Vaccines Cause Autism? And Lemons Limit Highway Fatalities?
Oct 03, 2009 in Public Health
The steady decrease in pirates and the increase in global warming over the last few centuries are strongly correlated (i.e. they appear to change at related rates). However, does this imply that pirates were preventing global warming? What about foreign lemon imports and autism rates? Has the increase in US lemon imports contributed to the increase in autism rates? Undoubtedly, these examples seem silly and unlikely, but knowing why requires an understanding of the difference between correlation and causation. The following video (broken up in to two parts) summarizes these differences quite nicely.
Disclaimer: In no way do I mean to downplay the gravity of autism. With an incidence rate now estimated around 1 in 150, it inflicts a heavy burden on our families, friends, and communities. However, this makes it even more important to maintain a high degree of discretion when it comes to searching for a cause and a cure. Witch-burnings (e.g. the anti-vaccine movement) fueled by emotion and backed by poor evidence will only lead to dead ends and serve to slow down the progress of real scientific discovery.
October 3rd, 2009 on 10:53 am
My daughter started to develop autism one week after her 4 month set of vaccines in 7/96. She stopped babbling, rarely smiled, developed severe constipation, and oral thrush. No one will ever convince me that her vaccinations did NOT contribute to her autism. There is a link between the brain, the gut, immune system, and autism that will be discovered in the near future and it will be made clear that parents are not making this up. Not every child with autism develops it because of vaccinations, but mine did and she will be affected for the rest of her life.
October 3rd, 2009 on 4:36 pm
This blog comment and title are childish and disrespectful of parents concerned about their children. You are mocking families trying to cope with serious challenges facing their children.
Your comments are not even original. This type of nastiness has been spread by so called “skeptics” for several years now.
And like them you offer no actual science to back up your pretentious nastiness.
October 3rd, 2009 on 7:45 pm
Harold, I apologize for sounding pretentious or nasty. I only intended to offer examples of correlative situations in which causation was obviously absent. I understand that parents are concerned about their children, but I am concerned about preventing thousands and thousands of unnecessary deaths that would otherwise be caused by preventable diseases — the undeniable consequence of concerned parents denying vaccinations to their children.
I have no intention of downplaying the painful effects of autism. I am not the parent of an autistic child nor do I work with autistic children, so I do not have the same emotional connection that many individuals have. There is much value in autism research — the incidence rate is unacceptably high — so I strongly believe that the cause of autism must be found.
As a side note, a recent study (covered by TIME) concluded that ASD is just as common in adults as in children. If this is the case, then that would imply that autism rates have not been increasing over the past few decades — the observed increase in childhood autism would be attributable to an increased rate of diagnosis, not increased vaccination rates.
October 4th, 2009 on 3:08 am
Additionally, here is a study from the New England Journal of Medicine in which 440,655 children who received the MMR vaccine between 1991 and 1998 were compared to 96,648 children who did not. They found the same incidence of autism in both groups and that there was no temporal bunching of autism diagnosis (i.e. vaccine timing did not affect the time of onset for autism). In essence, they found that there was no link between vaccination and autism. And this represents only one member of the large majority of studies discrediting the link between MMR vaccine and autism.
Vaccines are a dead end when it comes to autism research. We need to quit spinning our wheels and redirect our focus elsewhere.
October 4th, 2009 on 11:46 am
October 5th, 2009 on 11:45 am
Aaron, thanks from an autism parent for an amusing blog post. You’re quite right to illustrate the silliness of the vaccine rubbish and don’t feel you need to apologise to the likes of anti-vaxxers such as Harold. He spends a life in a state of righteous indignation, panting for something else to be offended at
October 8th, 2009 on 1:31 pm
Also, keep in mind that the cost for receiving vaccination for measles, mumps, and rubella is approximately $20. The average cost for hospitalization to treat these diseases is $21,000. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
October 8th, 2009 on 1:31 pm
The above comment is taken from Morris Weinberger et al, NEJM Vol 334, No. 22 May 30, 1996
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