Autism and Vaccinations

[kippurbird]

Today feels like a rant day.

There be much talk about how vaccinations cause autism. To which I say Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Shall I say it again? Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Now, why do I say that it is complete and utter bullshit? Because it was around before it got diagnosed.

Let me explain- (and not summarize) In the non-autistic world there are disabilities like Epilepsy, Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar disorder etc, etc, etc that existed long before people had a name for it. Diagnosing things is a relatively new idea. I mean the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) is only on edition number four. It was only around Freud's time (I think) that the idea of mental disorders were created and around then then. As well as the fact that there might be something "medically" wrong with someone as opposed to being possessed by evil spirits or demons etc. According to Wikipedia, "The word "autism" was first used in the English language by Swiss psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler in a 1911 issue of the American Journal of Insanity."^[1] Mandatory vaccinations didn't really start around the same time.

Parents in this one case say that thimerosal caused their daughter to become autistic.^[2]. However, thimersoal wasn't created until 1929.^[3] This then begs the question, if autism was first "diagnosed" in 1911, how did they become autistic by a chemical in a vaccination that hadn't been discovered yet? Especially if the children were diagnosed with autism were probably not vaccinated at all.

The answer to this is very simple: Vaccinations do not cause autism.

It took me fifteen minutes to do this research on the internet.







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^[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism

^[2]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_on_he_me/autism_vaccines
^[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimerosal

Comments

[karaotter.livejournal.com]

I heard about the vaccination thing this morning and I totally agree with you. The whole thing made absolutely no sense and I think blaming the vaccines for this is just stupid.

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

I think the argument is more that vaccinations are one cause of autism. I've heard the same thing about certain heavy metals (which may be present in vaccines?). It's not, this is the cause of autism. It's, this thing is one way of triggering the [whatever -- I /haven't/ done my research] that causes autism. It's like... um... oh, you can use HTML to make tables, but you can also make tables in /other/ ways -- like pen and paper. Doesn't mean HTML can't cause tables too, though.

I realise my analogy is awful. I also realise that they're still wrong, just wrong for slightly different reasons.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It is. It's just a scapegoat for poor parents looking for an excuse.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Hell, even if it WERE true, I'd rather have an autistic child than a dead child from smallpox or whatever.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

It's primarily genetic. There may, possibly, be environmental causes that can affect the realization, although I seriously doubt it has to do with heavy metals like mercury. It probably has more to do with things like sensory issues

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

I guess the reasoning would be that the heavy metals are a potential cause of whatever genetic difference is the, uh, cause. Which means, among other things, that it'd be impossible to give /yourself/ autism through whatever. Descendents, possibly, /if/ such a hypothesis were to be correct.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

I think it's just denial that there's any genetic basis. :-)

At any rate, genes can interact with environemental factors. A person whose genes are predisposed to lung cancer, for example, there's a chance that they'll get lung cancer even if they don't smoke, but if they do, then the chances jump much higher. Meanwhile, a person without said genes would have a good chance of avoiding lung cancer even when smoking.

However, last I heard, there was no evidence that mercury had *any* influence on autistic incidence.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Besides which, the idea of a "vaccine connection" is based on the ridiculous idea that autism = mercury poisoning. Ignoring, of course, the fact that the two have very different symptoms.

[ghostgecko.livejournal.com]

The parents are just grasping at straws, I reckon. They're so desperate to lay blame and have a "reason" they can point to and demonize and mobilize against, they've latched onto vaccines despite all evidence to the contrary. It's almost become like a religion, and oppostion makes them MORE sure that they're Crusaders for Justice and the Evil Medical Establishment is hiding something. It's the same way everyone latched onto facilitated communication as a way to "unlock" the "real" child supposedly hidden behind all the autsim. FC turned out to be bullshit and wishful thinking, just like this.

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

I heard that people were concerned because of a steady increase in the number of people with varying levels of autism. I don't really know much about it at all, but shouldn't that be expected if it's genetic? I mean, it's not like autism comes with sterility. Unless there's some super secret cover-up like with earthquake generators, super soldiers, and flu shots causing shopping frenzies...

I don't quite understand what's going on with this. @_@

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Okay. Here's the explanation:

Remember the invention of the microscope, how all of a sudden people knew about microscopic animals? Microscopic animals didn't suddenly come into existence once they had the microscope, it just suddenly became available to see. It's like that with autism. People now have the tools available to pick out who is and who isn't autistic. The finer the net they created -the better the microscope - the more you can catch.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It's the same way everyone latched onto facilitated communication as a way to "unlock" the "real" child supposedly hidden behind all the autism.

Bah on the idea of unlocking the real child trapped in the autism shell. Bah I say. There's no one locked inside of me. (Except the voices in my head, but that's another story all together.)

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but I feel I should point out that your logic is flawed. You haven't actually demonstrated that vaccines specifically do not cause autism, only that there is non-vaccine-related autism present in the human population.