Oct
6
Controversy between Autism & MMR vaccine
October 6, 2008 |
The controversy between Autism and vaccination continues. As I researched further in this subject, I came across interesting statics and studies. For an example: before 1989, American preschoolers received 11 vaccinations. By 1999, children were receiving a total of 22 immunizations by the time they reached first grade. The post covers:
- Wakefield’s study.
- What do most Americans believe?
- Is there a government cover-up?
- Parents’ worries about thimerosal in vaccines are well founded!
- Recent studies states “no evidence of link between vaccinations and autism” and “Vaccinations are safe” But how does that compare to Wakefield’s study?
Dr. Michael E Dym “Directly from human medical research, we have definitive proof of a linkage between polyvalent viral vaccines and inflammatory bowel disease, in particular the combination MMR vaccine and Crohn’s disease and/or ulcerative colitis(the same thing?) in susceptible children. In his masterful research Andrew Wakefield, MD, a prominent British gastroenterologist, documented measles virus infection in the intestinal walls of nearly %100 of the autistic children he scoped and biopsied, who developed their disease within a short time after MMR vaccination. All of the normally developing children did not have any evidence of measles virus infection or histopathologic evidence of Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis. I believe that he did actually document that the measles virus found in the intestinal walls of these autistic children who developed the disease was vaccine measles virus strain, which he showed via DNA analysis. And while Dr. Wakefield is not anti-vaccine, he has lectured that if the vaccines were given monovalently, that such problems had not been seen. Unfortunately, Dr. Wakefield was recently asked to resign from his position because the results of his research was unpopular. According to his work, Dr. Wakefield theorizes that the measles virus infection and subsequent pathology in the gut walls leads to a leaky-gut like syndrome causing absorption of encephelopathic toxins which directly affects the developing brains of susceptible children leading to autistic like symptoms.”
“We were trying to find what he found,” Lipkin said.
Odd, then, that they didn’t look at the same type of kids.
by Jane Johnson, Executive Director of Defeat Autism Now!
A recent paper titled “Lack of association between measles virus vaccine and autism with enteropathy: a case-control study” by Hornig, et al. (PLoS ONE. 2008 Sep 4;3(9):e3140) has been represented as the final word in the controversy about whether or not there’s a link between autism and the MMR vaccine.
Curiously, the authors write, “Failure to replicate [Wakefield's] original study design may contribute to continued public concern with respect to the safety of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.”
They were referring to past MMR-autism studies, which looked for measles genetic material in the blood, as opposed to Wakefield’s tissue biopsies. It’s curious because in fact Hornig, et al. did take a step in the right direction-they looked at tissue biopsies-but the pretense that their study is a replication is just plain wrong.
In Wakefield’s 2002 study, researchers found measles in 75 of 91 biopsies from autistic children with GI inflammation, and in only 5 of 70 samples from non-autistic children (Uhlmann, et al. Mol Pathol. 2002 Apr;55(2):84-90). The children with autism in the 2002 study developed gastrointestinal symptoms and autistic regression after the MMR vaccine.
Only 5 of the 25 children in the Hornig study group developed these symptoms after the MMR vaccine-all of the others showed symptoms of autism before vaccination; so only those five are fair to compare to the 2002 study. (This is like testing whether cell phones cause cancer by comparing 20 people who had cancer before they ever touched a cell phone to five people who developed cancer after owning one.)
Anyway, common sense is enough to tell us that a study group of five isn’t large enough to reveal much of anything, no matter what’s being tested.
Notably, biopsies in Wakefield’s study were taken from the ileum, since this is the only site in the lower intestine where he had found evidence of measles virus protein in earlier studies. In contrast, Hornig’s biopsies came from the cecum (part of the colon) or the ileum, and we are given no indication of how many of the uniquely relevant ileal biopsies were actually used. (The discrepancy arises because some doctors find it difficult to get into the ileum and–as in this case–are left having to settle for colonic biopsies.) Both reflux symptoms and food allergy were other factors that emerged in the Hornig study group, but there was no mention of diarrhea or constipation, the two GI symptoms most common in the 2002 UK children. So the populations under consideration appear to be very different, a fact that the Hornig group apparently decided to ignore, or simply overlooked.
Paradoxically, Hornig’s study affirmed results from the laboratory of Professor John O’Leary (he’s one of the collaborators on the new study, as well as senior author of the 2002 study) as correct, and identical to results obtained by the other laboratories used in this new study (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [the CDC] and Dr. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University), inadvertently validating the results obtained from lab work done in the earlier, Wakefield study.
Northeastern University Professor Richard Deth commented, “If gut inflammation persists after the virus is cleared, it is a sign that the inflammatory response has not been reversed (i.e., oxidative stress persists). In my view, this is the central issue in autism: persistent, unremitting oxidative stress, which can be triggered by different exposures. In other words, all children experience an inflammatory response to the MMR, which is part of why vaccination works. The response is normally mild and self-limiting, but children with redox and methylation vulnerabilities have a stronger inflammatory response that frequently does not turn off, yielding persistent oxidative stress.” In other words, there is a plausible connection between MMR and ongoing tissue damage.
This new study rules out just one thing: that the measles virus must remain active in the intestine for the long term for us to be able to say that it can cause the bowel disease that is associated with autism. The question remains, could the MMR vaccine cause autism in a one-time injury, without necessarily leaving evident measles virus behind? We don’t know. More research is needed. Parents of children who regressed after their MMR vaccine deserve a solid, irrefutable answer; sadly, by representing itself as the final word, the recent Hornig study decreases the chances that they’ll get one.
Jane Johnson is the director of Defeat Autism Now! and the co-author of Bryan Jepson M.D.’s groundbreaking book, Changing the Course of Autism.
2. Ask American parents if they think vaccines cause Autism. A survey commissioned by the Florida. Institute of Technology found that 24 percent of Americans believes autism is caused by vaccines, even though no scientific evidence supports such a link.
3. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. investigates the government cover-up of a mercury/autism scandal. Robert F. Kennedy wrote an article in the Rolling Stone magazine called “Deadly Immunity.”
4. Offical Journal of American Academy Pediatics, “Parents’ worries about thimerosal in vaccines are well founded!” by Mark R. Geier, MD, Ph.D
More studies at Autism Research Institution
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