Aspies For Freedom

Aside from the fact that autism usually isn't noticed until about age two (either by the child developing typically at first or by others missing the signs, both of which are common).

I think the main reason that the loss of skills such as speech that is known to come so soon after vaccination is a combination of the fact that the normal time for those things to start or become noticeable and the stress of vaccine reactions.

The stress of a vaccine reaction (which could include fever and/or seizures) probably, by putting more stress on mind and body, makes it difficult or impossible for the child to function in the ways of typically developing children. Perhaps because of the timing of this, the developmental course is geared to a more atypical development - the kind we see in autistic people.

So if you take the tendency that typically developing children NOT exposed to vaccines suddenly develop autistically (is that a word?) around age two, combined with the stressor of all those vaccinations at the same time (especially if there's a reaction), would logically account for this correlation.

Unfortunately, many people who are only exposed to the surface issues, looking at just what the anti-vaccine autism-is-mercury-poisoning people say through the media, conclude that there is a compelling argument that it is the mercury, or the MMR vaccine itself, that caused autism, though the evidence used to support this actually more solidly supports an alternate explanation.

I do think that, while vaccine reactions (especially in young children) should be looked into, and not brushed off, that this turn of events will be wildly misconstrued and spun to make the statement that "if the US government concedes to us, then it must be true" despite the loud talk of how the government is in cohoots with the pharmaceutical industry -- which there seems to be actual corruption, but has little bearing on the science.

While vaccine safety and adverse reactions should be investigated (and where possible mitigated), certainly the consequences of NOT vaccinating are more frightening than those of vaccinating. Unfortunately, the fears in the public (especially if it is seen as the government validating the idea that vaccines cause autism) would pose a threat to the health of children if they choose not to vaccinate.

I doubt that this is even true.  Once there is one court ruling for compensation, then everyone else is going to want to get it too.  

I can just see it now, class action suit-- and all the parents get some paltry sum.  It is a total waste of effort trying to find blame for "autism".  Why not work on accommodations and acceptance of people with autism instead.

I'm suspicious of anything David Kirby says about this.  He has obtained secret government documents from somebody completely unrelated to the case?  If they weren't related to the case how'd they steal the secret document and if they did get them how does he know they weren't altered before he saw them?  I mean this is about at the level of I heard by cousin say they met this guy who was a CIA agent and they said that... (blah, blah, blah)

It's a sealed document, so neither he nor we can determine the truth of anything said about them.

I don't have the link anymore, but you guys may find it interesting that they actually did a study of Ethyl mercury's halflife in infant blood in Brazil.  Brazil still uses thermerisol in all the vaccines so it was very easy to do a study there.  The halflife for the mercury form the children received from the vaccine is 2 days.

Now just think about that for a second.  2 days later half the mercury is gone, 2 days later another half, 2 days later another half.  The mercury argument only has grounds if for some reason the cumulative dose between all childhood vaccines over several years is too high (since the individual dose is too low to do anything).  There was more concern when they were assuming it might excrete at the rate that Methyl mercury excretes, but that form isn't in the vaccine.  Ethyl mercury excretes dang fast and, if I remember correctly they actually measured this, and didn't find any difference in the rates between autistics in the study and the NT's.  So the concept that the mercury is at fault is completely bunk.  That is why people like Cure Autism Now etc are trying to pin it on something else like aluminum or something.  They have a theory that vaccines are at fault and they are desperate to pin it on a culprit.  Mercury actually vaguely made sense with the symptom overlap between autism and mercury poisoning.  Now they don't have any evidence for it but the gut reaction of "LOOK, it was regressive" still lingers on in their minds.

As far as children getting sick after getting a vaccine goes, the entire point of giving a live virus vaccine is to get the child a little sick.  It won't work if that doesn't happen.  BUT, if getting sick from the vaccine was damaging you, you'd have the symptoms of the virus at question NOT autism unless you've got something really funky going on with your body that was waiting to strike with any sickness.  Such as the kid in the supposed conceded case.  That mitochondreal disorder was just waiting to take the kid down and had gotten progressively sicker from it from each non vaccine related illness the kid got.  Vaccines were just another source of infection and the last shot provided infection he got seemed to keep him down instead of getting better afterwards after a good number of vaccines he just breezed past.  At that point we should blame day care facilities for causing autism because they spread infections.

The really interesting issue here to me is how many of us don't want to believe in any mercury autism connection. Even Breeze who seems a little more open minded shows his bias about it. I'm not saying there is or isn't a connection but I have my own anecdotal experiences.

When I was about 8 my mother to me on a trip to another country. I had to get several shots for the trip. When we returned something happened to me. I became very afraid of germs and being dirty. I wouldn't touch objects because my mind would race and think of all the filthy things that could have touched it before and I washed my hands constantly. After a few months these thoughts went away. Later when I started wearing contact lenses, I used a saline solution preserved with thimerisol. This was when I found out I was very allergic to it.  Now I would never want it injected into me in any amount or form. I no longer get any flu shots or any other shots for that matter.

I don't want get into an argument about whether or not there is a connection. I just want to point out the bias on both sides of the issue. Most here don't want it to be true because it would mean we are damaged and not just different.

I see one simple solution for the people who argue that not immunizing children to avoid autism is dangerous. Removing the thimerisol from the vaccines would actually be very simple. The pharmacutical companies have already begun quietly doing this.

btw this is off topic but did you all hear that Gary Gygax, creator of D&D recently died? RIP GG, I too used to play.

No, that's not what I'm saying. Sorry if I was unclear.

Begin with an autistic child, who is say a year old. Nobody knows they're autistic yet. It's just not noticed.

Then, if that same child (if is an important word) has a vaccine reaction, the stress from it could easily make autistic traits much more noticeable. WHen I am physically stressed, I am much more noticeably autistic, and if someone in the room has not known me, and hasn't seen me rock or not make eye contact or unable to speak, and I become stressed (either physically ill or painful sensory stimuli), then they're going to immediately see me acting in such a way that is noticeably autistic (whether they have that name for it or not).

Did the stressor "make" me autistic? Not by any means. I would have still been eventually noticed that somehting was "different" about me.  It merely emphasized behavioral manifestations of how my brain works so that it's more obvious to other people. So it's not that a physical stress resulting from an adverse reaction is CAUSING atypical development, but rather emphasizing the development pattern that the brain has already been establishing.

That and besides, it's a minority that experiences such an adverse reaction. Mostly it's just because speech isn't expected to develop until about age two, and that's one thing that most parents start being unable to wave it off.

And heck, using a hypothetical here, even if it was absolutely proven that vaccines cause autism, I'd WAY rather my future kids have autism than die of preventable diseases.

I never said that we are damaged or the link is promising. I said we don't want to believe this is true because it would mean we are damaged. I'm just speaking the truth.

If your scared of Thermerisol in contact solution (which I haven't confirmed is in any specific brands) you could always use a hydrogen peroxide based system for cleaning them.  More expensive but fewer standard preservatives in them-and the peroxide dissolves into water so what you have at the end is very close to plain old saline.  I'm allergic to normal types of contact solution so I had to use one like that.  Kinds of stinks because solution is expensive enough anyways, and this is just more so.

On whether there is any history of autism in the family, if all the cases were asperger's syndrome type then there would be no official diagnosis, its only been paid attention to fairly recently so if it was noticed at all they would probably have been labeled as schizophrenic.  Good chance wouldn't have even been noticed.  Also even for full blown autism that would have been diagnosed in the previous generation so anything farther back than just parents you'd have to look up records of mental retardation.

My father is definitely an aspie. I actually told him this when I first found out about it and he surprised me by agreeing. So I also do have anecdotal evidence to support the genetic side of the arguement as well.

Also, in the scienceblogs link posted, the question was raised: if it's mercury, then how come previous generations didn't experience an epidemic from use of things like merthiolate?

Also the claim that "if you line up 100 symptoms of autism and 100 symptoms of mercury poisoning, they'll be the same" is so way off base. Especially considering that I doubt you could even come up with 100 symptoms of autism. Certainly not that many in the DSM.

I find it actually quite nice that there's no tense atmosphere here even though we have different beliefs.

Yeah, but there's no real proof of this anywhere. It's yet another wacky conspiracy theory as far as I'm concerned.