The vaccines-autism debate: on 'Dateline' this Sunday

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Booster Shots

Why is Dateline discussing a matter that has been settled scientifically? Perhaps for ratings? The controversy here is similar to the so-called controversy about UFOs, Bible-literalism versus evolution, or ESP. People can believe stuff if they want to, of course, but that doesn't make it scientifically correct.

It may be well known here that the Wakefield Study is bogus. But i would argue to say that it isn't necessarily common knowledge for those outside our little sphere. I was just talking to my mom and told her about it and she said " hes the one with the bogus study right? think they will talk about it?" So while yes it is common knowledge here, the target audience ( the population at large) does not necessarily know it.

Imagine it this way. There's a Group of people playing a game. Now the makers of this game are changing something and tell the players. Now the change is common knowledge to those who make an effort to know, but to everyone else on the planet it is not known. Now if someone does a discussion about the change on TV, a lot more people then the original group are going to know about it.

They're still going on about it? It's already been proven by scientists as crap, that Jenny Mcarthy isn't even a scientist and only used anectotal evidence which isn't actually real evidence at all.

Well the show did let each side present its view. It also showed the arguments against those views ( IE Wakefield is bias, Offit is bias). Both had obvious conflicts of interest. Both probably have monetary interests in the debate. They did mention the volume of information against Wakefield. My mother watched with me and said the real deciding factor for her was when they brought up the Dept of Pediatrics's view.

An interesting thing i took from it is the question of how much discomfort in autistic children exacerbates autistic symptoms.

In encouraging news, Jenny McCarthy was only mentioned in passing.

I saw part of it, it frustrated me because so many people still believe Wakefield when he's so full of it.

Folks on another forum believe him.
I think it's got to be the British accent.
Guys with the right British accent can claim the sky is made of construction paper and people will believe it.

I've been doing google monkey research on this today, and it does seem vaccines are getting an unfair rap, but only in the sense that other sources of mercury are being ignored. It's time to start broadening the search horizons.

Here is what I have just from today. I've done my best to cherry pick the most scientific studies from the most scientific sources. No UFOlogists or alternative medicine sites need apply:

A study by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio reveals a multiple-digits increase in the rate of autism for every 1,000 pounds of mercury released environmentally in Texas counties.

http://www.uthscsa.edu/hscnews/singlefo ... newID=1412




Autism is a syndrome characterized by impairments in social relatedness and communication, repetitive behaviors, abnormal movements, and sensory dysfunction. Recent epidemiological studies suggest that autism may affect 1 in 150 US children. Exposure to mercury can cause immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions similar to traits defining or associated with autism, and the similarities extend to neuroanatomy, neurotransmitters, and biochemistry. Thimerosal, a preservative added to many vaccines, has become a major source of mercury in children who, within their first two years, may have received a quantity of mercury that exceeds safety guidelines. A review of medical literature and US government data suggests that: (i) many cases of idiopathic autism are induced by early mercury exposure from thimerosal; (ii) this type of autism represents an unrecognized mercurial syndrome; and (iii) genetic and non-genetic factors establish a predisposition whereby thimerosal’s adverse effects occur only in some children.

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve ... 7700912817

Conclusions: Our results suggest a potential association between autism and estimated metal concentrations, and possibly solvents, in ambient air around the birth residence, requiring confirmation and more refined exposure assessment in future studies.


http://www.jstor.org/pss/3700406




This study determined the level of mercury, lead, and zinc in baby teeth of children with autism spectrum disorder (n = 15, age 6.1 +/- 2.2 yr) and typically developing children (n = 11, age = 7 +/- 1.7 yr). Children with autism had significantly (2.1-fold) higher levels of mercury but similar levels of lead and similar levels of zinc. Children with autism also had significantly higher usage of oral antibiotics during their first 12 mo of life, and possibly higher usage of oral antibiotics during their first 36 mo of life. Baby teeth are a good measure of cumulative exposure to toxic metals during fetal development and early infancy, so this study suggests that children with autism had a higher body burden of mercury during fetal/infant development. Antibiotic use is known to almost completely inhibit excretion of mercury in rats due to alteration of gut flora. Thus, higher use of oral antibiotics in the children with autism may have reduced their ability to excrete mercury, and hence may partially explain the higher level in baby teeth. Higher usage of oral antibiotics in infancy may also partially explain the high incidence of chronic gastrointestinal problems in individuals with autism.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17497416


Holmes et al. [17] and Hu et al. [26] found that mercury
levels in the first babies’ haircut of 94 autistic children
were significantly lower (about 8-fold less) than
in 49 normal controls. This was unexpected because
the autistic children had been exposed to significantly
higher mercury levels through maternal dental amalgam
and thimerosal containing immunoglobulins during
pregnancy [17]. Considering the mothers with 8 to
15 amalgams, the birth hair ratio was 12 times higher in
the normal versus autistic children. In contrast to iatrogenic
mercury exposure during pregnancy, no correlation
between maternal fish consumption and the risk
of autism for their children was reported [17]. It was
assumed that autistic children do not effectively excrete
mercury from intracellular locations into blood during
pregnancy and shortly after birth, thus showing less
mercury in first haircut [17]. Further interpretations of
the results of Holmes et al. [17] were discussed recently
[18,27,28]. In haircuts from 40 older children with
autism, other authors found elevated levels of mercury,
lead and uranium compared to 40 normal controls [29].
Other toxic metals like aluminium, arsenic, cadmium
or beryllium showed no difference [29].

http://www.uniklinik-freiburg.de/iuk/li ... sm_NEL.pdf

Personally, I could care less what "proof" anyone shows me nowadays. There is a lot of crap being flung around.

What I do know as a fact is that they load vaccines up with garbage. When garbage goes in, garbage comes out. They aren't good for you, they aren't safe, and they are most certainly not needed. Go do some damned research before you think you need vaccines to live in this world.