Monday, February 9, 2009

Vaccines and Autism

Vaccines and Autism

Professor Volokh links to an article in the February 8, 2009 Times of London that reports that the study that started the whole "vaccines cause autism" claim appears not to have been simply wrong, but something a lot worse:
THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.
Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.
The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.
However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.
I don't particularly like the way that the government runs around pushing mandatory vaccination, but this is one of the great discoveries of the last three centuries. As the Times article goes on to point out:
Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper’s impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92% to below 80%. Populations acquire “herd immunity” from measles when more than 95% of people have been vaccinated.
Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.
I recall that there was an epidemic of pertussis (whooping cough) several years back in England, because of this apparently dishonest manipulation of the data. And here in Idaho, there is this disturbing report from Meridian Joint School District #2:

Date: February 6, 2009
Seven of the eight people in Ada County who have gotten sick with pertussis (whooping cough) since Thanksgiving have been Eagle High School students.
A recently identified person with pertussis has been coughing for 10 weeks. During that time the patient saw 4 doctors and went to a hospital emergency department. That’s a pretty common story to hear from people with pertussis. Not only is pertussis a very serious and long lasting sickness, it’s also very expensive. There’s a way to avoid getting pertussis. Get vaccinated now!
For those of you who don't know what Eagle, Idaho is like--think of it as the Beverly Hills of the Boise area. It is an area awash in expensive, even absurdly ostentatious homes, part of why we didn't consider it when we moved to the area. And I suspect that it is not a coincidence that a place awash in this kind of wealth would have a lot of kids who weren't immunized against a disease like this.

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