Well good lord, that's just depressing. Someone educate these candidates!

What Obama suggested, indeed what he said, was that the science is currently inconclusive and that more research is needed.

Given that the government recently conceded the connection between autism and vaccines in one VICP case, that seems pretty reasonable.

Are you against more research?

Dwight, I miss your blogging, hope all is well with you & yours.

Oh, you've done it now, Ezra, here come the anti-vax brigades. Duck and cover, man.

According to the Washington Post article, they stopped using the questionable ingredient in vaccines seven years ago.Therefore, the only legitimate purpose of this discussion is as concerns (possible) compensation for people vaccinated before that; whatever the answer is, it has no effect upon people being vaccinated now.

I'd say they're to blame as much for characterizing this as a present danger as for characterizing it as a plausible one.

How dare you introduce science into this subject which I have decided I know a lot about by reading on the internet and stirring up trouble on chat boards and finding other reasonably well-educated mothers and fathers that agree with me! Let me tell you--I have spent many a night drinking pretty decent california wine complaining about vaccines with them until we have worked ourselves into a lather and decided that this was the crucial issue of our times. I will organize and destroy vaccines because I don't understand statistics and I have decided that I know what is best for everyone even though I am publicly only arguing that it is my right not to have my child vaccinated.

Actually, there is still an issue with vaccines. It isn't the no-longer present ingredient but the scheduling.

Where vaccines used to be spread out over months and years, there are now more than ever and are now grouped in clusters given solely for "parents' convenience" - the AMA & CDC's way of trying to maximize vaccination coverage. There are indications, but not yet proof, that this can overwhelm the immune systems of children with certain genetic predispositions. I've seen projections that perhaps as many at 12% of all kids on the spectrum could have ended up there in response to this effect.

Now, let me be clear: the appropriate response isn't to stop vaccinations but to space them out - and to research how to tell which kids are at risk of the bundling.

Dwight:

"Given that the government recently conceded the connection between autism and vaccines in one VICP case, that seems pretty reasonable. "

No, what the government did was concede that the administration of a vaccine in this particular case caused the aggravation of an underlying chromosomal abnormality that gave rise to symptoms similar to those seen in autism. This is very different from what you claimed.

Scaring people away from vaccinating their children is not a harmless pander.

I agree, this is a slimy thing to do. They should know better. Unlike much of healthcare vaccination have been a great benefit to humanity.

I actually think there is another dynamic at work to the democratic candidates' reluctance to deny the autism connection. Imagine what this subject would look like if brought up in a debate or as portrayed in the MSM. On the one side you would have Obama (or less likely Clinton) trying to dispassionately explain about scientific research and public policy while McCain talks about how he wants to protect sweet little children. If you imagine what the likely media-narrative is for the GE, can you imagine a worse way of playing into the Obama the out-of-touch smarty-pants vs. McCain the-great-protector stereotypes?

Panders aside, SKI raises an important issue here: bundling of vaccines. Due to my older child's neuromuscular disease -- he's cogntively and socially normal but lacks motor neurons and therefore can't move or breathe on his own -- I've spent a tremendous amount of time consulting neurologists, geneticists and clinicians of all stripes, folks from Columbia and Cornell and Johns Hopkins; and inevitably the issue of autism and other "spectrum" disorders comes up. All the clinicians will tell you there's no evidence in all the data to link vaccines with these disorders, but . . . but there's no conclusive reason to discount that it may be a trigger if a child already has a genetic predisposition toward autism. Hence the need for further research.

Rather than tut-tutting about the anti-vaccine hysteria, Ezra, you might want to recommend to your readers that they all be tested for some of the basic autosomal recessive genetic mutations, such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, spinal muscular atrophy, etc. (My wife and I come from wildly variant genetic stocks -- I'm WASP, she's Ashkenazi -- yet we are both carriers for SMA.) In addition, anyone of Ashkenazi descent should also be tested for the diseases so central to that population, like Tay-Sachs, Nieman-Pic, and familial dysautonomia, which my wife also carries. One defective copy of the gene and you're totally healthy; two copies and you're facing a life-threatening disease.

If you are forty five like me you received five or six vaccines as a child. Now the schedule is up to 36 vaccines in the first two years. A child's immune in not necessarily adapted for such an onslaught of disease (which is exactly what it is). But talk to any parent who's 18 month old child has received four shots in a day and stopped talking the next day (documentations of such ocurrances are endless) and you will find ample reason to wonder about how great our approach to vaccines is.

Instead of characterizing the admission, let's quote it:

"In sum, DVIC has concluded that the facts of this case meet the statutory criteria for demonstrating that the vaccinations CHILD received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder."

Now let's characterize. The little girl had a genetic mitochondrial disorder. She got a bunch of vaccines. Those vaccines significantly aggravated the genetic disorder which manifested itself as autism.

In law, if two or more forces combine to create a result, each is a cause of the harm.

In that sense, at least, the vaccines (combined with the pre-existing genetic defect)caused Hanna's autism

Dwight, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The "statutory criteria" is biological plausibility, not scientific certitude. And "features of autism spectrum disorder" is not the same thing as "autism".

The most compelling - though - circumstantial - argument I've seen in many years for the increase in autism is Vitamin D deficiency.

See http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/

1) Yes vaccines are generally good. 100 years ago 1/3 of the annual deaths were children under 5, now about 1% of annual deaths are children under 5.

2) Yes doctors and public figures need to be very careful about what they say. Take the finding on antidepressants that 3% of adolescents who take them report an increase in suicidal ideation (vs 1.5% of controls). That factoid lead to an international 15 to 30% decrease in the prescription of antidepressants to adolescents. Unfortunately that decrease in treating depression was also associated with a now multi-year cross country 30 to 50% INCREASE in ACTUAL adolescent deaths by suicide. We suck at thinking statistically and are hardwired to avoid loss unless the gain seems at least twice the potential loss. It has been years since losing a child to disease was a universal experience, which makes vaccines a pretty vague gain.

3) However, 10 or 15 years ago some of what I and the medical and scientific community KNEW to be true, was in fact false. Logically some of what I believe true NOW is in fact false - however I am trapped by my cognitive biases and cannot see it (yet).

4) I have assessed, diagnosed, and treated dozens of autistic children and youth. And virtually every single one was different. The general patterns were the same but which symptoms were present and to what degree varied. Honestly I think we are talking about autisms (plural). And if there are really multiple presentations maybe there are multiple causes. Certainly a huge number have had severe allergies and some have had metabolic problems. Combine increased genetic loading with environmental changes (plastics, toxic chemicals) and that may explain some of the increase.

5) BUT don't forget kids get MORE vaccines than they used to. And they get them much closer together. Is it THAT impossible that for some children, multiple vaccines interact with genetics and environmental exposure to produce dramatic changes in the brain?

Sus, thank you very much for an excellent comment.

your point 3) is of substantial importance since in reality we are not talking about conditions that have proper rigorous models which if later falsified are usually so because their domain of applicability has been improperly extended.

In the hard sciences such as physics when a theory is falsified it usually only has its domain of applicability reduced and works very well as an approximation.

In the biological sciences things change abruptly and what was true before becomes universally false. There have been ample results of this in the past. Take it into consideration when evaluating these issues.

Regarding the gains and losses using statistical arguments, people should be able to choose no matter what. That simple.

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Thanks

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