Aspies For Freedom

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/d...ws.gmcrops

The government's chief scientific adviser criticised the BBC's Today programme and the Daily Mail yesterday over what he called their "campaigns" against GM food and the MMR vaccine. Sir David King said Britain's failure to adopt GM crops had cost the economy between �2bn and �4bn and that falling measles vaccination rates as a result of negative publicity about MMR would lead to between 50 and 100 child deaths.

King criticised both news outlets again for their coverage of safety fears surrounding the MMR vaccine and autism. "My charge there is that your highly successful campaign has potentially led to a situation where we could have 50 or 100 children dying of measles in the UK," he said. Because uptake of MMR has fallen, vaccine coverage in some areas is low enough to allow measles to spread.

"We could still see a significant fatality rate amongst children," he said, adding that all the evidence now shows that MMR does not cause autism.

"That's the basic message that every parent needs to get and I would love the Daily Mail to put a headline in the paper tomorrow admitting that." King said he had had a private conversation with the Mail's editor, Paul Dacre, about its coverage. The Daily Mail declined to comment.

The Today programme said: "We don't recognise that description of our coverage."


(He also talks a whole bunch about homeopathic medicine and GM crops.  I don't agree with his position on the crops, but I'm just glad someone is out there bringing attention to the fact that studies have repeatedly shown NO CONNECTION between autism and MMR)

Hey I've had measles and mumps. I didn't die (it was before I was vaccinated despite lifelong immunity).

Firstly, the symptoms of autism appear around the age of 2-3 (which is when the vaccine is given). Secondly there are adverse reactions to a vaccine in a small subset of people. Whether this adverse reaction leads to the type of brain injury or immune response that leads to late-onset autism is difficult to say as most studies have meant that ruling it in or out are within the margin of error (scientifically) due to the small numbers of people on the autistic spectrum (vaccinated) compared to the small numbers of people on the autistic spectrum (unvaccinated)...

I might also point out they denied that:-

a) Gulf War Syndrome existed and
b) there was no such thing as BSE (mad cow disease).

Generally politics and bureaucracies deny things that are true to avoid either:-

a) having to pay compensation or
b) spreading fear and panic among the public or
c) involve providing public services more expensively (eg sticking to the letter of the law or doing things safely).

The rationale behind MMR (one jab) vs single doses of each vaccine is that it's cheaper for the NHS to give one vaccination vs three...

Whereas I don't doubt the vaccination program for reducing certain diseases; there are downsides to it too...

What's there to say that symptoms don't appear much earlier but go unnoticed because they're within the usual range of what young children are like?

At the age the jabs are given the children are deemed too young to give informed consent; so it is a decision left to the parents. Some opt out of vaccination altogether. All of the three, measles, mumps and rubella are viruses which mutate over time. As with the influenza vaccine the vaccine manufacturers have to predict. For an example of when things go wrong see the Cutter incident:-

By not inactivating the polio vaccine the vaccine basically started a polio epidemic. Whereas I realise in the intervening 5 decades we have improved vaccine safety somewhat; there are still massive concerns in academia about pharmacovigilance; especially as vaccines aren't a drug used to treat something; merely to prevent a hypothetical risk from a hypothetical future epidemic (that wouldn't kill many people anyway). You're far more likely to die of the other things affecting Western culture; obesity, heart disease, drinking too much, smoking related illnesses, car accidents etc etc...

Dealing with them each in turn:-

Rubella:- mainly of concern because of effect on pregnant women. Despite this males immunised too...

Mumps:- death is extremely unusual, just one of those childhood illnesses you recover from after a short period

Measles:- fatality rate maybe 1 in a 1000.

To be honest though; thanks to the vaccination program most people below a certain age have no natural (eg acquired immunity from surviving the virus) vs artificial immunity (from a virus). We get viruses all the time (colds etc). If people followed a sensible lifestyle eg had reasonable amounts of vitamin C in their diet (which doesn't really happen in a Western style diet devoid of many vitamins) had fresh fruit, vegetables, gave up drinking, smoking etc... and weren't in any way immunocompromised (eg elderly, asthmatic, young etc) then these viruses are trifling to be honest with you.

Look at the influenza pandemic of 1918 or other stuff if you want to be scared. Often the effects of the vaccine in trouble caused (side effects etc) can be worse than the effects of not vaccinating. Better increases in life expectancy have been brought about by clean drinking water, better medical resources etc than the vaccination program.

You're forgetting immunocompromised people. If we didn't vaccinate, people who were taking chemo, had had organ transplants, or had AIDS would have to stay in isolation wards--getting measles is almost certain death for them.

People on the autistic spectrum could be classed as immunocompromised anyway. Immunocompromised people shouldn't be taking vaccines anyway...

Immunocompromised could apply to the 25% of the population here in the UK with asthma, or the elderly or the young; it's a rather wide and subjective group... regarding cancer patients, people with HIV/AIDS and people on immune system supressing drugs after organ transplants; all those groups would be advised by their doctors to avoid certain things anyway....

"getting" autism or Aspergers reduces life expectancy too (by a number of years... people can die of adverse reactions to vaccines too.

Quick!  Let's all sign up for chelation, eat foodstuff-free diets, and subject ourselves to electroshock "education" for the rest of our lives!  Don't forget the tinfoil hats to protect us from the mind control rays of the give-kids-vaccines conspiracy!

That's in order to create a herd immunity, to protect women who for whatever reason can't be immunised against rubella.

I'm told it causes excruciating pain in the genitals and a risk of sterility in adult males. Also that it can cause viral meningitis and deafness in children.

But very dangerous to infants under one.
See article by Guardian medical correspondent below ...

The return of the measles party

Don't be tempted to take your children to a so-called measles party. The risks are far too high

Luisa Dillner
Thursday July 26, 2001
The Guardian

We've hired football pitches, shivered at ice skating rinks and spent fortunes at theme parks in pursuit of the perfect childrens' party. And are the darlings grateful? By daybreak they're already working on their Christmas lists. So maybe you can't blame a group of parents for coming up with a party with a difference. Popular in the 1950s before mass immunisation, the measles party is making a comeback. If you're worried about media reports of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine causing autism then you can join a network of parents who are trying to infect their children naturally with these diseases. As soon as little Charlie in Huddersfield is diagnosed with measles, his parents are buying chocolate swiss rolls and ringing round, inviting the un-vaccinated to party. And instead of those throwaway party bags, your child will be taking home an infectious disease they may never forget.

And this is the first of many problems I have with this bonkers idea. Measles is not a cute, harmless kiddies' disease. In the developing world, where mothers say, "never count your children until after the measles", the disease kills 800,000 youngsters a year. If you think your children are too well-nourished and robust to succumb, think again. An outbreak in the US between 1989 and 1991 saw more than 55,000 cases of measles and 123 children die from it.

Vaccinations are given to protect children because for every age group the complications of the vaccine are fewer than from the real disease. The risk of measles causing encephalitis, an inflammation of the coverings around the brain, is one in 2,000 children for the real disease versus one in 1m for the vaccine. Before vaccines, mumps was the most common cause of viral meningitis in children. It can also cause deafness.

And as for rubella, symptoms in kids may usually be mild but one in 5,000 will get encephalitis. If a pregnant woman who is not immune is exposed to little Charlie in Huddersfield, her baby is likely to be born dead, or at best potentially deaf, blind and with learning difficulties.

Forget the purity and beauty of natural immunity. Vaccines offer a dose of the real infection modified so that it does less damage. If you're worried your child can't cope with three weakened vaccines at a time, you probably don't realise that a sore throat or cold can expose him or her to between four and 10 infections.

At the Public Health Laboratory Service in Colindale they are deeply unimpressed with the outbreak of measles parties. Dr Liz Miller, head of the immunisation division, is concerned at who exactly will be catching what. "The vast majority of measles cases turn out not to be measles," she says. "So you may be under the false impression that your child has had measles."

If your child does catch measles, Dr Miller is worried about who he or she will infect. "If you have a child under the age of one at home then this child will not have been immunised. Children under the age of one are much more at risk from a complication of measles called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis."

This is a disease of the nervous system caused by the measles virus chronically infecting the brain. Your child will recover from the initial measles infection, but about seven years later will gradually become unwell and finally die. Part of my own rabid support of vaccinations comes from seeing a child dying of this bizarre condition when I was a medical student.

This isn't to say that I skip along with my own children to get them vaccinated. There is something about offering a small, plump arm to a needle that I hate. But I do it because the evidence is there that, while no vaccine is 100% safe, childhood diseases are more dangerous. There is no dispute in the medical community about this except for one research group in north London who link the MMR vaccine to autism and bowel inflammation. International expert groups have said they're wrong. The US, Canada and more than 35 European countries use the MMR vaccine. Japan, which uses single doses (thought by the north London research group to reduce the risk of autism) had 79 deaths from measles from 1992-7. In England we haven't had any for a decade.

The answer to concerns about the MMR vaccine is to weigh up the risks and benefits, not to force your kids to mix with spotty children they don't know in some misguided attempt to make them sick "naturally". "It reminds me of survival of the fittest,"says Dr Miller. "I thought we'd moved on from there. Not all children are equally well-equipped to cope with these diseases. Vaccination was brought in to give everyone a chance to be protected."

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/heal...04,00.html

The longer a group of people is not exposed to something like measles the weaker the immune system will be when exposed.
So it's highly probable that an outbreak of measles in the '50 would have not an mortality rate as high as an outbreak would have now.

I never stopped wondering though why they decided to bring the age of the rubella vaccination down to 14 month.
In my country it used to be for 11 year old women only. All the vaccinated women were protected from getting the disease during pregnancy. And the none vaccinated women did get lots of chances to be infected during childhood.
My logic is probably flawed somewhere, or it's just economically more profitable to vaccinate all children together with the measles and mumps.

I find it interesting how the MMR vaccine myth seems to be disproven by a new study every other week or so and yet people still somehow believe it.

It’s a strange world, I guess.

Will

Only a few people have mentioned it to me in real life, and generally it is only spoken of when the particular person either only knows someone who is “lower-functioning” or doesn’t know any autistic people (other than me, of course).

However, every single time I see an online news story, editorial, blog, et cetera the comments seem to be filled with people purporting the myth.

Will

P.S., I do think vaccines can cause harmful reactions in some infants. One of my past school teachers was given Polio by the vaccine against that very disease when she was a kid.

I don't see how any pronouncement on the cause of "autism" can be made when everyone seems to have a different definition (none of which correlate with the historical meaning).

"Autism" as ASD is an invention of Lorna Wing's, who (as her writings make clear) has never understood that both Kanner and Asperger were referring to the autistic personality type (described comprehensibly by Aaron Rosanoff in his paper of 1921, and borrowed as a descriptive label, even earlier, by Eugene Bleuler {among others} for a phase of the schizophrenia he described, just as Kanner described "autism disorder", not autism itself) so this stuff about a "spectrum" is a load of cobblers! No relationship has ever been proved between the various conditions so labelled, nor is there in most cases any connection, nor even a superficial resemblance to autism (the personality type).

Studies to determine a connection between complex issues (as between vaccines and childhood development disorders) are done by statistical analysis, but how can one meaningfully analyse a grab bag of different issues, all masquerading as "autism"? I've tried to illustrate the problem in this blog (it's very long; you'll find the "Dytch Olm ..." argument about half way down; and while you're there, why not check out the last few posts, after which the blog was frozen?):

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=744

and you can find Rosanoff's paper with google science:

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/cont...n/77/3/417

Do please try to understand that correct labelling is essential for any kind of scientific reasoning; one reason "autism" research is such a mess is because nobody officially involved ever bothers to get the basics right; there is not the slightest possibility that Leo Kanner invented the word (as the establishment claim) so any research done on such a basis is doomed to fail!