autism

This is the best article I've read on the Vaccine/Autism controversy. Some interesting points:

Research has soundly disproved the alleged connection, yet fears about vaccines continue to be a major risk to public health.

and

The CDC estimates that thanks to vaccines, we have reduced morbidity by 99 percent or more for smallpox, diphtheria, measles, polio, and rubella. Averaged over the course of the 20th century, these five diseases killed nearly 650,000 people annually. They now kill fewer than 100. That is not to say vaccines are perfectly safe; in rare cases they can cause serious, well-known adverse side effects. But what researchers consider unequivocally unsafe is to avoid them. As scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently found while investigating whooping cough outbreaks in and around Michigan, “geographic pockets of vaccine exemptors pose a risk to the whole community.”

* I say debate with a grain of salt because there is no scientific basis for a debate

Now this would be amazing:

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have proposed a sweeping new theory of autism that suggests that the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible

While I agree that her rhetoric on vaccines is probably harmful, I do not think that the Jenny McCarthy Body Count is very helpful.

(via)

Not that this will convince anyone after 10 years of scare tactics but

doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism

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One scary statistic:

Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper’s impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92% to below 80%. Populations acquire “herd immunity” from measles when more than 95% of people have been vacinated.

I want to know where the peer review was for the Lancet and also what is this doctor's culpability in increasing the amount of measles outbreaks throughout the world.

Many folks probably disagree with me on the lack of evidence of a link between vaccines and autism. However, here is a story on actual scientific studies linking autism to fetal and infant exposure to pesticides, viruses and household chemicals.

Mothers of autistic children were twice as likely to use pet flea shampoos, which contain organophosphates or pyrethroids, according to one study that has not yet been published. Another new study has found a link between autism and phthalates, which are compounds used in vinyl and cosmetics. Other household products such as antibacterial soaps also could have ingredients that harm the brain by changing immune systems, Hertz-Picciotto said.

In addition, fetuses and infants might be exposed to a fairly new infectious microbe, such as a virus or bacterium, that could be altering the immune system or brain structure. In the 1970s, autism rates increased due to the rubella virus.