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Recommended: autism and vaccines
The MMR vaccine is administered between the ages of 12-15 months. When a child develops autism, their parents describe the disease as the child growing normally until they reach an age where a degenerative process starts. This problem usually happens around the age of 2 years. Although parents do say the child was growing normally, many researchers do not believe that the child was actually growing normally until the age of 1-2 years but some children do go through a degenerative process and this usually happens after the administration of MMR vaccine. The question is does MMR have a true relation with the development of autism or is it just a coincidence?
Doctor Andrew Wakefield had written a paper in Lancet journal in 1998 which suggested that MMR vaccine causes autism. In his research, he found out that MMR vaccine was responsible for bowel inflammation that leads to the translocation of non-permeable peptides into the bloodstream. (American Academy of Pediatrics) This in turn carries them to the brain causing the root of autism spectrum disorder to form. His research was called weak by drug corporations, governments and media companies and was then discredited earning him a fraud reputation. His paper has since raised a decade long argument on MMR vaccine originating autism spectrum disorder. This has caused a lot of parents to withdraw their children from being vaccinated, which increased measles infections.
Many studies and research projects have been carried out to find relevance between MMR and Autism. Patients with autism were found to have been harboring an increased number of antibodies to measles when a study was conducted on several patients of Autism. This study was published in medical journal researchers and it was...
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...also be mentioned that many studies worldwide have also concluded that MMR vaccine is not a definite cause of ASD. Did Dr. Wakefield’s research uncover something that could damage the medical industry? It is known that medicine manufacturers conceal harmful evidence from public eye to protect their business. Apart from the decade long debate on MMR being linked to ASD, there are still numerous studies and experiments carried out, that suggests MMR vaccines are a potential cause of Autism.
Works Cited
Text of May 5th 2008 email from US HRSA to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News
Director National Immunization Program in a letter to the UK’s Chief Medical Officer 15 February 2002.
American Academy of Pediatrics, . N.p.. Web. 7 Mar 2014.
There was no basis for the study, the sample size of participants was too small to generate a true conclusion. 10 out of the 12 co-authors of the study retracted their findings the next day (Rao and Andrade, 2011). The main author, Andrew Wakefield had received payments from families engaged in a lawsuit against companies that produce vaccines, follow-up studies, proved there was no link between MMR vaccination and autism. Within two years, there was a complete retraction of the Wakefield paper, disclosure of errors and contrary findings had proven the study to be unethical and tainted to deliver results that were
Studies over the years along with the special vaccine injury tribunal have all agreed that there is no evidence that links autism and the MMR vaccination. Studies also prove that 95% of children who receive their first does of the MMR vaccine between ages 12 months and 15 months develop immunity to all three of the viruses. A second dose is given between four years old and six years old; this second dose gives immunity to almost all who did not respond to the first dose.
Despite all the testing and approval process of vaccines, many people still mistakenly believe that vaccines cause autism, even in light of research that has disproven the notion. This evidences the difficulty of dispelling false statements once someone has accepted a falsehood, especially if it has scientific research backing the results. It also highlights the gullibility of the public at large to believe anything that medical research reports without questioning the findings. Unfortunately, the media attention such examples of junk science receive aids in convincing many of its truthfulness. The hype surrounding the belief that vaccines cause autism began in 1998 when Andrew Wakefield in the UK published an article in the Lancet linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR...
All the children had intestinal abnormalities. Before receiving the MMR vaccine, all the children had showed satisfactory achievement of their early milestones. Soon after receiving the vaccine, regression occurred in seven of the children. Wakefield’s results suggested that the direct cause of the children’s illnesses were the MMR vaccine. Based on the knowledge that I know now; Wakefield article is not accurate. There were many signs that pointed to this research being wrong. Some things discussed in “Vaccine War” were that all of the children studies in his research were referred to him by an attorney that was working on a case against the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine. Another major issue with Wakefield’s findings is that they are not able to be reproduced. A large part of research being credible is its ability to be reproduced in another study, and without that, the finding that he found are not sound. Because of the evidence the research may not have been correct, there was an editorial written stating that Wakefield’s findings that the MMR vaccine and autism were connected were fraudulent. This editorial also brings to light the fact that Wakefield relied heavily on the recall and beliefs of the parents and altered many of the facts about the patient’s medical histories in order to support his
"My child fell into autism directly after his 12 month MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine" (Stark). Her son Kieran was developing and acting like a normal child until his MMR vaccines (Stark). After the vaccines, Kieran developed a high fever, lethargic, and extreme diarrhea which eventually led him to be unresponsive, refuse to eat, and became mute (Stark). After 20 months of these symptoms, Kieran was diagnosed with autism (Stark). This parent is just one of millions that experience the same side effects of
Over the last twenty years there has been a very large increase in the number of mandatory vaccinations, which leads many people to believe that the increase in the number of vaccinations has a direct correlation with the increase of childhood Autism. “Today, 40 percent of American parents have chosen to delay or refuse a recommended or mandated vaccine for their children (Largent, 18)”. Many parents are too young to remember when communicable diseases could ravage a classroom or school. Polio could paralyze ten thousand children in a year. Rubella coul...
The main question is to why is there such an uneasiness around vaccinations? The answer is former Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Mr. Wakefield s a British former surgeon, known for his fraudulent 1998 research paper in support of the now-discredited claim that there is a link between the administration of the MMR vaccine and autism. He wrote two papers, both of which have been debunked. “Wakefield's hypothesis was that the MMR vaccine causes a series of events that include intestinal inflammation, loss of intestinal barrier function, entrance into the bloodstream of encephalopathic proteins, and consequent development of autism. In support of his hypothesis Dr. Wakefield described 12 children with neurodevelopmental delay (8 with autism). All of these children had gastrointestinal complaints and developed autism within 1 month of receiving MMR” (Immunization). After this first paper there was no real investigation into his findings until 2003, which gave ample time for panic to spread.
Since then many case-control studies have been done to investigate the relationship between vaccines and autism. This means, they compared a group which was vaccinated with a group that was not vaccinated but apart from that identical. They did not find MMR vaccines to be the cause of autism. Neither did they find an increased risk for autism by the vaccination.
Vaccines have been around for hundreds of years now, allowing humans to increase life expectancy tremendously. Vaccines have been a great contribution to today’s science and human health, but vaccines have also brought fourth numerous concerns for many parents. One of the most controversial debates that society is currently facing is whether there is link between vaccines and autism. To distinguish if there is a link between vaccines and autism a closer look must be taken within the research of both. A vaccine is an injected or orally administered substance that contains live(attenuated) or killed pathogens to activate the production of antibodies in the body to produce immunity against a disease or different types of diseases. (Red) Vaccines are composed of different molecules and ingredients, one of them being Thimerosal, an organic mercury compound. (blue) The use of Thimerosal in vaccines have associated the link between vaccines and autism. Autism or Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological development disorder that can affect an individual’s behavior, communications and social skills. (green)
As sickness struck person to person, rendering them helpless, it left sadness and tragedy across the world. As a result, vaccinations were created to prevent and put an end to diseases and the sorrow. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations (MMR), that are supposed to help are being questioned by people believing they are linked to Autism. Numerous studies have shown that there is no connection between the two. The holes and lies in this theory are prevalent when looking in depth at how this theory was established, whom it benefits if it's true, and the facts that disprove it.
But time and time again ¨The data provides evidence that no correlation exists between the prevalence of MMR vaccination and the rapid increase in the risk of autism over time¨ (healthychildren.org n.pag). Autism seems like a subthought when there is still Thimerosal, which is a mercury based substance being injected into your blood flow... except that the CDC has officially stated that ¨There is no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.¨ (CDC n.pag). Vaccines are increasingly becoming safer and studies have been coming out disproving links to harmful diseases like a study on 535,000 Finnish children and there were only ¨9 children with encephalitis and 10 with meningitis, [where] the disease developed within 3 months of vaccination,¨ (Makela n.pag). These large scale studies are gaining prevalence over the past two decades and reputable sources are continuing to say the same things. Kids need to be vaccinated to halt the spread of preventable
In recent years, the correlation between vaccines and autism has become the subject of much debate. On one side, there are the anti-vaccinators, or anti-vaccers. On the other, there’s pretty much everyone else. Despite the fact that the anti-vaccination movement has little base in scientific fact, their campaign to end early infanthood vaccinations rages on. While doctors and scientists try desperately to make parents look at the research studies, vaccination rates continue to fall. But, even in these dark times, there is still hope that scientific fact will prevail and defeat the anti-vaccination fear mongers who have caused many children to fall ill and even die because their parents did not properly vaccinate them. This is one of the most saddening scientific failures of the twenty-first century. A failure to educate the public properly has resulted in child, even infant, fatalities. The anti-vaccination movement was started based on falsified data and continues only because of a lack of knowledge and proper education of the general public.
In its eighth and final report, the panel unanimously determined that there was no evidence of a causal relationship between either MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) or thimerosal and autism, no evidence of vaccine-induced autism in “some small subset” of children, and no demonstration of potential biological mechanisms. Considering the matter resolved. (Kaufman).
In 1999 a study was done in the United Kingdom to see if there was a link between the two. In this study, researchers compared children had had and had not gotten the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination. The study identified four hundred and ninety-eight cases of autism including core autism, atypical autism and Asperger syndrome in children born in the United Kingdom since 1979. There was an increase in cases by year of birth with no change after the introduction of the vaccination. There was also no age difference at diagnosis between the cases vaccinated before or after eighteen months of age and children that were never vaccinated. These results showed no temporal association between the onset of autism within one or two years after being vaccinated with MMR and developmental regression was not clustered in the months after vaccination. The data from these results does not support the connection between MMR and autism and if an association was to occur it was so rare it could not be identified. Many studies have been done over this topic but the results prove that it in fact does not cause autism. It is likely that this myth is strongly accepted because the symptoms of autism begin to occur around the same time as the child is to be vaccinated with the MMR
Another study shows the number of antigens from vaccines in the first to second years of life when MMR Vaccine is given, and it showed the same amount in ASD kids, and non-ASD kids. Some of the babies in the study showed signs of autism, but it wasn't from the vaccines, symptoms were already apparent. A study, done in Denmark, called Retrospective Cohort Study, that studied children born from January 1991 to December 1998, that got the MMR vaccine, or not and if it was related to autism. The study showed 537,303 children in all and 440,655 got the MMR Vaccine and 96,648, didn't get the MMR Vaccine. Out of the total of kids 738 kids were diagnosed with ASD or with a different type of ASD (“ A Population”). Another study shows that thimerosal and mercury based vaccines can not cause autism, those vaccines and products were removed, but the autism epidemic did not