OliveOilMom wrote:
I know that vaccines can cause high fevers in some kids, and that high fevers can cause brain damage at times, so I assume that some people either confuse the brain damage for autism, or the fact that the kid just coincidentally started showing symptoms around the time they were vaccinated is what started that rumor
I agree that both of those points are possible scenarios.
Part of the issue, in general, with brain damage is that brain damage can result in autistic like behavioral impairments. The disorder is usually diagnosed by observing behavioral impairments without any clear indication of exactly what the underlying conditions are that lead to the behavioral impairments defined as an autism spectrum disorder. So it is effectively impossible for a diagnosing professional to determine how much the brain damage, when incurred, underlies the behavioral impairments that result in a diagnosis.
But, effectively for the most part, the diagnosis is the behavioral impairments not the underlying causes that could number in thousands of inter-related factors, including brain damage resulting from fevers that are caused by viral illnesses incurred as a rare side effect from a vaccine.
The link in the comments in the original article that linked a legal settlement for autism incurred from a vaccination in Italy was likely based on this type of correlation, where the brain damage was evident as well as behavioral impairments that resulted after the brain damage, that were observed to meet the diagnostic criteria required for an ASD.
If I remember correctly other court cases were settled with words like autistic like behaviors resulting from brain damage. It appears to be a matter in some cases of illness resulting from the side effects of vaccines, resulting brain damage that can be observed on a brain scan, the semantics of describing behavioral impairments, and professional judgement in the diagnostic procedure observing those behavioral impairments resulting in a diagnostic label. Bottom line though regardless of what the child's difficulties are labeled, the vaccines caused the brain damage, and a settlement was awarded, which unfortunately is part of the cost/benefit of vaccines necessary for herd immunity, where the government sets aside funds to compensate the rare cases of individuals whose children do succumb to serious side effects of vaccines.
The largest correlation per anecdotal reports of childhood illness associated with vaccines was with regressive autism. The most convincing research to date, that provides evidence that a viral illness associated with vaccines is not associated with a significant number of regressive autism cases that are understood to comprise about 30% of ASD's, is the research that showed abnormal brain growth specific to male children with regressive autism, that wasn't seen in other subgroups of autism.
But, that is also more evidence that the potential underlying factors of behavioral impairments observed and defined as autism, are extremely diverse among different subgroups of autism spectrum disorders. Even that evidence doesn't negate the potential that high fevers might contribute to the severity of the behavioral impairments that lead to a diagnosis in rare cases, and I remember reading that in some other older children it has been suggested that high fevers reduce the severity of behavioral impairments, so it is hard to eliminate some factors pro or con, per how they may impact behavioral impairments leading to a diagnosis.
I can understand why the parents whose children were negatively impacted by rare side effects of vaccines are upset, regardless of the impact in how this influenced their children's behavioral impairments, and their personal viewpoints should be respected, but it can be helpful if they are provided information of how diverse the underlying factors of autism may be across the spectrum.
I think one of the most important aspects of research is to provide the general public with information of the potential diversity of underlying factors associated with the development of behavioral impairments defined as ASD's, so they will gain a fuller understanding that avoiding vaccination is not avoiding the potential that a child will develop an autism spectrum disorder. It is in effect avoiding the same potential of rare side effects of vaccines that have always been a risk and are a risk with most medical treatments.
The most dangerous aspect now of avoiding vaccines, is that herd immunity has been lost in other countries, so the danger of contracting dangerous viral illness is at a much higher risk than the last few decades. There is no evidence that the vaccine scare has had any significant impact on herd immunity in the US, per reports from the CDC, as the US still maintain a 95% vaccination rate compared to the low to mid 80 percentile in some European countries, which appears to indicate that the US government does a good job of educating the general population that the benefits of vaccines, overall, greatly outweigh the risks.
Most states provide people the opportunity for people to apply for exemptions to vaccinate their children based on philosophical/religious reasons, but again even the 127% of a few hundred exemptions reported in the topic article, are not seriously impacting herd immunity, and may in part be a result of a tiny minority of people listening to government conspiracy theories purported by talk show hosts like Alex Jones, and his internet sites "Info Wars", and Prison Planet.
The highest reported increases in exemptions for vaccinations are actually in midwest conservative states, where Mr. Jones audience is at the highest concentrated levels, however that is just a correlation, and not direct evidence that he is actually having the impact, although he is the only radio show host that regularly features Andrew Wakefield on his show, in support of his government conspiracy theories associated with vaccines. Mr. Wakefield and his research has had a much bigger impact on vaccination rates in European countries, where that research was based and continues to be a much larger controversy there.
So to sum it up, many of the parents whose children have been directly impacted by illness associated with vaccines have valid personal concerns that I think should be respected, however it appears that the realistic concerns with vaccines for the general population are the same they have been in the past, except the number of vaccines suggested for usage in the general population are increasing, and with that increase comes a slight increase in the risk of side effects, per cumulative risk of exposure to a greater number of vaccines. The government has to address those concerns to appropriately modify procedures when possible to reduce the concerns, as well as more fully educating the public on the potential diversity of underlying factors associated with ASD's, since that appears to be the largest current concern among people of the anti-vaccination ideology.
05 Sep 2012, 11:22 pm
