Anti vexxers got a boost?

[question everything]

An acquaintance with an autistic (mildly, I think) kid, is an anti-vexxer. Giving him some sort of chlorine enema is shuddering enough.

But she posted this link on her facebook

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623535/

J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2011;74(14) 03-16. doi: 10.1080/15287394.2011.573736.
A positive association found between autism prevalence and childhood vaccination uptake across the U.S. population.
Delong G1.
Author information

1Department of Economics and Finance, Baruch College/City University of New York, New York, New York, USA. [e-mail]

Abstract

The reason for the rapid rise of autism in the United States that began in the 1990s is a mystery. Although individuals probably have a genetic predisposition to develop autism, researchers suspect that one or more environmental triggers are also needed. One of those triggers might be the battery of vaccinations that young children receive. Using regression analysis and controlling for family income and ethnicity, the relationship between the proportion of children who received the recommended vaccines by age 2 years and the prevalence of autism (AUT) or speech or language impairment (SLI) in each U.S. state from 2001 and 2007 was determined. A positive and statistically significant relationship was found: The higher the proportion of children receiving recommended vaccinations, the higher was the prevalence of AUT or SLI. A 1% increase in vaccination was associated with an additional 680 children having AUT or SLI. Neither parental behavior nor access to care affected the results, since vaccination proportions were not significantly related (statistically) to any other disability or to the number of pediatricians in a U.S. state. The results suggest that although mercury has been removed from many vaccines, other culprits may link vaccines to autism. Further study into the relationship between vaccines and autism is warranted.

PMID:
21623535
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


Any comments?

My question would be about the increase in detection and definition of autism.

[trotsky]

1. First comment: that's 4 years old.

Second (and many additional) comments: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/06/08/more-bad-science-in-the-service-of-the-discredited-idea/

Like Laura Hewitson, an academic with an autistic child whose belief in biomedical woo led her to destroy her scientific career, DeLong has tarnished her own reputation and publication record by letting her belief in the scientifically discredited idea that vaccines cause autism lead her “down the rabbit hole” of pseudoscience. All she’s managed to do for all her effort is to produce another poor quality paper to which anti-vaccine zealots will point as “evidence” that vaccines cause autism. While she is lauded by pseudoscience supporters, DeLong’s article will, in the scientific community, fade into the oblivion it so richly deserves.

[question everything]

5. Thank you for the link

I love it when someone criticizes the scientific methods used in presenting results.

And he raised the same question that I did in the OP - increase in diagnosis.

[Warpy]

6. Not only that, but further study is NOT warranted

The science is in and has been for some time: there is no link between vaccination and autism. Autism is present at birth and if there is an environmental trigger, it likely happens in utero--or before, since older males are likelier to produce autistic children no matter the age of their partner.

The last thing we need is more money being diverted away from research that could benefit autistic people in order to keep answering Andrew Wakefield and his band of True Believers.

It's been done. It's been said. Now move on.

[sharp_stick]

2. It's been completely debunked

back in 2011.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/06/08/more-bad-science-in-the-service-of-the-discredited-idea/

On Edit: Trotsky beat me to the punch but I'll leave it here in any case.

[doxyluv13]

3. Not really

First, why are you pulling this 5 year old abstract out when there is very important new about MMR and autism today?

But to take this seriously, in case you want a real answer. This study (by an economics professor btw) shows that states with high rates of vaccination have correspondingly hight rates of autism and states with low autism also have correspondingly low vaccination rates. Even if this much it true, they are a million miles from even supporting a "vaccines cause autism" theory until they rule out other factors. Parental age, parental economic status and education are all correlated with autism rates and unless you control for those and other factors, you've proven nothing.

[question everything]

4. Thank you, all good point

Personally, i've never liked conclusions based on association rather than causation. And the note about an economic professor is important.

Still, the author does says that the regression analysis controlled "for family income and ethnicity"

[SheilaT]

7. Vexxer? I'm guessing you mean vaxxer.

Last edited Mon Apr 27, 2015, 11:26 AM - Edit history (1)

In any case, as the mother of son who is mildly autistic (Asperger's) I cannot begin to express how full of crap this is. My son was born in 1982, and he was different from the day he was born. At the time we belonged to a group of brand new first time parents. so I am not operating in a vacuum. Early example: At about three months, visiting another mom in the group, I tossed my car keys on the table near our babies. She was quite upset, because that noise disturbed her baby. My son? Not at all.

Over time there were more incidents. He was a very easy baby (typical of Asperger's) and could amuse himself for hours on end. He barely noticed other children, although he could play with them appropriately. Later on he was adored by adults, because he could talk to them in a somewhat adult way.

My point is that he was NEVER like neurotypical children. He was different from day one. Nothing changed with vaccines.

One reason that we were very slow to diagnose him was that when he was four years old he became completely bald from alopecia areata, an auto-immune disorder that causes hair loss. In somewhat less than six months he went from being a kid with normal hair to one without any hair on his head. Also no eyelashes or eyebrows. So he looked different from other kids.

We were never willing to attribute his social deficits to his hair loss, but the social deficits were real, and therefore took longer to diagnose. He also had what his first grade teacher described as a midline problem. An actions that involved crossing the midline of his body gave him trouble.

He was VERY smart. Still is. He's starting a PhD program in astrophysics in the fall. Really, really smart.

His Asperger's was always there. Even when we didn't know what it was. We didn't figure that out until he was 18 years old and halfway through his senior year of high school. Meanwhile, his teachers at the wonderful small secular independent school he was attending took good care of him, made sure he got his homework in and so forth. Had he attended the local (very good) public school they would not have been able to look after him as well, and he probably would have flunked out.

Let me tell you about his SAT 2 scores. Freshman year in high school he took biology, then took the biology SAT 2. When the scores arrived at home, his was a 770. I told him he needed to call his high school biology teacher and tell her thank you. He had worked hard, but she had also taught him a great deal. Sophomore year he took chemistry, took the chemistry SAT 2, and where the scores came home had a 780. I told him he needed to call his chemistry teacher and tell him thank you. Junior year, physics. SAT 2. Score 800. He said, "Oh. There was one question I wasn't sure of. I guess I got it right."

Perhaps the most important thing was that when I first started sharing with friends the fact that my son is autistic, several said things like, Oh. He's a lot like my Uncle Oswald. The autism spectrum diagnosis is relatively recent. People have been on the spectrum forever.

In a related issue, I'll mention Down Syndrome. I don't know what the exact incidence is, but I learned a while back that children born with it have a very poor sucking reflex, and so back before artificial feeding (with bottles and nipples) was possible, most of them simply didn't survive. And then, for a long time, many of them were sent to some sort of institutions. Now we understand that they can have reasonably normal lives, and many of them do.

[question everything]

8. Thank you for a lengthy and touching and sobering post

Yes, I am sorry about the title. I suppose I combined vaxxer with being vexed..

How lucky you son is to have such a wonderful attending mother. I don't suppose much was known or even discussed about autism or Asperger's in the 80s? I think - perhaps was in the 70s - autism was discussed about children who were completely non communicative.

And, yes, as you stated - we now understand the spectrum that has been with us forever.

This is why it is upsetting for me that the acquaintance, whose son, I think, is mildly autistic - shouts and disruptive - is giving him a bleach enema. He cannot do anything about it now - a little four year old - but I suspect that once an adult, he will hate her forever.

[SheilaT]

9. I'm horrified at what your acquaintance is doing to her son.

Asperger's didn't even show up in the DSM until 1994, I think. Maybe '92. I don't feel like looking it up. I was very fortunate that my son did not have some of the disruptive things that some kids have. I was also fortunate that I got to be a stay at home mom. Not to suggest that the moms who work outside the home are any less caring and concerned, but they are simply away for so much of the day, and their time to do various things is limited.

I enrolled this kid in all sorts of programs, including part-time pre-school fairly early on, and things like swimming, gymnastics, after school stuff and summer stuff. I was grateful we had the financial wherewithal to do so. I honestly think we were fortunate that he wasn't diagnosed early, despite many frustrations that went along with absolutely not understand why he wasn't like other kids. He didn't become his diagnosis.

Anyway, yes, in the '60s, '70s, and '80s almost everything I read about autism was about the kids more severely affected, the ones who couldn't really communicate. I read at least one book by a mother of a severely autistic child who said that even before the kid was born she sensed he was different somehow, and even as an infant was quite like other babies.

Nowadays my son is my go-to guy when I have questions about astronomy, or physics, or math. Actually, come to think of it, I have some questions about exactly when Mars would have had liquid water on the surface and how thick its atmosphere would ever have been, plus some questions about the moon of Jupiter that they think has liquid something --water? ammonia? -- under the surface-wide covering of ice. I write science fiction (only one story ever published and that quite a while ago, so you would never have heard of me) and I often have questions like this for him.

I can only hope your acquaintance comes in contact with real medical information that gets her to understand that what she's doing is at best non-productive, and could be very damaging to her son.