5 ms·

Staying away from the global cooling stuff for now, I'll comment on this. McCarthy has a long history of dismissing epidemiology, statistics, and al

Staying away from the global cooling stuff for now, I'll comment on this. McCarthy has a long history of dismissing epidemiology, statistics, and all the other evidence-based tools we use to make public health decisions That's not really true. The problem is that there have been no studies made regarding vaccine and autism. McCarthy believes they are linked and asks to be shown a study proving they are not. (A study that takes populations of vaccinated children and unvaccinated children and compares their autism rates) No studies are available, and years later, that remains true. Given that this is pretty easy to find out, I think this author has their own little axe to grind.

tensor 17y ago
It is indeed easy to find out. If you go to pubmed and search for vaccines and autism, you'll quickly find papers like this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19614825?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=10 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19614825?itool=EntrezSyst... Which show that it has indeed been studied and that there is no known link. Rather, it is our detection capability that is improving. There is plenty of information: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19896907?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=4 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19896907?itool=EntrezSyst... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19522237?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=13 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19522237?itool=EntrezSyst... Jenny McCarthy is a well known anti-vaccine proponent who refuses to accept the huge number of studies in the area.
- djcjr 17y ago
  Who funded the studies? Money skews the findings, I think we can all agree...
  - teej 17y ago
    There are multiple studies, all in prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals, that show that there is no link. In 2010, the peak of advancement in our species, you cannot get closer to fact than that.
carbocation 17y ago
We in the medical community find it unethical to conduct randomized, placebo-controlled trials when a preponderance of evidence already favors treatment (or nontreatment). Vaccines provide a clear benefit to society; the epidemiology does not suggest that vaccines are linked to autism. There is no clinical equipoise here.
- vtnext 17y ago
  This is why the parents of affected kids don't trust the medical community to address their concerns. They see the impact immediately after the kids get vaccines, but your mind is made up unfortunately.
  - carbocation 17y ago
    Someone comes to me without any credible evidence and states "I think statins cause cancer. Let us randomize people with high LDL to statins or placebo." I will reject this study, not because my mind is "made up" and I am stubborn, but because the prior probability is low (due to lack of credible evidence) that statins truly lead to an excess of cancer, whereas the evidence supporting the use of statins to reduce death in those with high LDL is of gargantuan proportions. So while I am sorry that we as a medical community have not succeeded in making it clear why no randomized trial should be conducted for vaccines given the current evidence, I reject the assertion that this is simply because "my mind is made up."
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    There's plenty of parents of kids with autism who accept the science and e.g. get their younger kids vaccinated so it can't be as obvious a link as you'd suggest.
yummyfajitas 17y ago
The problem is that there have been no studies made regarding vaccine and autism...(A study that takes populations of vaccinated children and unvaccinated children and compares their autism rates) No studies are available, and years later, that remains true. Simply false. Here are studies which compare children given MMR to control children given no MMR vaccines. Both find no statistically significant correlation between MMR vaccine and autism: http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/publishahead/Lack_of_Association_Between_Measles_Mumps_Rubella.99421.aspx http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/publishahead/Lack_of_A... http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0003140 http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone... There are also temporal studies comparing autism rates over time after the reduction/removal of thimerosal from vaccines (disproving a narrower hypothesis, that thimerosal causes autism): Hviid A, M Stellfeld, J. Wohlfahrt, and M Melbye (2003). Association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. JAMA 290:1763-1766. Madsen KM, MB Lauritsen, CB Pedersen, P Thorsen, AM Plesner, PH Andersen, PB Mortensen (2003). Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism: Negative Ecological Evidence From Danish Population-Based Data. Pediatrics 112:604-6. Fombonne E, R Zakarian, A Bennett, L Meng, D. McLean-Heywood (2006). Pervasive Developmental Disorders in Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Prevalence and Links With Immunizations. Pediatrics 118:e139-50. Fombonne E (2008). Thimerosal disappears but autism remains. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 65: 15-6.
- robotrout 17y ago
  At the risk of hemoraging more karma, let me make the following observations. 1) The MMR study consists of 288 children, 192 of which were hand-picked to match 96 autistic children. It strikes me that for a condition that is diagnosed in 1 out of 120 children, a population of 300 children is a bit sparse. Is that blasphemy? 2) The MMR study (which the other high karma poster is also quoting, it's the same study) is, after all, an MMR study. That means that of the 30 or so shots http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2010/10_0-6yrs-schedule-pr.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2... that a child is forced to undergo in the US by age 6, the Measles-Mumps-Rubella shot has been shown apparently (with a sample size of 288 kids) not to correlate with autism. I'm not sure why MMR was singled out, but for many of us, it's not any one vaccine that's the issue, nor is it thimerosal (although I'm glad it's out of there), it's the sheer number of them and how fast they are imposed on young bodies. Many more of them, I may add, than when you were a kid. I feel that you are not going to be swayed from your position that all is well in vaccination land. I wonder if you have children. When you have a new son (boys are diagnosed at a rate of 1 in 70) we'll see if you aren't more willing to be critical of one or two studies that are quoted so often it seems like there are 50. My original point still stands. Fund a study of non-vaccinated children. They exist. I have two of them. Compare their autism rate against the general population. Use a sample size that is actually meaningful, and you'll shut up Jenny McCarthy, and you'll let me sleep easier as well.

tensor 17y ago

It is indeed easy to find out. If you go to pubmed and search for vaccines and autism, you'll quickly find papers like this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19614825?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=10 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19614825?itool=EntrezSyst... Which show that it has indeed been studied and that there is no known link. Rather, it is our detection capability that is improving. There is plenty of information: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19896907?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=4 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19896907?itool=EntrezSyst... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19522237?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=13 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19522237?itool=EntrezSyst... Jenny McCarthy is a well known anti-vaccine proponent who refuses to accept the huge number of studies in the area.

djcjr 17y ago
Who funded the studies? Money skews the findings, I think we can all agree...
- teej 17y ago
  There are multiple studies, all in prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals, that show that there is no link. In 2010, the peak of advancement in our species, you cannot get closer to fact than that.

carbocation 17y ago

We in the medical community find it unethical to conduct randomized, placebo-controlled trials when a preponderance of evidence already favors treatment (or nontreatment). Vaccines provide a clear benefit to society; the epidemiology does not suggest that vaccines are linked to autism. There is no clinical equipoise here.

vtnext 17y ago
This is why the parents of affected kids don't trust the medical community to address their concerns. They see the impact immediately after the kids get vaccines, but your mind is made up unfortunately.
- carbocation 17y ago
  Someone comes to me without any credible evidence and states "I think statins cause cancer. Let us randomize people with high LDL to statins or placebo." I will reject this study, not because my mind is "made up" and I am stubborn, but because the prior probability is low (due to lack of credible evidence) that statins truly lead to an excess of cancer, whereas the evidence supporting the use of statins to reduce death in those with high LDL is of gargantuan proportions. So while I am sorry that we as a medical community have not succeeded in making it clear why no randomized trial should be conducted for vaccines given the current evidence, I reject the assertion that this is simply because "my mind is made up."
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  There's plenty of parents of kids with autism who accept the science and e.g. get their younger kids vaccinated so it can't be as obvious a link as you'd suggest.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

The problem is that there have been no studies made regarding vaccine and autism...(A study that takes populations of vaccinated children and unvaccinated children and compares their autism rates) No studies are available, and years later, that remains true. Simply false. Here are studies which compare children given MMR to control children given no MMR vaccines. Both find no statistically significant correlation between MMR vaccine and autism: http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/publishahead/Lack_of_Association_Between_Measles_Mumps_Rubella.99421.aspx http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/publishahead/Lack_of_A... http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0003140 http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone... There are also temporal studies comparing autism rates over time after the reduction/removal of thimerosal from vaccines (disproving a narrower hypothesis, that thimerosal causes autism): Hviid A, M Stellfeld, J. Wohlfahrt, and M Melbye (2003). Association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. JAMA 290:1763-1766. Madsen KM, MB Lauritsen, CB Pedersen, P Thorsen, AM Plesner, PH Andersen, PB Mortensen (2003). Thimerosal and the Occurrence of Autism: Negative Ecological Evidence From Danish Population-Based Data. Pediatrics 112:604-6. Fombonne E, R Zakarian, A Bennett, L Meng, D. McLean-Heywood (2006). Pervasive Developmental Disorders in Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Prevalence and Links With Immunizations. Pediatrics 118:e139-50. Fombonne E (2008). Thimerosal disappears but autism remains. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 65: 15-6.

robotrout 17y ago
At the risk of hemoraging more karma, let me make the following observations. 1) The MMR study consists of 288 children, 192 of which were hand-picked to match 96 autistic children. It strikes me that for a condition that is diagnosed in 1 out of 120 children, a population of 300 children is a bit sparse. Is that blasphemy? 2) The MMR study (which the other high karma poster is also quoting, it's the same study) is, after all, an MMR study. That means that of the 30 or so shots http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2010/10_0-6yrs-schedule-pr.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2... that a child is forced to undergo in the US by age 6, the Measles-Mumps-Rubella shot has been shown apparently (with a sample size of 288 kids) not to correlate with autism. I'm not sure why MMR was singled out, but for many of us, it's not any one vaccine that's the issue, nor is it thimerosal (although I'm glad it's out of there), it's the sheer number of them and how fast they are imposed on young bodies. Many more of them, I may add, than when you were a kid. I feel that you are not going to be swayed from your position that all is well in vaccination land. I wonder if you have children. When you have a new son (boys are diagnosed at a rate of 1 in 70) we'll see if you aren't more willing to be critical of one or two studies that are quoted so often it seems like there are 50. My original point still stands. Fund a study of non-vaccinated children. They exist. I have two of them. Compare their autism rate against the general population. Use a sample size that is actually meaningful, and you'll shut up Jenny McCarthy, and you'll let me sleep easier as well.