MMR Vaccine NOT Linked to Autism, Large Study Concludes

[annabenedetti]

This study of 96,000 children has just been released.

A study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found no link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, even in children considered to have an elevated risk of developing the disorder. (A recent measles outbreak that affected 14 states began in California, where the belief that vaccines can cause autism is relatively widespread.) The study “examined insurance claims for 96,000 U.S. children born between 2001 and 2007” to look for a connection between MMR vaccinations and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), the Wall Street Journal writes. From the study itself:

Screen shot/JAMA




Autism Occurrence by MMR Vaccine Status Among US Children With Older Siblings With and Without Autism

 

[annabenedetti]

Sam Harris has a conversation with Nina L. Shapiro.

Please click on the above link to read the entire conversation, it's well worth the time.


The Truth About Vaccines

A Conversation with Nina L. Shapiro

Dr. Nina L. Shapiro is the director of pediatric otolaryngology and a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. A graduate of Harvard Medical School and Cornell University, Shapiro has been honored with several prestigious awards, including the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology Awards for Clinical and Basic Science Research, the UCLA Head and Neck Surgery Faculty Teaching Award, and the American Academy of Pediatrics Young Investigators Award, among others. In 2008 and 2012–2014, she was named a “Super Doctor” by Los Angeles Magazine; she is a Castle and Connolly 2014 “Top Doctor” and is listed in Who’s Who in America. She has given over 200 national and international scientific lectures, and written over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, two medical books, and 16 academic book chapters. Dr. Shapiro is an editor of “50 Studies Every Pediatrician Should Know” (Oxford University Press, 2016), and she is working on a book about hype in popular health advice. Her work and expert commentary have been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Time, BBC World, Salon, and on NPR.

​

Excerpt:

Shapiro: I think there are several reasons why people have chosen—and I use the word “chosen” specifically because I think most people now have a luxury of choice when it comes to their medical care—not to vaccinate their children. One is that they haven’t seen these illnesses. Most people with young children have never seen a case of measles; they’ve never seen mumps, rubella, polio, or whooping cough; so these illnesses are just abstractions to them. Their families are healthy, so why should they worry about something they’ve never seen? And there’s the concern that these vaccines cause autism. No matter how many studies are done to show in hundreds of thousands of children that there is no association between immunizations and the development of autism, there’s still that inkling of fear. Because most people know what autism looks like. They don’t know what measles looks like, but they understandably want to do everything they can to prevent autism. Another issue—especially in what one would call “health-conscious” communities in California and parts of Colorado—is this notion that vaccines have what people call “toxins” in them. This is a very tricky word, because most non-scientists don’t really know what a toxin is. Vaccines are not toxic. The air we breathe is much more toxic than the vaccines that children receive. They receive more viral and bacterial exposure just by being outside for a few hours than they would from vaccines. But there’s this pseudoscientific idea, “I’m going to keep my children natural and healthy and feed them organic food and protect them from any unnecessary toxic exposure,” that seems to stand in opposition to vaccines.

Infant girl with whooping cough

 

[Lon]

Sam Harris has a conversation with Nina L. Shapiro.

Please click on the above link to read the entire conversation, it's well worth the time.

I don't really need an atheist to talk to me about morals. My kids are vaccinated. It isn't a Christian issue like Harris is making it out to be. Thanks anyway, Anna. I can't go down this road with you. The guy is vehemently attacking Christianity and this is yet another of those attacks. How can you be upset when someone calls you godless when your diet is becoming that of the godless? Are you not becoming a walking prophecy of those very attacks? Why? God is there and He is not silent. Further, those who said that, weren't Catholic. Are you tossing out your Catholic faith because a few Protestants/evangelicals attacked you?

Not only can't I go down that road, I don't want you to go down that road either. -Lon

 

[annabenedetti]

I don't really need an atheist to talk to me about morals. My kids are vaccinated. It isn't a Christian issue like Harris is making it out to be. Thanks anyway, Anna. I can't go down this road with you. The guy is vehemently attacking Christianity and this is yet another of those attacks. How can you be upset when someone calls you godless when your diet is becoming that of the godless? Are you not becoming a walking prophecy of those very attacks? Why? God is there and He is not silent. Further, those who said that, weren't Catholic. Are you tossing out your Catholic faith because a few Protestants/evangelicals attacked you?

Not only can't I go down that road, I don't want you to go down that road either. -Lon

I have no idea what the heck you're talking about or why you'd bring my religious beliefs into this thread. I don't appreciate that. At all. You're out of line.

"It really isn't a Christian issue like Harris is making it out to be."

"This is another one of those attacks."

You obviously didn't read the interview, or you'd know there wasn't one single mention of Christianity in it. It's about vaccines, Lon.

Vaccines.

 

[Lon]

I have no idea what the heck you're talking about or why you'd bring my religious beliefs into this thread. I don't appreciate that. At all. You're out of line.

"It really isn't a Christian issue like Harris is making it out to be."

"This is another one of those attacks."

You obviously didn't read the interview, or you'd know there wasn't one single mention of Christianity in it. It's about vaccines, Lon.

Vaccines.

"Because" I went to the source and read his other stuff. He is against Christianity, Anna. You are the one, in thread, that asked us to go there.

You have engaged me concerning Harris in two other threads. Therefore my response has to do with having Harris in common for all of this. He rejects and is making a case against Christianity, even and especially on this topic as well. He is saying only people of faith are rejecting vaccinations. It might be true, but the reason is more about what science is doing with one hand, giving us poisons and then offering 'cures' with the other hand. This causes a desire for homeopathic answers and endeavors. Regardless, this goes beyond this veneer concern. Harris isn't interested in the veneer, he is going after our faith.

 

[annabenedetti]

"Because" I went to the source and read his other stuff. He is against Christianity, Anna. You are the one, in thread, that asked us to go there.

You have engaged me concerning Harris in two other threads. Therefore my response has to do with having Harris in common for all of this. He rejects and is making a case against Christianity, even and especially on this topic as well. He is saying only people of faith are rejecting vaccinations. It might be true, but the reason is more about what science is doing with one hand, giving us poisons and then offering 'cures' with the other hand. This causes a desire for homeopathic answers and endeavors. Regardless, this goes beyond this veneer concern. Harris isn't interested in the veneer, he is going after our faith.

You didn't read the interview, did you? Because that wasn't in the interview anywhere. He did mention liberals, though.

 

[BOLCATS]

"The Moral Landscape"..How science can determine human values..Sam Harris.


Does anybody really think Sam Harris is interested in the vaccine autism debate out of a unbiased interest in public health? Is there a pattern in his writings? Yes. He is obsessed with fundamentalist Christianity. It is clear to me he views the vaccine debate in terms of the "ignorance" stemming from fundamentalist Christianity.

 

[Lon]

You didn't read the interview, did you? Because that wasn't in the interview anywhere. He did mention liberals, though.

I did read it. I even told you why the doctor's speculation might cover a few, but not all those who refrain from vaccines. I 'think' it has more to do with weighing the cost against potential harm. We know that the food industry has made a few diseases in America. I even know where some of the flavoring and color comes from in our food and I'll tell you, I have a hard time trusting science after that :noway: It grosses me out. When it comes to medicine, thankfully, we have a lot of Christians trying to do the right thing and so I can trust them, but even some of that has them following the advice of scientists who are 'trouble shooting' rather than being as effective as they could be. For instance, exercise and diet are really important to diabetics. Instead of insulin perhaps have insurance pay for a gym or personal trainer for a season. At nearly a thousand dollars a month, it might be a better trade off.

(I'm trying to serve your thread, though Harris wouldn't have posted this for the same reason you did, and so, because it was Harris, I was addressing his overall reason for attacking Christians on this specific matter. I don't think he's a great resource for this kind of discussion because of it). -Lon

 

[annabenedetti]

"The Moral Landscape"..How science can determine human values..Sam Harris.


Does anybody really think Sam Harris is interested in the vaccine autism debate out of a unbiased interest in public health? Is there a pattern in his writings? Yes. He is obsessed with fundamentalist Christianity. It is clear to me he views the vaccine debate in terms of the "ignorance" stemming from fundamentalist Christianity.

:chuckle:

Harris: There’s the additional irony that we are sending medical teams to risk their lives in countries like Pakistan and Nigeria to stamp out polio and other diseases, and these people get attacked by locals as a result of the same kind of superstition and confusion we’re beginning to talk about here. I recently saw an interview with Bill Gates, who is now doing more than anyone else to direct private funds toward solving some of the greatest health problems of humanity. When he was asked what was the most important thing he had accomplished through his philanthropic work in the developing world, he said, “Vaccines make the top of the list.” The man is raising billions of dollars to improve human health globally, and yet highly educated, liberal technophiles in the Bay Area and in southern California—some of his best customers—are declining to get their kids vaccinated and driving down herd immunity in their communities to levels comparable to those in some of the most dangerous places to live on earth. It is a bizarre situation.

 

[fzappa13]

Oh goody, another thread on vaccines ... so we can pretend that all of the stuff offered on the other threads wasn't? To what end? At this point I fear all involved are preaching to their own chosen choir.

 

[Quetzal]

I don't really need an atheist to talk to me about morals. My kids are vaccinated. It isn't a Christian issue like Harris is making it out to be. Thanks anyway, Anna. I can't go down this road with you. The guy is vehemently attacking Christianity and this is yet another of those attacks. How can you be upset when someone calls you godless when your diet is becoming that of the godless? Are you not becoming a walking prophecy of those very attacks? Why? God is there and He is not silent. Further, those who said that, weren't Catholic. Are you tossing out your Catholic faith because a few Protestants/evangelicals attacked you?

Not only can't I go down that road, I don't want you to go down that road either. -Lon

Atheism and morals are not mutually exclusive. You can, in fact, be an atheist and have sound morals.

 

[annabenedetti]

Oh goody, another thread on vaccines ... so we can pretend that all of the stuff offered on the other threads wasn't? To what end? At this point I fear all involved are preaching to their own chosen choir.

Because it's current news. The study is newly released, it's very large, and it deserves its own thread title and to not be buried in a larger thread.

As for all the other stuff, I didn't follow the other threads. Sorry.

 

[annabenedetti]

Harris: People also assume that measles is more or less benign—just a rash and, perhaps, a fever. I recently came across a touching letter written by Roald Dahl, the famous children’s book author, about his daughter who died of measles. She died in 1962, but he wrote this letter in 1986 as a public service announcement. Here is how it starts:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course, I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.​

Shapiro: I think people believe that if their children are otherwise healthy and contract one of these illnesses, they’ll be strong enough to fight it. But that’s not always the case. Dahl’s child was seven. We’re not talking about an infant. She was a healthy child at the time. It doesn’t necessarily matter how healthy or how old you are once you get one of these illnesses.

 

[1PeaceMaker]

Here's on objection to consider: They only compared children who did not receive the MMR vaccine - and called them unvaccinated - when in fact, they received other vaccines.

It's certainly fair to call it junk science. You cannot conduct a study on multiple vaccines in one giant study. It needs to be done individually. Science 101.

 

[1PeaceMaker]

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM W. THOMPSON, Ph.D., REGARDING THE 2004 ARTICLE EXAMINING THE POSSIBILITY OF A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MMR VACCINE AND AUTISM



My name is William Thompson. I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, where I have worked since 1998.



I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.

http://www.morganverkamp.com/august...-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/

You want to trust this junk science with such a history of dishonesty?

 

[elohiym]

As for all the other stuff, I didn't follow the other threads. Sorry.

Then you missed this, obviously.

Natural immunity and vaccination

("Dr Tetyana Obukhanych, has studied immunology in some of the world's most prestigious medical institutions. She earned her PhD in Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York and did postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. and Stanford University in California.")

 

[1PeaceMaker]

Reportedly, vaccine-maker GSK is the source of a huge document that actually confesses to an autism link, among other things.

It's enormous, though. It will take a while to digest....

 

[elohiym]

Sam Harris has a conversation with Nina L. Shapiro.

Please click on the above link to read the entire conversation, it's well worth the time.

You start a thread about a study and then immediately post pro-vaccine propaganda from an atheist, anti-Christian website. Why?

The Truth About Vaccines

A Conversation with Nina L. Shapiro

Dr. Nina L. Shapiro is the director of pediatric otolaryngology and a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. A graduate of Harvard Medical School and Cornell University...​

Why do you think her credentials are relevant to the subject?

Do you believe the credentials of the those doctors and scientists opposing are relevant to their criticism of vaccines?

[image of iron lung]

http://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-jonas-salk-and-the-polio-vaccine

“Polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed in the media, not even at its height in the 1940s and 1950s,” writes David M. Oshinsky in his Pulitzer Prize winning book “Polio: An American Story.” During those decades, 10 times as many children died in accidents and three times as many succumbed to cancer. Oshinsky notes that polio inspired such fear because it struck without warning and researchers were unsure of how it spread from person to person. In the years following World War II, polls found the only thing Americans feared more than polio was nuclear war.​

Excerpt:

Shapiro: I think there are several reasons why people have chosen—

"I think" means she doesn't know. It's not something she's studied, obviously.

...and I use the word “chosen” specifically because I think most people now have a luxury of choice when it comes to their medical care—not to vaccinate their children.

The "luxury" of choice? I want to know what NAZI medical textbook she got that idea from. Patients have a right to choose.

One is that they haven’t seen these illnesses. Most people with young children have never seen a case of measles; they’ve never seen mumps, rubella, polio, or whooping cough; so these illnesses are just abstractions to them.

People who vaccinate haven't seen those illnesses either, so that's hardly making a point against those critical of vaccines. To the extent it's true, that ignorance more effects the choices of pro-vaxxers because they are fearful enough of diseases they've never seen to take the risks associated with vaccination.

Their families are healthy, so why should they worry about something they’ve never seen?

Ridiculous! That's not how vaccine critical parents think. Rather, it's close to how vaxxers think and why they are dangerous.

Their families are vaccinated, so why should they worry about something they are vaccinated against? Then they get tested in the hospital one day by chance and discover their vaccination is no longer effective. Another catches measles from people at a martial arts class and discovers her vaccination is no longer effective. They have the luxury of choice, the luxury to not get the available MMR titer test regularly.

And there’s the concern that these vaccines cause autism. No matter how many studies are done to show in hundreds of thousands of children that there is no association between immunizations and the development of autism, there’s still that inkling of fear. Because most people know what autism looks like. They don’t know what measles looks like, but they understandably want to do everything they can to prevent autism.

Not only do most people not know what autism looks like, they don't really know what autism is. Here's a good response for those interested: http://vaxtruth.org/2011/08/vaccines-do-not-cause-autism/.

Another issue—especially in what one would call “health-conscious” communities in California and parts of Colorado—is this notion that vaccines have what people call “toxins” in them. This is a very tricky word, because most non-scientists don’t really know what a toxin is. Vaccines are not toxic.

Aluminum is an ingredient in some vaccines. It's unfortunate that this "Dr." doesn't understand that aluminum is an antigen.

Motor neuron degeneration due to aluminium deposition in the spinal cord: a light microscopical study.

Aluminum hydroxide injections lead to motor deficits and motor neuron degeneration

The air we breathe is much more toxic than the vaccines that children receive. They receive more viral and bacterial exposure just by being outside for a few hours than they would from vaccines.

Quack, and moron.

But there’s this pseudoscientific idea, “I’m going to keep my children natural and healthy and feed them organic food and protect them from any unnecessary toxic exposure,” that seems to stand in opposition to vaccines.

She is claiming good nutrition and avoiding exposure to toxins are "pseudo-scientific ideas." Definitely a quack and moron.​

 

[User Name]

You start a thread about a study and then immediately post pro-vaccine propaganda from an atheist, anti-Christian website. Why?

One's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, has absolutely nothing to do with science.

 

[elohiym]

One's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, has absolutely nothing to do with science.

Have you not read that faith heals?

Vaccine dogma is based on pseudo-science.