On Vaccines...

I have been wondering about shots. I was kind of freaked out when I learned about parents actually not vaccinating their kids for fear of autism. I don't know what to believe, but I do know this should be a pretty run of the mill problem for good science and honest research. I would expect that a pretty definitive conclusion could be made regarding any link to vaccines that autism may have.

Shot records have to be some of the most abundant records, surely enough to provide huge amounts data. Now make sure that you account for the changing criteria used to diagnose autism through the period being studied(my gut tells me this is the herring). Oh, don't forget to thoroughly discount all the other things that could be producing higher autism rates. Is there higher autism rates or higher rates of diagnosis?

Now its not that I don't believe there may be a link, and some people I respect say there is. One is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and others include the parents of children with autism. But I just cant shake the thought that parents are actually not immunizing their kids. It seems, I hate saying this... selfish. I guess what bothers me is the risk to the children who may not get the vaccine protection. I'd bet (if I had to) that this is probably worse than the possible risk of autism. Not just that but what about the rest of the population that is put at risk by non-vaccinated-Americans.

So then somebody else I respect, Michael Shermer, comes in with a great article from his Skeptic Magazine. As I had thought the Vaccine-Autism link may be a mirage that sadly plays on the fears of parents who may be blindsided by love and anguish over their children. The piece by Kennedy linked above is discussed on the Skeptic piece and I recommend reading both for all the angles that play on such a touchy subject.

Mercury Rising / Exposing the Vaccine-Autism Myth by Matthew P. Normand and Jesse Dallery

In this article we shall make five points concerning the relationship
between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.
1. The dangers of mercury are well established, but this does not lead inexorably to a relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.
2. A number of well controlled studies have failed to uncover any correlation between the delivery of the vaccines and the onset of autism.
3. Even if some correlation existed there are a number of possible explanations for the correlation that do not assume any causal relationship between the vaccine and autism.
4. Much attention has been given to a possible government cover up, which is certainly
of concern if true but is otherwise independent of the problems with the claims
of a link between thimerosal and autism.
5. The type of public hysteria manifested in the current controversy is not new and we would be well served to learn from similar controversies of recent times.

To make a short story long, I'll end with a bit of Shermers introduction to the story that kind of nails it for me:

Remember always that we are pattern-seeking primates who are especially adept at finding patterns with emotional meaning — in this case, the parents of autistic children are understandably seeking a causal link that provides them with an opportunity to right a wrong, in this case fixing the problem through changing the body’s chemistry, diet, nutrition, toxin load, etc. Sadly, it appears at this point that the causal vector(s) probably lie elsewhere.— Michael Shermer