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Vaccines and Autism
By AngryToxicologist | July 2, 2007
The Washington Post reported yesterday on the vaccine court proceeding that starts today. Almost 5000 families will make the case that vaccines caused their children to develop autism. I don’t think the families have a good case. To start off, the large majority of findings would suggest that there is not link. There are, however, some very good reasons why these studies could be wrong and that’s what’s keeping the theory alive. Let’s look at a couple of arguments that people like to make and what I think about them.
Con – The IOM said that overall there was no link. While this is true, the IOM (Institute of Medicine) did note possibility that some children may be genetically susceptible to thimerosal, which is a logical assumption since almost all diseseases are a combination of genetics and environment. In this case, which I see as the only possibility, the number of effected children would only be a sliver of the children who were vaccinated.
Pro – Thimerosal is mercury! Sort of, it’s ethyl-mercury which isn’t as toxic as methyl mercury, the mercury in polluted waters and in fish.
Con – Thimerosal is ethyl-mercury which isn’t very toxic. Wrong. Although not as bad as methyl-mercury, the ethyl version still gets into the brain and does damage after reverting back to elemental mercury, just like methyl.
Con – Autism advocates are crazy. Hmmm…very scientific. Let me note that citizen advocates for almost anything can seem a bit, um…enthusiastic, but it doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it just means they don’t have a PR firm. Some are probably a bit nuts, but let me ask you, how many organizations, even professional ones, don’t have a few nuts? Heck, even the Senate has some.
Pro – Mercury poisoning looks like autism. In many ways it does, although autism usually develops in a different way than mercury poisoning does.
Con – It takes tons more mercury to create mercury poisoning than the amount of mercury present in the vaccines. This is a very strong con-point. It is possible that the timing of the mercury exposure or the co-administration of the rest of the vaccine may effect the child in a different way that mercury poisoning does, but the size of the dose doesn’t support a link.
Con – When we took mercury out of most vaccines, there wasn’t a sharp drop in autism, so they couldn’t be related. This is the one I hear the most from other scientists and I think it’s premature if not wrong. Why? Most autistic kids are diagnosed between 3-7 yrs old but there’s a lot of diagnoses out side of that range too. The thimerosal phase out began in 1999. That means that we are just getting near the end of when the majority of kids would be diagnosed from this period. So if you don’t get diagnosed until 3-7 yrs after your exposure then there would be no sharp drop off, only a gradual one. We are just getting there so we won’t be able to tell for a couple years whether there will be a drop off or not. (Update: there are reasons why we simply shouldn’t use most of this data anyway, pro or con)
Con – The increase is mostly due to increased awareness and diagnosis. There are a couple of well reasoned papers on why the increase is unlikely to be due to increased diagnosis alone (it certainly is part of the increase). This doesn’t mean it’s vaccines, though; it could be another type of exposure.
Pro – Many autism patients seem to have decreased ability to get rid of metals such as mercury. This is too complicated to go into for this post (perhaps some other time), but suffice it to say that there are a lot of chicken and egg problems with this line of thinking but it does offer one of the better insights into how some of the children might be treated.
Pro and Con - Anecdotes. Stop using them. I ate some Cheerios the day I broke my arm when I was 6. My brother ate them every day and never broke his arm. Think this says anything about the role of Cheerios in arm fractures? The WP does a nice job of juxtaposing two conflicting ones.
The Angry Toxicologist’s Conclusion: The case for thimerosal is plausible but I see no hard evidence that would make me conclude that it’s real. I do know this though: Putting mercury in vaccines was a very stupid thing to do. The public health community should say so in a clear way. They are afraid to do so, thinking that people won’t trust the vaccine program anymore and not get vaccinated. What really hurts the vaccine program are the directors of these programs not being straight with the public. Medical professionals that think autism advocates are crazy and the advocates that think there is a vaccine maker/government cover-up conspiracy aren’t helping matters either. This problem needs to be researched with open minds but both sides are so bull-headed I fear that we may never come to understand what’s really going on.
AT’s Tip: Thimerosal is still used in multi-dose vials of flu-vaccine. If you’d rather not get one of those in the fall, just ask if it is preservative-free (most are now).
Update: As with the vegan post, people seem to be mis-reading the point of the post which is the majority of the work out there supports no link but there are major problems with the work that make it, as I see it, still an open question that can be debated. From practical standpoint (a legal and/or public health question that I had to act on), I’d say there is no link. No one has threatened to eat my kids yet so we’re off to a better start.
Update 2: To make this absolutely clear: Everyone should follow the vaccination schedules that are currently recommended for infants. There are still serious risks out there to serious diseases. My kids are vaccinated and I wouldn’t recommend otherwise, professionally or personally.
Topics: Toxics |
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:16 am
I’d really like to hear what you think about Gardasil(sp?)–the vaccine our provincial government (Nova Scotia)is trying to foist off on grade seven girls. The government PR seems to be “if you refuse, your daughters are going to get cervical cancer and it’s all your(parents)fault.” It sounds like the usual crap to me–some friend of our Prime Minister is a lobbyist for the PharmaNazis, so they are pushing this vaccine when so many other medical areas needs the funding more. If it weren’t bogus, wouldn’t it be voluntary and without the guilt trip advertising?
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 am
I’m really saddened by this post. Do you even read the blogs that are on your blogroll?
“Pro – Mercury poisoning looks like autism. In many ways it does, although autism usually develops in a different way than mercury poisoning does.”
Mercury poisoning looks nothing like autism. Please see this and this.
“When we took mercury out of most vaccines, there wasn’t a sharp drop in autism, so they couldn’t be related. This is the one I hear the most from other scientists and it’s mostly BS. “
Uh, most autism diagnosis happen between 3 - 5 years old, not 5 - 7. That means we’re at the end of the timeline you go on to describe, not the start. We should have seen a largescale drop off. Even if you are right - which you are not - we should have seen a gradual drop-off. We have not. In fact, not only has there been no gradual drop off, there’s been no decrease in the rate of increase for the last few reporting periods.
“Con – The increase is mostly due to increased awareness and diagnosis. There are a couple of well reasoned papers on why the increase is unlikely to be due to increased diagnosis alone “
Really? Where?
“Pro – Many autism patients seem to have decreased ability to get rid of metals such as mercury. This is too complicated to go into for this post (perhaps some other time), but suffice it to say that there are a lot of chicken and egg problems with this line of thinking but it does offer one of the better insights into how some of the children might be treated.”
You seem to have bought into some bigtime woo here. There is nothing to suggest autistic people have an inability to excrete metals such as mercury.
I really think you need to have a read around on this subject.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I do read the sites in the blog roll. Not sure what that has to do with it. 1) People can disagree. 2) My conclusion is that I don’t think it can be told conclusively what’s going on and in fact I mention that the majority of studies would not support a link. Your post acts as if I am supporting one strongly.
As to your major points:
Mercury Poisoning vs autism point. They ARE similar, though not exactly the same. They affect the same area of the brain (Limke 2004, Kates 2004) and impair speech and behavior (Bernard 2001).
As to the ages of diagnosis point. I meant to write 3-7 with it tailing off from 5-7; my mistake. I fixed that but am leaving it in the comments so people know I changed it. In general, it would be gradual because the phase out was not immediate and the rate of diagnosis would be bell-curved. It’s not early enough to tell if there will be a dip or not until the back tail of diagnoses is done (about 2 years I would think). There are other problems as well, such as most people focus on the California data which are almost worthless one way or the other because of variables not controlled for (people moving into the state to take advantage of autism care, ETC). This effects both any surge numbers either at the beginning (supporting con) and now (supporting pro). I’m not sure why you’re upset about this, either. I’m not saying there is evidence FOR an association, just that I think it’s too early to tell.
Increased diagnosis point: “Where?” See Blaxill 2004 and Croen 2003 to start. But again, I don’t think this means there is a link only that something else is going on. What? Who knows?
“There is nothing to suggest autistic people have an inability to excrete metals such as mercury.” Yikes. That’s a mighty strong statement to make. See this for starters (Like you, I think Kirby’s overboard, but that’s not what I was referring to nor does that mean there is no evidence) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=15585776 . I’m tempted to say that you should do some reading around too. Well, I guess I just did. Oh, and stop assuming.
It’s exactly your tone of ‘nothing to suggest’ that plagues this whole debate. As if 1) you are aware of everything out there, and 2) anyone who has an opinion different than yours is undeniably wrong. Actually you went one step further and said that even those who don’t have a strong opinion (me) are wrong. Are you saying I must have a strong opinion?
Again, in case everyone hadn’t caught this yet, the majority of the work out there supports no link but there are major problems with the work which make it, as I see it, an open question.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Jo, It seems to me that Gardasil comes out on the very positive side of a risk benefit analysis. My two thoughts are this:
1) manditory vaccination may be a bit early. Let’s give it a year and look at the safety profile in the treated girls so far to see if any safety signals are popping up.
2) I think that scheduled vaccinations (with a parent opt-out) in this area are appropriate in a few years. People won’t forget, the dose will be cheaper the more people get it, the vaccination will decrease the spread, helping even those who opt out, and frankly I think makes it easier to have it be standard than to have parents try to think about whether they are supporting their daughter to have sex (which they probably aren’t even if they do choose to have her take it). This way, it’s just something you get, nothing personal. If people are uncomfortable, opt out.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
All the facts are there that thimerosal has caused autism but you still are doubting them. Please do some more research. Start here:
http://www.thimerosal-autism-symptoms.com/
and
http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/thimerosal.php
Our kids were poisoned, please don’t be part of hiding the truth.
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Beth,
I don’t see anything there (on their face, I didn’t look through the whole sites) to change my opinon. In order to prove a thimerosal-autism link, one would have to come up with a good reason why the CDC failed and study that. As I noted, there could be a genetic susceptability involved but until that would be confirmed to have thrown off the CDC study, I think that I would have to stay with the status quo (no link) while admitting that there are some gaps that need to be filled.
As to your ‘hiding the truth’, it’s just as bad as the ‘nothing to suggest’ above. The implication that people in the public health community are trying to cover-up something that hurt children only perpetuates the idea that the autism advocates aren’t worth listening to.
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:10 pm
If it isn’t vaccines, why don’t the amish get autism?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7395411/deadly_immunity/
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
I think it’s pretty clear from the June 2000 CDC meeting transcripts that officials were more worried about covering their butts than the children. Maybe that doesn’t include you, but you are buying their line.
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Point taken about the CDC mtg. Just because there are a few bad actors, however, doesn’t mean everyone is. If you read the transcript, the majority of people are genuinely concerned about the public. Also, just because a some of the people at that meeting are sleazy, doesn’t mean that the link between thimerosal and autism is real.
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Beth:
That would be a convincing point if that was the only variable that was different between Amish children and the rest of the population. There are whole variety of things that Amish children don’t get exposed to but other children do. How about, for starters, excessive TV watching at a young age. The whole “the Amish don’t get vaccinated” argument is just “cherry picking” possible exposure etiologies.
Additionally, the Amish are considered a more genetically homogenous population than the rest of the population so it is totally possible that the genetic susceptibility to environmental causes of autism is less prevalent in the Amish community. For these and other reasons, I don’t think the Amish comparison is valid.
Angry toxicologist:
Regarding the diagnosis criteria changes leading to the surge in cases, I think this statistic is powerful.
Don’t quote me on actual %’s
- prior to diagnosis criteria change: ~65% of autistic children had IQ < 70
- after criteria change: ~ 35% of autistic children had IQ < 70
[AT note: This comment was edited by me to insert the rest of the stats due to a wordpress malfunction]
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 pm
The Amish do vaccinate, by the way. And nobody has conclusively shown they don’t have autism. Mrs. Bee’s Rolling Stone article cites the work of Dan Olmsted, a UPI reporter who overlooked The Clinic for Special Children in Lancaster County, PA.
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I don’t know if mercury in the vaccinations caused autism. But I’ve given this some thought, and I’m going to delay vaccinating my kids. I mean, there’s no reason to vaccinate a kid immediately as soon as (s)he pops out of the womb. Particularly since the child has latent protection through the mother as long as (s)he’s being breast fed.
Have you seen the vaccination schedule? It’s scary.
I’m not an idiot, I believe in the virtues of vaccination. But in a generally disease free environment (as we live in) the risks are low in waiting until a child is four or five (i.e. gotten some serious cognitive development out of the way) before exposing their bodies to every toxin on the planet (weakened, yes, but still).
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:49 pm
A former co-worker of mine had an infant that was vaccine damaged (late 70’s, early 80’s or so). My recollection is that it was from a pertussis vaccine, and the child was just under 2 at the time of vaccination. Apparently the post vaccine symptoms approached life threatening. Ultimately the child suffered permanent brain damage, comparable to a severely retarded child.
The relevant part of this story is the federal & pharma reaction to the parents’ claims. This child was not alone, and ultimately, Congress passed statutory liability relief for pharma, with a provision for benefits for the injured children. But all the way to Congress, pharma attempted to discredit the parents as irrational and money grubbing. As I understand it, in the course of various discovery proceedings and hearings, it became undeniable that at least in that time frame, quality assurance for vaccines was much worse than the ordinary standard for pharmaceuticals. Apparently this resulted in some lots of vaccines having concentrations of “active ingredient” (terminology?) much higher than ordinary, and this in turn injured many children. Apologies if I’ve butchered details through faulty memory.
My point is, pharma & the feds are far from infallible, so AT keep on it.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:33 am
Heraldblog, the vast majority of Amish do not get vaccinated. Consequently they do get some outbreaks of polio,M,M,or R. Agreed that the UPI article left much to be desired. As Ozzy pointed out the the whole Amish question has too many other plausible confounders.
A Million Paths, I would strongly recommend that your children follow the standard vaccination schedule. The risk reduction for disease (which is very real even today in our 1st world nation) far outweighs the very rare side effects that may occur. It’s the right thing to do for your kids and not the type of thing you will want to regret doing.
Dave,
Thanks for the comment.
Your details are generally correct. No one is infallable; well, except me, of course.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:53 am
Please keep in mind how many kids would die from the diseases that the vaccines protect against.
If 1% don’t vaccinate it may not make a big difference. If 50% don’t vaccinate, I think we will start seeing a lot more deaths from disease than autism cases.
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:08 am
Agreed. See my second update and note to A Million Paths. The (noble) desire to get everyone vaccinated, however, shouldn’t keep us from publicly pushing for the safest vaccines possible. I know it wasn’t your point to stop discussing it but that is how a lot of the vaccine world thinks.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:15 am
VACCINATION USAGE AMONG AN OLD-ORDER
AMISH COMMUNITY IN ILLINOIS
Jonathan S. Yoder, MSW, MPH,*†
and Mark S. Dworkin, MD, MPHTM†
A written survey was mailed to all Amish households in the largest Amish community in Illinois inquiring about their vaccination status and that of their children.
The study found that 90% of respondents had received vaccinations and 84% of families had vaccinated all of their children. No comprehensive study has examined vaccination coverage among Amish in the United States. The study concluded that it is a mistake to generalize about Amish vaccination rates.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:38 am
Fair enough for that community, but in other Amish communities, it’s not as common (down to 7% in some areas - See Fry below). One of the points of the paper you note is that you can not generalize accross various Amish populations. For different numbers:
Briss P, Fehrs L, Hutcheson RH, et al. Rubella among the Amish: resurgent disease in a highly susceptible community. Pediatr Infect Dis J 1992;11:955–9.
Hostetler JA. Amish Society. 4th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1993.
Fry AM, Lurie P, Gidley M, et al. Haemophilus influenzae type B disease among Amish children in Pennsylvania: reasons for persistent disease. Pediatrics. 2001;108:60–65.
Dickinson N, Slesinger DP, Raftery PR. A comparison of the perceived health needs of Amish and non-Amish families in Cashton, Wisconsin. Wis Med J. 1996;95:151–156.
Another reason not to use the Amish as a control for autism studies. They, like most other groups and as you point out, can not be easily categorized.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
In theory, vaccination in our burgeoning modern world would appear to be worth the risk(s); however a better approach would be for healthy women to breast feed much longer, as well as avoiding sick people and large (esp. indoor) crowds. By establishing stable microflora in our children, we can eliminate alot of potetially invasive microbes and viruses.
Stable microflora compete with pathogens for nutrients and colonization sites and immediate direct antagonism against pathogens. In addition, they stimulate the development of immunological tissues and activity of the immune system by production of natural antibodies.
This relatively simple approach can provide a measure of protection probably equal to or even greater than vaccination and its risks. In addition, we can avoid the litiginous blame game and get on with our lives, by not blaming others for our unfortunate circumstances.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I’d like to see some evidence for that. I don’t believe that your understanding of viruses stands up to current virology/pathology. Polio, diptheria, and the others aren’t competing for resouces in your body the way bacteria are in your gut or on you skin. First of all, viruses are not living, they don’t need nutrients. Second, all they need are cells to invade to assist their reproduction. We have cells aplenty. While breast feeding does provide some measure of protection, that protection is on the order of a few months even with continued breast feeding. To put it simply, a non-vaccinated child who is exposed to enough polio virus will probably get polio virus regardless of his/her health status. Or more simply: vaccinate your kids!
July 4th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
I mainly want to say congratulations on being one fo the few people on this subject who is able to keep an open mind and try to make actual sense.
I agree that vaccines should be as safe as possible, and contginued efforts to make them that way are valuable, and also that currently getting them is much safer than not getting them.
The main reason for adding the Thimerosal actually was for increased safety, in order to prevent bacterial contamination of the vaccines, at which it is effective. That is a very real risk, especially for vaccines that get transported to places where safe temperature-controlled storage is not assured, and where economics dictates that in order for the place to afford to have them at all, it is necessary for multiple-dose containers to be used. So I actually wouldn’t necessarily say that “mercury in vaccines was a very stupid thing to do”; there was a real benefit to be had, from a mercury dose that is comparable to what you get from eating a tuna sandwich (which are not being blamed for autism).
As for the Gardasil question, though, I think the government should butt out. There is a very good case to be made for mandatory vaccinations for diseases that are dangerous and are spread by casual public contact, as that is a clear public health issue. The risk or exposure to such diseases cannot be controlled by an individual, short of quarantining homself from public contact. But diseases that are not so spread become more of an individual health issue, in that people can define their own risk through their own actions, and people should be free to choose their own methods of dealing with such, whether that be by vaccination, or by other choices.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Parents have lab tests showing mercury in children’s unfilled teeth, hair, urine, stool, fingernails. In recent years pregnant women increased their body burden of mercury from vaccines, RhoGam, amalgam tooth fillings, fish, vinyls, contact lens solution, water, air.
The CDC issued a report on women’s body burden but provided no information on testing or treatment. Regardless of one’s opinion of the Thimerosal issue, the medical community needs to start looking at mercury toxicity as an exacerbator of disease.
Unfortunately anecdote will reign the Internet as long as public health administrators write off chelation due to messed up dosages and nutritional supplementation protocols in test studies.
I’ve heard that Boyd Haley, PhD is developing a new mercury chelator. In the meantime thousands of parents are chelating children using DMSA and alpha lipoic acid based on information provided by the chemist Andrew Hall Cutler, PhD, PE. One man’s anecdote is another man’s empirical observation.
July 4th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
AT, do you have an opinion as to whether topical chelating agents like DMSA can pass the dermis intact, then pass the blood brain barrier and remove mercury from brain tissue? Thanks!
July 5th, 2007 at 12:21 am
[…] of my favorite blogs at present is that of the Angry Toxicologist. A recent post regarding Vaccines and Autism clearly triggered some interesting responses..read the comments. This one is on the hot button of […]
July 5th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Heraldblog,
I don’t know whether DMSA (Chemet) will get through the skin, I can’t find anything to suggest it does in a quick search. It probably does not cross the blood brain barrier. There are animals studies that show that it does cross but usually with species that have rather ‘leaky’ blood brain barriers. Chemet is a FDA approved and very effective chelator for lead and shows concomitant functional improvement for patients with lead poisoning. It likely does this by reducing the lead level in the blood to such an extent that to reach homeostasis, the lead would come out of the other organs. It is also used (off-label I believe) for mercury and arsenic chelation. For these metals, significant mercury and arsenic excretion has been measured with varying degrees of symptomatic/function improvement. So I’d say it probably works (orally) but it’s far from conclusive.
DMSA seems to be available over the internet (read: illegal). People should know that DMSA can be dangerous under certain conditions and should NOT be taken outside a doctor’s perscription.
July 5th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Regarding Hg and amalgams:
1. metallic mercury released from amalgams is very poorly absorbed in the GI tract
2. any mercury vapor that is released from amalgams will most likely be exhaled and the levels that have been measured in exhaled breath is way below any level that would cause adverse health effects, even when long-term exposures were taken into account.
The most significant sources of mercury are natural earth degassing/volcanic activity and waste incineration and disposal leading to accumulation of mercury in animals and then we eat the animals. One of these sources we can’t do anything about it, the others we can and should do something about. But it doesn’t help the problem to focus on relatively small exposures. A lot more could be done by focusing on larger scale sources.
By the way, the scientific community is definitely realizing the effects of low-level mercury exposures on human health. There is some really good research looking at the effect of Hg on autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
I think people have truly forgotten about the public health burden that viral infections had on human health prior to the use of vaccinations. The most important driver of the increase of life expectancy over the 1900s was not increased quality of care in later life, but decreased childhood mortality due the use of vaccinations and antibiotics. While there will always be some risk of doing anything (even alternative therapies) the benefits of vaccinations FAR OUTWEIGHS the risks!
One more point, I have heard on this discussion and others that people did not want to give their baby the hepatitis vaccine so early in life. Well, their child has just entered an extremely non-sterile environment the second it passed through the birth canal. They are instantaneously exposed to whole host of pathogens and are in essence being vaccinated against some of them through their normal immune system function. Hepatitis is a very big problem in the world. It is the leading cause of liver cancer throughout the world and the US and it has been estimated that hepatitis-associated liver cancer will greatly increase in the coming decades in unvaccinated populations. Most of these infections occur during the first year of life. The rates of hepatitis infection have been increasing greatly in the US and will continue to due to global immigration patterns. Early prevention is definitely a must in this case.
July 6th, 2007 at 6:07 am
This is HARD. I guess you could say the risk of getting whacked by M, M or R (without the vaccine) is greater than getting whacked by the vaccine (right/wrong?). Trouble is, there’s no such thing as toxic stuff, only a toxic dose of otherwise OK stuff. So cyanide is good for you then I guess - at the right dose of course - clinical trials anyone?
July 18th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
[…] hear new perspectives on this topic such as the voice of Angry Toxicologist. His July 2nd post on Vaccines and Autism provides a rundown of “pro and con” arguments about vaccines and autism. Here are some: […]