For a very long time friends, co-workers, acquaintances and parents of my clients have wanted to know my opinion on whether or not they should vaccinate their children or not, especially for the MMR vaccine. For the most part my response has been that I was not comfortable telling someone to not get shots, but I didn’t see any harm on adjusting the schedule if that would make the family more comfortable. I’ve always made it clear that I do not in any way shape or fashion believe that any shot/vaccine caused my boys autism. They had signs of autism from the day they were born.
However, I was on the fence on whether mercury had anything to do with autism or not. This is a position very uncharacteristic for me, as I usually have an opinion. Like all parents who have children that have autism, I have read some of the books and articles that “explain” how mercury is the cause. So as people ask me about the mercury question I have retreated to the fence for several reasons. First, I grew up fishing in areas where the waters very near have higher than acceptable levels of mercury. We didn’t just fish [my family] went wade fishing (i.e. walking in the water while you fish), so the question in my mind was, is it possible that that my body had excessive exposure and that was the cause? In addition, mercury was probably present in my life more that many women my age. My father was a machinist. Machinist got cuts at work. It’s just something that happened. When he got a cut the infirmary sent him home with “black salve”, so when anyone in the house had any injury, especially a cut, we used the leftover black salve. As I learned mercury was an ingredient I wondered did my horrible clumsiness as a child cause me to be exposed to too much mercury through black salve. Also, for some reason, which I honestly don’t know, my family seemed to always have mercury to play with, which they did with bare hands. Added to this I know my husband also “played” with mercury as a kid. He remembers reading in Boy’s Life magazine how to clean pennies with mercury, which of course he had to try out. So as you can see I did have some exposure to mercury along the way. This in turn placed some doubt in my mind.
I had read enough about what the parents believe to know what was being taught in autism circles, but what about the scientific evidence? I kept hearing there was sixteen studies that proved vaccines had nothing to do with autism, where were they? I couldn’t find a list anywhere. The Today show ran a segment about it, but when I emailed and asked them to please send me the list of the studies, I got nothing. So I stayed firmly on the fence wondering how to resolve this issue in my mind…. Until the last couple of months.
As I do a lot, I bought several books from Amazon on autism, but this time I found one book that offered the other side of the autism controversy. I want to encourage anyone that gets that same question I get “what about the shots, do you think they cause autism” to read this book. It’s time for us to get the word out. Unequivocally, no, it does not. Please read: Autism’s False Prophets. It is time for the science to take a front seat. Yes, there are sixteen studies. Some of the studies are on autism and mercury and some on autism and MMR. Also available are the proceedings that removed Andrew Wakefield’s right to practice in England. It’s an interesting read. Page after page lists elements of Dr Wakefield’s study that did not have IRB approval, which in my opinion makes it null and void. After reading much of this document I must take the book by Paul Offitt, MD at face value simply because what he says matches what I have already read from those proceedings.
In the interesting keeping this short enough to read let me just list some things I found interesting:
• Dr Wakefield applied for a patent for a “safer measles vaccine” before he came out with his famous study then stated measles, mumps, and rubella should be given separately.
• When Dr Wakefield said he thought everyone should be vaccinated separately there were no individual vaccines available for measles, mumps, and rubella in his country
• Of the sixteen studies, none of them get 100% for study quality; however, Dr Wakefield’s study got 0%
• Many of those that have taken a stand and said vaccines are safe have been threatened
• Dr Wakefield accepted A LOT of money from the lawyer that was in charge of suing in regards to the MMR vaccine in England
• Five of the children in Dr Wakefield’s study were involved in that lawsuit before they were admitted to his study. This is clearly a conflict of interest.
• Many years ago, Thimerosal was shown to be safe in larger does than was present in any vaccine.
• Autism rates did not drop after thimerosal was removed from vaccines in California by law
• The viral load that several have stated was too much is actually much lower than it was when many of us were taking the polio vaccine
• Many of those involved in this controversy are associated with the law firms that are suing the government.
• One last point, during the trials, one of the scientists was asked to point blank deny that vaccines cause autism, but that is not how null hypothesis in research work. No matter how much you test the null hypothesis you can only say it is unlikely. Many have interpreted this to mean that even the scientist have doubts about the vaccines.
The most disappointing thing I discovered was how little the science has been discussed therefore only fueling the fires of this controversy by remaining silent. Let me encourage you that if you have the opportunity to talk to these families, please educate yourself on the scientific side of this subject.
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