Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis

[hoonosewot88]

Actually, the data already exists, and was not accumulated unethically, based on parental choice not to vaccinate.

Any child that is currently being treated for autism spectrum disorders has the information in their medical records concerning their vaccination schedule. What percentage of children diagnosed as autistic received none of their recommended childhood vaccinations? It's a simple question.



I'm not living in any such ignorance. But it seems to me that if the continued refusal by growing numbers of parents to vaccinate their offspring (based on a perceived link between vaccines and autism) is as significant a human health concern as some would claim, there is a very clear cut, inexpensive and simple way to allay all fears. I find the fact that it wasn't already done 10 years ago mind-boggling.

My mind is boggled that you haven't seen my link above with exactly the study you're describing. It's been done, and it's not the only study of its type.

A quick google of "retrospective study of vaccination and autism" would find you other examples as well.

 

[def1]

Actually, the data already exists, and was not accumulated unethically, based on parental choice not to vaccinate.

Any child that is currently being treated for autism spectrum disorders has the information in their medical records concerning their vaccination schedule. What percentage of children diagnosed as autistic received none of their recommended childhood vaccinations? It's a simple question.

They have done studies on this. Hoonosewot posted links to these studies and they are also included in the meta-analysis that this thread revolves around. Maybe you should spend time actually reading the studies instead of your antivax news websites.

I'm not living in any such ignorance. But it seems to me that if the continued refusal by growing numbers of parents to vaccinate their offspring (based on a perceived link between vaccines and autism) is as significant a human health concern as some would claim, there is a very clear cut, inexpensive and simple way to allay all fears. I find the fact that it wasn't already done 10 years ago mind-boggling.

Scientific studies debunking these claims and the fact that the original scientific study that showed a link between the two was proved to be falsified is not enough, then what is?

 

[ultramanhyata]

Such a study would be highly unethical.

As stated, the data already exists. And if we wanted to do a study from "scratch" there are literally thousands of non-vaccinating families ready, willing and able to have their children included as members of the control group.

Again, this would be the gold standard, silver bullet study to end all future debate. Why has it not been done in the interests of national health? If it's essential to get the "dummies" on board with vaccinations, for the sake of the health of intelligent, evolved parents and their children, isn't this a small price to pay to get those "dummies" on board?

 

[TheBox]

So, it is your belief that the confounds inherent in this type of study are too strong to overcome?

Potentially, yes. It would be especially difficult if the study relied on any kind of self-reporting.

Yet we know that this analysis has not been done? Seems circular to me, what am I missing?

We know there are strong positives for vaccination. The risks are either minor or exceedingly rare.

The odds of catching a vaccine preventable disease in most cases was around 2-3% max during peak years, and the odds of severe reaction was much less. More than 95% of individuals who contracted such a disease recovered completely.

2-3% per peak year? That's pretty rough. Start adding up years cumulatively and that's a significant portion of the population getting sick with those diseases at some point in their lives.

Unfortunately, our current systems of monitoring adverse reactions has not provided accurate rates of adverse reactions, so making useful cost/benefit analyses is impossible.

In what ways do you find the current methodology lacking? There is monitoring of adverse reactions in all phases of testing plus post-release.

 

[hoonosewot88]

I am assuming you have a background in such research? I'm genuinely curious, what do feel are the weaknesses of a retrospective study when looking at the relationship between vaccination and adverse reactions?

I've been involved in some medical research but nothing like that. It doesn't take a genius to know that a retrospective study is far more ethical than a prospective study in this case though.

Whilst a prospective double blinded study would be the gold-standard, you simply cannot leave a large number of children unvaccinated for the sake of research, it's dangerous to them and the rest of the population. Plus this topic doesn't merit it anyway, as vaccination-autism research has been done to death and it has already proven beyond doubt that there is no link.

 

[Lead]

I think part of the reason for autism is over-diagnosis. A lot of the kids being diagnosed as autistic right now aren't what you would think is autism.

 

[TheBox]

As stated, the data already exists.

The available data points to the autism-vaccine link being non-existant. I was referring to a new prospective study.

Again, this would be the gold standard, silver bullet study to end all future debate. Why has it not been done in the interests of national health? If it's essential to get the "dummies" on board with vaccinations, for the sake of the health of intelligent, evolved parents and their children, isn't this a small price to pay to get those "dummies" on board?

There is no possible evidence that could convince such people that their position is wrong.

 

[hoonosewot88]

Again, this would be the gold standard, silver bullet study to end all future debate. Why has it not been done in the interests of national health? If it's essential to get the "dummies" on board with vaccinations, for the sake of the health of intelligent, evolved parents and their children, isn't this a small price to pay to get those "dummies" on board?

IT'S BEEN DONE AND IS LINKED IN THIS THREAD! How many times are you going to ask for this study before you notice it's already been done?! Are you special or something?

 

[PhitePhan]

The last paragraph is untrue. There is an entire program dedicated to adverse effects of vaccines by the CDC.

Are you referring to VAERS?

They have all the stats on adverse effects here, http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm. And any time you get a vaccine you will be handed a sheet of paper informing you of the benefit vs risks just like any other health procedure.

So you are saying that doctors review the very low incidence rate of these diseases and the even lower rate of severe reaction to said disease?

Also, the CDC site you linked does not indicate how the data on adverse events of each vaccine was collected, other than to refer to the VIS which in turn links to VAERS. Can you tell me, is this safety data based on VAERS data?

 

[def1]

As stated, the data already exists. And if we wanted to do a study from "scratch" there are literally thousands of non-vaccinating families ready, willing and able to have their children included as members of the control group.

Again, this would be the gold standard, silver bullet study to end all future debate. Why has it not been done in the interests of national health? If it's essential to get the "dummies" on board with vaccinations, for the sake of the health of intelligent, evolved parents and their children, isn't this a small price to pay to get those "dummies" on board?

Its still unethical and I don't see it passing an ethics review board, so that means no IRB approval for the study. The reason its unethical even though there are non-vaccinating families available is because a health professionals focus should always be in the best interest of the patient. To allow non-vaccinated families to participate in this study means that instead of advocating for the health of the patient by offering vaccines, you are instead enabling the horrendous logic of the patient and putting the child at unnecessary risk.

As mentioned there are plenty of retrospective studies showing no link between vaccines and autism.

Since there has never even been 1 study showing a link (that wasn't later proved falsified), why do you feel it is not enough to have an entire meta-analysis of studies disproving a correlation between the two?

 

[def1]

Are you referring to VAERS?

Yes

So you are saying that doctors review the very low incidence rate of these diseases and the even lower rate of severe reaction to said disease?

Also, the CDC site you linked does not indicate how the data on adverse events of each vaccine was collected, other than to refer to the VIS which in turn links to VAERS. Can you tell me, is this safety data based on VAERS data?

The data is collected through self-reporting and health-care providers.

Its not hard to link most side effects to vaccines. Most side effects occur within the first 15 minutes and are easily identifiable. Later side effects can be harder to prove association but most of the time are considered associated if they occur within a month of the vaccination and occur in multiple people receiving the vaccinations.

One example of this is guillaine-barre syndrome. This a serious side effect that is extremely rare but has evidence proving there is an association between certain vaccines and this syndrome.

Its not a perfect system but its a pretty good indication of what the side effects are.

 

[PhitePhan]

I've been involved in some medical research but nothing like that. It doesn't take a genius to know that a retrospective study is far more ethical than a prospective study in this case though.

Whilst a prospective double blinded study would be the gold-standard, you simply cannot leave a large number of children unvaccinated for the sake of research, it's dangerous to them and the rest of the population. Plus this topic doesn't merit it anyway, as vaccination-autism research has been done to death and it has already proven beyond doubt that there is no link.

I am not really a proponent of the vaccine-autism link, but more so concerned about other potential adverse reactions (short and long term). One question though, have any of these studies been replicated? I am aware that there are several different studies that suggest no link, however, each have obvious flaws.

As far as the ethics go, I will pose the same question I did earlier. Do you find it all unethical to "treat" a healthy children who in the vast majority of cases will not contract a disease (and if they do, will recover completely in the great majority of cases) with a protocol known to carry risk of severe adverse reaction?

 

[PhitePhan]

Yes




The data is collected through self-reporting and health-care providers.

Its not hard to link most side effects to vaccines. Most side effects occur within the first 15 minutes and are easily identifiable. Later side effects can be harder to prove association but most of the time are considered associated if they occur within a month of the vaccination and occur in multiple people receiving the vaccinations.

One example of this is guillaine-barre syndrome. This a serious side effect that is extremely rare but has evidence proving there is an association between certain vaccines and this syndrome.

Its not a perfect system but its a pretty good indication of what the side effects are.

Do you agree that a significant weakness of VAERS is under-reporting? The estimates I have found suggest that between 1% and 30% of adverse reactions are actually documented in such a system.

 

[ultramanhyata]

IT'S BEEN DONE AND IS LINKED IN THIS THREAD! How many times are you going to ask for this study before you notice it's already been done?! Are you special or something?

Sorry, boss, I was going through the thread and replying to the posts in order... I just now got to your links.

Unless I'm missing something, that study should conclusively settle the question of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. It is 1000 times more conclusive than any of the links posted by the OP.

 

[def1]

I am not really a proponent of the vaccine-autism link, but more so concerned about other potential adverse reactions (short and long term). One question though, have any of these studies been replicated? I am aware that there are several different studies that suggest no link, however, each have obvious flaws.

As far as the ethics go, I will pose the same question I did earlier. Do you find it all unethical to "treat" a healthy children who in the vast majority of cases will not contract a disease (and if they do, will recover completely in the great majority of cases) with a protocol known to carry risk of severe adverse reaction?

It is completely unethical. Even if that health child never gets the disease, the bigger issue is that he is a potential threat to passing infection to immunocompromised patients (e.g., elderly, hiv and other immunodeficient persons, and babies who are too young to receive vaccines). Those are the patients we are really concerned with when it comes to vaccinations since immunodeficient patients cannot receive certain vaccines and are thus at greater risk not only of contracting the disease but dying from the disease. Part of vaccination campaign is that it enables herd immunity which allows these at risk patients to be protected. When we start letting vaccine use dwindle we are putting this population at increased risk.

The other problem with your logic is that the reason people contract these vaccine preventable disease at such low rates is due to the overwhelming majority of the population receiving vaccines which again induces herd immunity. Once vaccinations drop to a certain point, the rates of disease will go up.

 

[def1]

Every parent who wishes to not vaccinate their kids should watch videos like this.



Seriously what kind of parent would allow their kids to suffer from preventable diseases like whooping cough out of pure ignorance.

 

[TheBox]

Do you agree that a significant weakness of VAERS is under-reporting? The estimates I have found suggest that between 1% and 30% of adverse reactions are actually documented in such a system.

While I do not doubt that some family practitioners are too lazy to enter a VAERS report entry when a patient gets a painful red mark or some other minor side effect, is it really believed that doctors are underreporting deaths or any severe reactions?

It should also be noted that VAERS can result in over-reporting, as entries are made even when vaccination is clearly not related to the illness noted. I remember shortly after Gardasil was released, there was a big hullabaloo about like 50 deaths linked to it. When people actually looked into it, it had things like car accidents and suicides.

 

[def1]

Do you agree that a significant weakness of VAERS is under-reporting? The estimates I have found suggest that between 1% and 30% of adverse reactions are actually documented in such a system.

I haven't looked much into it to be honest. While I am sure there is a lot of adverse effects that go unreported, I'd be willing to bet the majority of those are mild to moderate effects.

If someone is having a severe reaction it has a high probability of being reported because a physician will connect the two and report it, so self-reporting in that area isn't much of a weakness.

 

[hoonosewot88]

As far as the ethics go, I will pose the same question I did earlier. Do you find it all unethical to "treat" a healthy children who in the vast majority of cases will not contract a disease (and if they do, will recover completely in the great majority of cases) with a protocol known to carry risk of severe adverse reaction?

Yes it's perfectly ethical. Prophylactic treatment is very common in medicine, prevention is a cornerstone of good healthcare, we should do more of it.

The dangers of an unvaccinated population far far outweigh the risks of a vaccination schedule.

The risks of adverse events in vaccination are miniscule, the risks of an unvaccinated population are much bigger. Anyone that tries to convince you otherwise is either dishonest, or doesn't know what they're talking about.

Ironically, the only reason people think that it's safer not to vaccinate is because vaccination has made these diseases rare in the first place. Drop the vaccination rates below a certain level and these diseases WILL come back, we've seen it time and time again.

 

[hoonosewot88]

Sorry, boss, I was going through the thread and replying to the posts in order... I just now got to your links.

Unless I'm missing something, that study should conclusively settle the question of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. It is 1000 times more conclusive than any of the links posted by the OP.

Well actually the study from the OP used this study and others as part of their dataset to come to the conclusions they did, so if anything the OP is more conclusive. However i admit that the downside of the OP is that it's a pretty confusing abstract for a layman to read. The one i linked is simpler.

But anyway that's fine, i'm glad you've read it and seen the proof you were asking for now.