Article about MMR vaccine and autism

Heh, I was just coming in here to post THIS ONE.

A very interesting read.
While I choose to vaccinate my children I am very pro-personal choice on the matter and I think it is incredibly sad that so many people were misinformed and misled in their decision making because of such a money-hungry, cold-hearted, self-motivated, jerk/industry.
I'm glad he has finally been exposed and I hope that karma just keeps coming back to bite him.
Unfortunately that karma will be of little comfort to the families whose children have since suffered life-long effects after contracting measles etc.

Ok, that doesn't sound as unbiased as I meant it to, sorry!
Measles is a bit close to home for me as my father is profoundly deaf after contracting measles at age 5.
I really am all for people making an informed decision for their children though and it sickens me that so many people's choices were swayed by this.

That comic is brilliant Mel!

Yes, it shows a bit of a lack of understanding of the way scientific study works - you can't really prove a negative (so it's in the too hard basket to definitively say vaccinations don't cause any harm).

I am pro choice too, but an informed choice is better than going with the crowd. I had a few doubt while I was pregnant but dp and I had a good talk about it and decided it was best.

Maybe there is no increase in autism just more cases are being recognised? I don't have a clue..just a suggestion. Lots of things would have been swept under the carpet in the past.

I hope this guy gets everything he deserves - it sucks that his study had such a huge effect on society. I wonder if he thought it would be as big a deal as it turned out to be?

I try to stay pro-choice but find myself leaning toward pro-vaccine. I understand people who delay vaccines if they feel their child's immune system isn't up to it yet due to allergies etc - but struggle to understand people who don't vaccinate at all. Not only are they putting their own child at risk but they are putting other children who haven't yet had the vaccine and unborn babies at risk if they catch one the diseases and go out in public with it.

Edited by StaceyL

Delli wrote: I try to stay pro-choice but find myself leaning toward pro-vaccine. I understand people who delay vaccines if they feel their child's immune system isn't up to it yet due to allergies etc - but struggle to understand people who don't vaccinate at all. Not only are they putting their own child at risk but they are putting other children who haven't yet had the vaccine and unborn babies at risk if they catch one the diseases and go out in public with it.

Hi, slightly OT, but as one of 'those people' who don't vaccinate their child (and trust me, it was a well researched, thought out, discussed choice), why would you be concerned about my child putting yours at risk if you are so sure that vaccinating your child will prevent them from getting the disease in question? Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me.  As for my baby catching a disease and giving it to another unvaccinated child, is that unfair if she passes it onto a child who parents choose not to vaccinate or who just to those who haven't had a chance to yet? You can't distinguish between the two. There's heaps of Mums on this forum who don't vaccinate and are probably more elequent then I in explaining it but the gist seems to be among us that we would rather risk natural disease in our children than some of the crap and over medication that is put in vaccines.  And btw, I"m not anti vaccine, I'm PRO CHOICE, and I think you'll find anyone here who doesn't vaccinate has made a well researched and informed decision not to! I am always reviewing my decision and would quite like one or two of the vaccinations seperately however I have been told by several Dr's this is not possible in NZ, depsite it being possible overseas.  Not trying to be rude or anything here, just giving you 'our' side as well

lol Delli- totally agree with that last bit about reading the same research and coming up with different answers! It has been one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make and its one I've made in conjunction and with the support of our GP. He is (obviously) pro vaccine but also very pro choice....and knows I have spent hours and hours reading research and listening to other peoples opinions etc before making my own. I do know they used to have measle and chickpox parties and TBH I'm still a little unsure as to why measles is such a big deal these days? Im genuinely curious....I understand of course there are some small risks of things going very bad with it, however isn't that the case for many things?  I just feel as a society in general we seem to live in an attitude of fear of what *might* happen, and that really worries me. It also concerns me what vaccines have in them now as preservatives and the amount of things we are vaccinating against, esp in our really wee babes.  This concern for me is exacerbated by the fact that I can't seem to find any health professional to tell me the answers to the above, despite my attempts to find one. Even the vaccinations nurse educator or whatever she called herself couldn't tell me if the preservatives in our common vaccinations was mercury or therimosal (sp) and even our paed said the only reason to jab our kids was 'just in case' there was an outbreak.

Sorry have taken this OT again, and so don't want an arguement about pros and cons of it all, just trying to explain how I feel as a very loving Mama who is trying to do the best by her bubba.  I am saddened and annoyed by the 'scientist' mentioned in the OP as he has done nothing at all for pro choice nor research in general IMO.

Emmecat wrote: I do know they used to have measle and chickpox parties and TBH I'm still a little unsure as to why measles is such a big deal these days? Im genuinely curious....I understand of course there are some small risks of things going very bad with it, however isn't that the case for many things?

Just one last thing, just because you asked. I am on a roll with this threadjacking business

If you are talking Rubella (German Measles) then the biggest risk is to unborn babies. 85% of babies infected within the first eight weeks after conception will be born with abnormalities.

If you are talking English Measles then there is a 30% chance a child that has contracted measles will develop complications such as ear infections, pneumonia or encephalitis. The chance of the disease being fatal is 1-2 in 1000. In the olden days EVERYONE used to get measles as it is highly highly contagious. It was still not cool if you got it but there was no escaping it. Which is why they used to have measles parties - because everyone was going to get it sooner or later they may as well get it sooner and be immune to it sooner, it was better to be crook as a child than as an adult. Imagine if everyone still got it now - 0.1% of 4 million people is 4000. Or to be more accurate - around 65,000 people are born in NZ every year. If there were no vaccinations around - approx 65 would die of measles.

Don't worry I'm not trying to convince you, or start up a debate on vaccinating vs non-vaccinating - I just answered because you said you were curious

Edited to fix my dodgy maths. Yes, I did get out of bed to come and fix this because I was lying there in shame when I realised what I'd done! Was wondering why 40,000 seemed a tad high. Embarrassing!

Edited by Delli

Just wanted to put my 2cents in I'm still pro-choice for the most part, but the more research I do (recently wrote an essay for uni about both sides of vaccination), I'm also finding myself more pro-vaccine (which having worked as a virologist, does make sense! )

Re: the statement above about getting the MMR done separately, I tried to do that (as Nat reacts to the albumin in vaccines like MMR), but it's not available in NZ, even on special request.

Also, the general worry about letting the proportion of vaccinated individuals drop is a serious one. Diseases like measles are kept at bay from a huge outbreak by herd immunity, and for measles specifically, we need about 95% of the population vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity. We know that vaccines lessen the effects of any disease passed along, rather than protecting against infection (no vaccine does that) - but part of that is due to the fact that some of these diseases are not able to survive unless there are 'pockets' of individuals that are not vaccinated.

As soon as our society's herd immunity decreases, we are at risk of having multiple outbreaks - this is why some people may say that the unimmunised kiddies are actually being protected by the immunised ones (no digs at anyone here, just stating facts and what I've heard said previously).

an example of this is in Russia in the 90's where their immunisation schedule collapsed, and within 5 years they had over 50000 cases of diphtheria which resulted in the deaths of thousands of individuals. In Sweden, they phased out routine immunisation for whooping cough in 1979, and within 6 years they had had 2 outbreaks including deaths.

I think part of the problem is that we do live in a society that doesn't need to worry about these 'third world diseases' like polio, diptheria, whooping cough etc, and we forget that such huge numbers of children died because of them. We live in a society where we have the 'luxury' of worrying about possible side-effects of vaccines, rather than worrying about the diseases themselves. I know our grandparents grew up in a world of iron lungs, and a huge infant mortality rate, and while general improvements like hygeine and living conditions have contributed to those declines, vaccination has made a huge impact. I for one wouldn't want to go back to an era where I could lose a child to an easily-preventable disease.

(and we did delay MMR for a while due to allergies, but I would never consider not getting it done at all - measles is still a very nasty disease, and while in NZ not many children die from it, in less developed nations, it still has a 30% death rate).

As for the scientist (coming from an ex-scientist) - I also find it hard to believe that he really went through with presenting his data knowing how flawed it was, and also not having anyone else question the data closely before it was published......seems rather fishy! And what a horrible legacy he has left

Sorry for the essay also being slightly OT

Edit to fix my facts

Edited by blondy