccines can cause death though. Nice fucking doctor.

[celeb_2006]

(fawking idiot celebs and their self indulgent twattery)

Jenny McCarthy's autism fight grows more misguided - Autism - Salon.com

So what if a study linking autism and vaccination has been called fraudulent? The "warrior mother" still believes



Jenny McCarthy is loyal to a fault. And Andrew Wakefield isn't a fraud in her book. Since her son Evan was diagnosed with autism in 2005, the former pinup turned self-described "mother warrior" has become one of the most prominent advocates for autism awareness in the world. She's written books chronicling Evan's condition and what she describes as his "recovery"; she is at the forefront of "Jenny McCarthy's Autism Organization" -- Generation Rescue. And she is the woman who publicly, most steadfastly has demanded, "for people just to start listening to what the mothers of children who have seen autism have been saying for years, which is, 'We vaccinated our baby and something happened.'"

Yet despite numerous studies, a definitive correlation between vaccination and autism has never been proven. And this week, Dr. Andrew Wakefield's controversial, already largely discredited study that kicked off the whole debate back in 1998 was branded an "elaborate fraud" by the British Medical Journal (BMJ). BMJ further noted that "not one of the 12 cases reported in the 1998 Lancet paper was free of misrepresentation or undisclosed alteration, and that in no single case could the medical records be fully reconciled with the descriptions, diagnoses, or histories published in the journal." Wakefield's medical license was revoked last year for "serious professional misconduct."

All of this is what is known around Jenny McCarthy's organization as a "vaccine-industry funded media circus" that's "much ado about nothing."

On CNN Wednesday night, Generation Rescue co-founder J. B. Handley disputed host Eliot Spitzer's assertion that there's "no affirmative causal link," between vaccination and autism, citing "new" data on the subject and urging viewers, "Look at the SUNY Stony Brook Study, look at the Pittsburgh University Study." I'm not a scientist, but OK.

That University of Pittsburgh study on the "Influence of pediatric vaccines on amygdala growth and opioid ligand binding in rhesus macaque infants" that Generation Rescue is currently touting does indeed find differences in brain development between unvaccinated monkeys and those given vaccines containing the contentious preservative at the heart of the autism debate, Thimerosal. But while the monkeys were given equivalent recommended doses of vaccinations for children born between 1994 and 1999, the study notes "Thimerosal was removed from most pediatric vaccines in the United States in 2001." Similarly, the Stony Brook study on "Hepatitis B series vaccine and development disability in children aged 1 – 9 years" looks at data accrued from 1999 – 2000. And another study that Generation Rescue refers to as "new" data that "shows Hepatitis B vaccine creates 3x higher risk of autism" similarly relies on data culled from 1997 – 2002.

Does the discrediting of Andrew Wakefield's study mean conclusively that there's no merit to studying the link between the preservatives in vaccines and adverse, possibly permanent reactions in children? No. But it's a simple fact that children vaccinated in the latter part of the past decade have been on different schedules and with differing and decreasing levels of mercury-based preservatives in their shots. As the FDA says, "At present, all routinely recommended vaccines for U.S. infants are available only as Thimerosal-free formulations or contain only trace amounts of Thimerosal."

McCarthy's own son was born in 2002. And despite Time magazine's Karl Taro Greenfield's observation last year that Evan's symptoms sound remarkably similar to the neurological disorder Landau-Kleffner syndrome, McCarthy still considers him as "healed" from autism. There is no doubt McCarthy went through a nightmare when her boy fell victim to mysterious seizures and displayed signs of social withdrawal. Her -- and her organization's -- passion for children and commitment to their well-being are no doubt sincere. And every parent absolutely should talk to the family pediatrician about vaccination risks, about what shots can be spread out, what can be postponed, and what might be optional for his or her own child.

But any organization using a celebrity to mislead parents with claims of "new" data that rely on decade-old vaccine formulas and schedules is more than disingenuous, it's flat-out dangerous. It's high time the woman who once said that "I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe" took a step back and reconsidered the merits of that increasingly crackpot stance. And it's time she acknowledged that clinging to research that's been deemed patently fraudulent does not make one a "mother warrior." It makes her a menace.

[Zee]

I always looked at this study with doubt. Some of the symptoms of autism show up at the same age as the first MMR vaccine. So it can appear that the MMR vaccine was the cause of the autism.

My school district has a growing number of children that have "religious exemptions" for vaccinations. It's a frightening trend. We also have had measles, whooping cough, and Hib in the school. Now the school is looking closely at the unvaccinated.

[scooter]

I didn't know about your daughter, A*O, that must be very, very difficult.

What I dont understand about the people who are convinced that autism is a result of the vaccines is how do they account for the 4 to 1 boys to girls ratio? If it was due to the vaccines, shouldnt the ratio be close to even boys to girls wise?

[olivia]

I didn't know about your daughter, A*O, that must be very, very difficult.

What I dont understand about the people who are convinced that autism is a result of the vaccines is how do they account for the 4 to 1 boys to girls ratio? If it was due to the vaccines, shouldnt the ratio be close to even boys to girls wise?

Genetically, girls are stronger than boys. The weakness towards autism could be carried on the X chromosome, which could be canceled out by the X girls get from their fathers ...unless he holds the weakness as well.

4 to 1, boys to girls, are close to classic odds for weaknesses carried on the X chromosome.

The argument by the parents, who believe that thermisol preservatives in vaccinations causes autism, isn't that genetics doesn't play a part. It's that heavy metals or fats are an environmental trigger.

[Grimmlok]

don't forget carpet fumes

[A*O]

I didn't know about your daughter, A*O, that must be very, very difficult.

What I dont understand about the people who are convinced that autism is a result of the vaccines is how do they account for the 4 to 1 boys to girls ratio? If it was due to the vaccines, shouldnt the ratio be close to even boys to girls wise?

Thanks but she is very much at the high functioning end of the spectrum. Apart from crap social skills you wouldn't know she's an Aspie. I always knew there was a problem - very late speech development was a classic early Red Flag - and with aggressive intervention at a young age she was able to deal with it, go to "normal" school, graduate and now she's about to start her second year at uni doing a degree in computer graphics and animation. Yes, she's a complete geek - another clue LOL There are other parents of autistic kids here who have much bigger challenges to deal with on a daily basis.

[Corsair]

I have three kids, the middle one has autism. (He's 16 now). All three had vaccines, it worried me some each time I had them vaccinated but wasn't convinced it was the cause. At least not enough to risk it. I've found that when you meet the extended families of kids with Asperger's/autism, you often tend to believe it's genetic. My family included, starting with me.

[cupcake]

I have a friend who never vaccinated any of her 3 children. I also think that if it is actually the vaccine then the cases of autism would be a lot higher considering the number of kids vaccinated every year.

[tulip]

I have a friend who never vaccinated any of her 3 children. I also think that if it is actually the vaccine then the cases of autism would be a lot higher considering the number of kids vaccinated every year.

Bingo. That is exactly what my pediatrician said. If it were the cause we'd see soooo many more cases. Yes, autism numbers are on the rise, but they have widened the autism spectrum so much that there are kids who wouldn't have been diagnosed as autistic 10-15 years ago that are now. My sister's friend has a son who was just diagnosed with Asperger's at 20.

Jenny McCarthy completely lost me when I made the mistake of opening her first book on the subject in the bookstore and read the part where the doctor told her that her son had autism. Before that, she thought he was amazing and special. She thought that him flapping his arms was charming and lining up his toys precisely was creative. The doctor told him that he was still the same child, she replied "no he's not." I always think that Evan will be crushed if he ever reads that. She could never accept that it was part of who he was, she just saw a defective child.