While watching The Vaccine War, I was constantly frustrated by (among many other things) how often people reported the rise of autism in recent years, and attributed it to a rise in vaccinations. What about the fact that medical knowledge has also increased in recent years, and the possibility that autism is just being diagnosed more often than before, and with a broader definition of what autism is?
That's exactly what some mental-disability scientists are suggesting, as reported in an ABC News article. Dr. David Kaufman from Premier Healthcare says he believes "that since the definition has been broadened, a lot of children
are getting diagnosed who are at the milder end of the spectrum."
Autism is characteristically defined by an inability to feel empathy, or recognize that other people are "autonomous and intelligent in the same way that they are," according to HealthGuidance.org. Autistic kids have trouble understanding social rules that we take for granted, liking speaking in turn in a conversation, or responding sympathetically. Some of the higher socially-functioning autistic kids approach social interaction scientifically, constructing "a series of ‘rules’ and ‘observations’ to allow them to predict the behavior of others" and respond appropriately.
I looked up more statistics on autism from the CDC, and found that as of 2008, 1 in 88 kids have an autism-spectrum-disorder (ASD). ASD occurs in "all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups," and occurs five times more often in boys.
I also found that it occurs more often in identical twins than in fraternal twins, that children born to older parents or at low birth weight are more at risk, and that 83% of autistic kids have a co-occurring psychiatric, developmental, genetic, or chromosomal disorder.
The anti-vaccination proponents in the video claimed that they had anecdotal "evidence" from "tens of thousands" of parents who believe their kids got autism from the MMR vaccine. The serious complication rate for the MMR vaccine is less than 1 in 1,000,000. However, as was pointed out in the video, and by the CDC MMR vaccine information sheet, the first dose of the MMR vaccine should be given at 12-15 months old, and the second dose at 4-6 years old.
Autism symptoms are typically more observable when the child starts walking and talking, within the first couple years, and an increasing number of cases are being diagnosed before the child is three years old. Milder forms such as Asperger's typically are diagnosed later, between 4 and 6 years old.
Given that autism appears to be much more heavily influenced by genetics and/or pre-natal environment than outside factors, and the strong correlation between the age of observable symptoms and the age at which kids should be vaccinated, it's very frustrating that people continue to distrust vaccines for such weak reasons, based on equating correlation with causation.
Health Guidance: http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/12377/1/Autism-Types--Symptoms-of-Mild-Autism.html
ABC News article: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4507315&page=1#.UU9nTFd5eKI
CDC autism data: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
CDC MMR data: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-mmr.pdf
Emma,
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you wrote in this post. I also found myself very frustrated as I watched this video. I think what frustrated me most was that all of these people have formed these opinions and beliefs about vaccinations without any real evidence. First of all, one of the main studies they base their opinions on was The Lancet article. I found this very disappointing since this article was retracted in 2010 due to a bias and to it not being able to be replicated. Also, I find most of their opinions to be ridiculous because very few of the people against vaccinations in the video are medical doctors. Thus, I feel like they do not have enough evidence or knowledge to make these conclusions.