The flip side to Autism/Vaccine debate

[Ari Kestler]

Thought some of you might be interested in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/he...r=1&ref=health

w/f/s

[Garrett Smith]

It is nice that the author of the new book's conflict of interest (as in he's a vaccine developer who has made millions off his vaccine) is shown.

More interesting stuff from the Vitamin D Council on the potential connection between Vitamin D and autism:

DOES VITAMIN D EXPLAIN THE ROLE OF VACCINES, MERCURY, AND HEAVY METALS?
Vitamin D's role in increasing glutathione levels may explain the link between mercury and other heavy metals, oxidative stress, and autism. For example, activated vitamin D lessens heavy metal induced oxidative injuries in rat brain. The primary route for brain toxicity of most heavy metals is through depletion of glutathione. Besides its function as a master antioxidant, glutathione acts as a chelating (binding) agent to remove heavy metals, like mercury. Autistic individuals have difficulty excreting heavy metals, like mercury. If brain levels of activated vitamin D are too low to employ glutathione properly, and thus unable to remove heavy metals, they may be damaged by heavy metal loads normal children easily excrete. That is, the mercury in Thimerosol vaccines may have injured vitamin D deficient children while normal children would have easily bound the mercury and excreted it. These studies offer further hope that sun-exposure or vitamin D supplements may help autistic children by increasing glutathione and removing heavy metals. Not only do we have more clues that vitamin D is involved in autism, the vitamin D theory just did something else: it explained two other theories of autism, the mercury accumulation theory and the oxidative stress theory. It bears repeating that the amount of activated vitamin D in the brain directly depends on the amount of vitamin D made in the skin or ingested orally.

A whole page of articles on Vitamin D and autism here:
http://vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/

Autistic children also tend to have low cholesterol levels, which may negatively impact their ability to make vitamin D even if they got enough sun.

This vitamin D epidemic is crazy. Get your sun, get your levels tested.

[Derek Maffett]

There are still people who believe fluoride is dangerous

Except, of course, that it is toxic and nearly half of people in the U.S. have some amount of dental fluorosis (as for unsymptomatic or limited symptom skeletal fluorosis, who knows?).

As for the rest of the article, most of what is said there is essentially rhetoric (I say vaccines are safe, so there). I am interested in that Vitamin D angle Garrett mentioned, though.

[Allen Yeh]

I thought the article was interesting, to be perfectly honest I haven't formulated a strong opinion although I do find the stories that came out from the group that Jennifer McArthy represents to be somewhat thought provoking.

Connor got all of his shots as scheduled but if I had another child I might consider alternative options.

[George Mounce]

My son has gotten all his shots to date, but if they want to do more than one at a time, I have them wait at least 2-3 weeks per vaccine. One per visit is our limit.

[Jared Buffie]

Funny story....

In the article, he mentions that lay people at book signings get nasty and that he'd rather talk to a group of nurses. I actually had the pleasure of speaking to a group of infectious disease nurses about why NOT to get vaccinated, and it was one of the nastiest experienses of my life.

Both sides of the debate are emotional, and at times, irrational (I've seen it first hand).

Just to disclose... two completely unvaccinated kids here (5 and 3). Never even been to a pediatritian.

[Mike ODonnell]

Originally Posted by Jared Buffie

Both sides of the debate are emotional, and at times, irrational (I've seen it first hand).

Most debates are....as no one likes being wrong (or learning what they think they know as right through "higher" education is false).

[Stephen Brown]

Epidemiology is not emotional. Vaccinations have made this nation healthier. The numbers are clear and consistent. The controversy is stirred by the desperate.

[Allen Yeh]

Originally Posted by Stephen Brown

Epidemiology is not emotional. Vaccinations have made this nation healthier. The numbers are clear and consistent. The controversy is stirred by the desperate.

I don't agree with that assessment either, I have talked to people with autistic children that seem to be in 3 camps, anti-vaccinations, on the fence, or unaware.

From the few things I've seen/read in the anti-vaccinations route, it's hard to argue with results IMO when they have a child that was determined by the state to be autistic but after the detoxing and dietary changes, a year later in a state evaluation the child appears to be have resumed normalcy? So was the child not autistic before? Or what?

I'd like to state again that I'm not really sold one way or another but it's things like the above that give me pause.

[George Mounce]

I would suggest for further study, you look at the rise in autism versus vaccination timelines. I just want to say, my kid will get his vaccines. I've seen what preventable disease does to small ones in many other poorer countries and I'm not letting it happen in one of the most advanced societies we have.

Here is some further reading stating that vaccines don't cause autism:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/he...ml?_r=1&ref=us
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/09/03...ism/index.html
http://www.parents.com/baby/health/a...autism/?page=1
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...003673,00.html

More reading on the side that they don't know if they do or not, or they say they do:

http://autism.about.com/od/causesofa...dovaccines.htm
http://www.autismwebsite.com/ARI/vac...references.htm
http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/thimerosal.php

What confuses me over the debate is the autism causing agent (thimersol) hasn't been in vaccines in years, yet the autism rate continues. Many of the articles/studies are unclear on whether reporting and classifying of autism has changed the rates. Many of the studies find no link at all.

I do agree with Stephen. It takes only a trip to a country where there are no vaccines to see the effect of ravaging diseases.

Here is the list of reported polio cases in 2008: http://www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp. We don't even think about polio in the U.S.

Autism has a few different types. What causes it? Anyone's guess. Me personally I don't go around worrying about things for my child. Life works itself out. I have a few friends with autistic kids and they are just as loving and warm as a child without autism. They just go through life in a different way, and need love and respect like anyone else. Would I like to see a way to stop it? Sure. But I've found the accepting parents live much happier lives than those who go around blaming everyone and everything for their child's life.