<p>This has been making headlines since last night:</p>
<p><a href=“CNN”>quote</a> – A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an “elaborate fraud” that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.</p>
<p>An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study’s author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study – and that there was “no doubt” Wakefield was responsible.</p>
<p>“It’s one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors,” Fiona Godlee, BMJ’s editor-in-chief, told CNN. “But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data.”</p>
<p>Britain stripped Wakefield of his medical license in May. “Meanwhile, the damage to public health continues, fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical profession,” BMJ states in an editorial accompanying the work.
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<p>I wonder how soon we will se the consequences of the damage done by the pseudo-science - some parents are still reluctant about immunizing their kids against anything.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I doubt that the majority will ever read/hear/believe this story. The media very seldom goes out of the way to publicize a correction of information.</p>
<p>There are far too many families seraching for some explanation and I hope they find it.</p>
<p>I’m not surprised but I must say that I spread out my kids’ vaccines when they were babies and toddlers. I really didn’t like the idea of taking them to the doc and getting multiple vaccines at the same time which was fairly prevelent back then and may still be. I remember when 3 was born and they wanted to give multiple vacines and Hep B (what one day old risks getting Hep B?) when he was one day old. I said no firmly and fortunately my physician backed me up and the nurses backed off. I believe in vaccines but I’m nervous about multiple vaccines at one time. All my kids have had all their recommended vaccines and boosters just on “my” schedule.</p>
<p>It’s been known in the autism community for quite a while now that that study had been discredited, though outright fraud was news to me when I read this article the other day, but there are still many, many parents who still cling to this study and I am sure will continue to do so. Just like there are parents that insist on chelation treatments even after their child has been found NOT to have heavy metal poisoning. They are driven mad by fear, and certain organizations promote this reaction. It’s a shame and it does a lot of damage. There are some very scary “professionals” out there that are really hurting people with their half-baked theories that they sell to parents in the package of so called “hope.” And, perhaps worst of all, it gets in the way of real science that would actually help people. As an autistic person, I find it very frustrating. My sister has an autistic son and she is so focused on the latest babble coming out of McCarthy’s mouth that she has neglected to even educate herself on what even the most basic autism symptoms are, or what things she COULD be doing to help manage those symptoms. It’s just sad, she’s letting her son go to waste. The pseudo-science that people are throwing around to make a buck off terrified parents gets in the way of REAL support and help that these families need.</p>
<p>As a school nurse, I am hopeful that those students whose parents have obtained “religious exemption” status for their children in the past based on that fraudulent study will now vaccinate their children. We have a large number of students at my school with autism (we are the “premiere” school for autism in the district). Our state offers only religious or medication exemptions. We do not offer personal belief exemptions. </p>
<p>Each year, I am approached by parents who want to get around the state immunization requirements in order to enroll their child in school. A few of them have actually gone to the health department and completed the religious exemption forms even after I explain they are doing so under penalty of perjury since vaccinations do not conflict with their religion (admitted by the parents). The pediatricians with whom I used to work did not agree with the practice of non-vaccination for autistic children, and I personally witnessed doctors tell parents to find another pediatrician since they couldn’t agree on the issue.</p>
<p>I do feel badly for those parents with autistic children. They just want answers and many of them were clinging to the hope that they had found it in vaccinations.</p>
<p>Despite the discredited study, aren’t there many many parents who found their children healthy before vaccination and sudden illness, decline, autism diagnosis afterward? I would not discount parent input. I would want to follow up with many studies to find out if there’s some kind of batch effect or something.</p>
<p>Hugcheck - from what I remember (and it has been a while now), up until kids are preschool age, it seemed like they were getting one sort of vaccination or another every 3 months. Chances are, when a child has been diagnosed with autism, they have been vaccinated within the last 3-6 months, so there’s always going to be a correlation of just having been vaccinated with a diagnosis of autism.</p>
<p>@momofthreeboys - the government decided to vaccinate newborns against Hep B because they were a “captive audience”, being in the hospital just after being born. The vast majority of babies have no risk of catching Hep B (which is caught the same way you would catch AIDS, although it is more contagious). The problem? A very small number of IV drug abusing mothers who also breast fed their babies and passed along the Hep B to them. Then the possibility of a very expensive liver transplant for a baby who was almost sure to be a Medicaid patient, so it would be on the government’s dime. Since these mothers would not be likely to take their baby to regular well-baby visits, the Hep B vaccines were mandated for ALL newborns and to be done before the babies were released from the hospital. </p>
<p>This became the new policy before the legislation against “drive through deliveries” passed so we had many newborns, some less than 24 hours old, receiving a vaccine. Seems a bit chancy to me since they would still have their fetal hemoglobin in place. How could they ever study the safety and efficacy of a vaccine for those conditions? This policy went into effect between our 2nd and 3rd child so it really stood out to us. </p>
<p>Not that I’m against vaccines, just the stupid ones. I would consider the chicken pox vaccine to be stupid too. A very low efficacy for that one and a mild disease.</p>
<p>So, my son has Asperger’s before Asperger’s was even added to the DSM IV and I have been fully aware of this issue and all sorts of other mumble, jumble. I have also been fully educated (going to conferences since 1996) to understand what works and what doesn’t do beans, except waste tons and tons of money and then further disappoint hopeful parents. I have done everything, from vision training and auditory sensory integration to special diets and to keeping charts and offering rewards for the littlest signs of normal. I have had my son is a self-contained program, in a special education school, to fully included. He has seen a psychologist since age 4 who did play therapy, and on and on. He’s now 23 yo.</p>
<p>All along, I knew this vaccine topic was a waste of time and money. First of all, so what? How did that change what i was dealing with? Secondly, why waste soooooo much money on this topic, when the real issue was in-your-face? Autism Speaks was so immersed in trying to prove this was real, and why? They polarized the autism community and diverted money to their cause.</p>
<p>The issue is a very real concern. These “kids” are getting older and need employers who can understand their special needs and potential. When my son was born, autism was 1:>1,000 Now, it’s 1:<150. That’s significant. Even if you discount some of those numbers because 1) there’s greater awareness and/or 2) premies and other fragile kids are living past the critical first year, those numbers are huge.</p>
<p>My hope is that the Autism community can focus on helping the kids who need help, not just look to blame.</p>
<p>^^ Let’s hope that scary increase is mainly due to better and more aware diagnosing. Don’t some people think that Einstein had Asperger’s? I know a few highly functional, accomplished adults with Asperger’s too. They are not “balanced” in the usual way, but they have found their way and they are satisfied.</p>
<p>There are a lot of theories about a lot of famous geniuses and celebrities and autism, it is worth looking into-- I don’t buy into posthumous diagnosis but it is entertaining to see what people say just for entertainments sake. I personally have been researching Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and firmly believe that there is a strong chance he could have been an aspie, and-- if you know what to look for-- Sherlock Holmes models many aspie symptoms. There’s all sorts of nifty stuff like that to play with as long as one knows not to take it too seriously, since there’s obviously no way to really know.</p>
<p>I am a student at Umich and there are many spectrumites here. I also know a bunch in the grad school. My own autism went undiagnosed until /I/ noticed it as an adult and took myself to a research center for testing. A lot of people don’t realize that autism doesn’t always look like Rain Man, and it’s not always obviously impairing. I would probably never have been diagnosed had my nephew not been diagnosed first to spur me into studying the symptoms. It’s not always obvious. That isn’t to say it doesn’t impair me, but most people who meet me in person don’t see it. It would have been a real benefit to me to have been diagnosed as a child, if nothing else so my parents could understand what was going on with me and how to deal with it rather than crawling around in the dark the way they did, but when even just when I was a kid not that long ago we were not as good at recognizing it as we are now. There is a “lost generation” of undiagnosed aspies in the autistic community that are 20+ years old who were too young to have been diagnosed in the normal age window because when they were that young asperger’s research was not as developed in the US. I am positive my 55 year old father has it as well but of course when he was in the normal diagnostic window nobody had a clue. Personally, I think more diagnoses is a good thing. Those of us in that “lost generation” really suffered a loss not knowing sooner.</p>
<p>According to the CDC’s clinical trials, the efficacy rate for children dosed with one Varicella (Chickenpox) vaccine is 70-95% and for those who received two doses, it’s 98%. I don’t consider that “low efficacy”. It is true that the efficacy decreases as children get older. Children receive their first Varicella vaccine at 12 months of age and their second at five years of age. It is a requirement in our state for students entering kindergarten to have two doses of Varicella vaccine before entering school. I wish that vaccine had been around when my DD was younger. She had an absolutely horrible case of Chickenpox from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet and everywhere in between. It was so bad, her doctor prescribed Atarax because Benadryl provided no relief for the itching she experienced.</p>
<p>There is a “lost generation” of undiagnosed aspies in the autistic community that are 20+ years old who were too young to have been diagnosed in the normal age window because when they were that young asperger’s research was not as developed in the US. I am positive my 55 year old father has it as well but of course when he was in the normal diagnostic window nobody had a clue.</p>
<p>IDEA wasn’t passed until 1975, after your dad had left high school.
When I was in school ( during that same time), no one was diagnosed with * anything* unless they were so impaired that they could not participate at all in a classroom. In that case, then parents were told to either keep them at home, or there were a small number of institutional facilities.</p>
<p>I always knew I was different, but I had never heard of autism & even when I became an adult & was initially diagnosed with ADD by my general practitioner, the psychiatrist who was supposed to give me a better evaluation, said " you couldn’t have Adult Attention deficit disorder, unless you had been diagnosed as a child".</p>
You are absolutely right Emaheevul07. The added problem is that these kids are just now trying to get a job and it’s miserable, since the recession hit just as aspie kids are graduating.</p>
<p>To all CC readers who interview kids for a job or for college: please give these kids a break.</p>
<p>I’m with you on that. I am graduating this May and am not really sure what I am going to do just yet. I had plans and back up plans and back up back up plans but nothing is panning out yet. I would LOVE to be able to do work developing programs, especially in universities, to help these kids keep moving forward-- I do that for fun at my university now, but I don’t know if jobs like that exist or how to get them. Currently I am developing a simulation to help neurotypicals literally <em>feel</em> what it is like to have autism in a social or social-academic scenario for educational purposes, which I’ll be demonstrating in my residence hall and possibly for a psych class in the Spring, and I am working on a peer mentoring program to help with the development of self-advocacy skills and to build self-esteem. I have some really valuable skills and insights here but there are definitely challenges for me and it’s hard for people to see that. And for me, I get it both ways-- it’s hard for me to get services and accommodations because I don’t LOOK all that impaired as someone with high-functioning autism, but at the same time it’s hard for people to see past the disability. I get slammed either way. There are some unique challenges to being on the “high-functioning” end of the spectrum that “the system” is only just beginning to comprehend.</p>
<p>My father’s older sister was diagnosed with dyslexia and managed to finish high school and graduate college as well, something my father did not accomplish. I can’t imagine how she managed, she’s a real inspiration.</p>
<p>Have any of you read Ballastexistenz (blog)? I have no personal or family experience with autism but apparently she is both severely autistic and highly literate and really describes well the challenges she faces and how her mind works?</p>