For those blaming Vaccines for their child's ASD...

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That is a total piece of bullcrap myth and my parents still believed it caused my autism. Vaccines do not cause autism. Genetics do and the most likely cause of my PDD is some mutated bump on Chromosome 15, an important gene for autism. I did however, regressed at 15 months of age having NT-like development before the regression. I got the MMR vaccine for autism at the same time. Even my family friends fell into the fear. And you wonder why measles are gowing back up?

How can you be against a life saving vaccine for HPV? We know that HPV can and does cause cancers. Also, it only takes 1 exposure to catch it and there is no cure for it? As to the "problem of causing casual unsafe sex", that's a parenting issue, not a medical issue...

I didn't say it would cause casual sex. I said it would give teenagers a false sense of security about not using condoms when they have sex.

I'm not against the vaccine, I'm against it being forced on girls who don't want or need it. I've very aware of what HPV can do, and I'm also aware that many times it does nothing, there is more to it than the worst kind that everyone hears about. I'm saying that it's a new vaccine and when girls aren't at risk for catching it, they don't need to be immunized against it if they choose not to be. Why should my girls take it when one is in a monogamous relationship and the other isn't sexually active? They also know about condoms and know that they need to use them and in what situations they need to use them.

Can you imagine what would have happened if we didn't vaccinate for smallpox? Or Polio? Or Whopping Cough?

I'm a firm believer in vaccination.

I also believe in scrutiny of the material which is used in vaccination.

This was a big debate in a parenting group I'm a member of. Part of the problem is that boys/men can carry it and can be asymptomatic (some of them will get warts, many won't). Women aren't always in control of what guys do or where they have put their parts previously. One woman in my parenting group actually got HPV from her husband. He had it from a previous relationship, didn't know and gave it to her. It can sit dormant for years. She never got tested, and then one year had an abnormal pap. She actually developed cancer from it. Another woman got it from her husband who had cheated on her. Don't forget, not all sex is consensual. I doubt a rapist would stop to take the time to wear a rubber.

Add to this... kids aren't smart. They don't even know what HPV is, having a vaccine isn't going to deter them. I mean... they can get pregnant or get herpes from sex and it doesn't stop them now, an HPV vaccine isn't going to change a thing other than stop them from getting or spreading HPV.

Well said...

It has not been "proven not to happen." There is just no conclusive evidence to support it. Those are two totally different things. I don't mean to be hair-splitting, but absence of proof is not proof of absence. There are a number of plausible reasons why, if a causal relationship does exist, we have not found proof of it yet. There is also the possibility that there is no causal relationship. And there is a possibility that there may be a causal relationship in some cases, but not all. Or even in a few cases, but not most. I think it is dangerous to suppose that because we have failed to find proof of something that we dismiss the possibility of it. And I don't just feel that way about autism and vaccines. I feel that way in general. Certainty that something cannot possibly be true closes off routes for future discovery. As long as we cannot say with definitive proof what actually does cause autism, we should be wary of excluding possibilities.

For the record, my kids are vaccinated and I am positive vaccines have nothing to do with my kids' neurobehavioral development. They were both clearly different from the very beginning. There was no regression. With my son, his development just burst off on it's own trajectory at a very young age, and for my daughter...well, before I knew better, I suspected she had MR (which ended up being totally false; her IQ is in the superior range), so for her it was more of a slow progression than a regression.

However, I am not so quick to discount the reports of parents who's experiences differ drastically from mine. And I believe regression exists. It just isn't caused by the same thing that runs in my family.

Let's say that we have multiple things that we label "Autism." Let's say, for argument's sake, that 2% of the cases of what we call "autism" actually are caused by vaccines. Since we are lumping these 2% in with 98% that have nothing to do with vaccines, we will never reliably detect that 2% and any results that are specific only to that 2% will be masked by the 98%. That doesn't mean they don't exist. It means we are not sophisticated enough to find them. 2% may not seem significant, but it is significant for that 2% that has a lifelong disability that could have been avoided. I celebrate my kids' wiring (and my own) because I am confident in my belief that this is the way we were supposed to be. Nothing is wrong. We are on the path that was meant to be. I imagine I would not feel so positive and celebratory if my kids' lives were irrevocably altered because I was blindly following "the medical community's" advice. I would feel as though I had been duped.

Whenever we evaluate research related to autism, interventions for autism, proposed causes for autism, etc., we have to remain cognizant that as of today, we cannot parse things apart to get adequate clarity. Some important things will get lost in the muddle.

Unless someone is proposing that there is only one thing called "autism" and it is all the same. But I have yet to come across an experienced person who feels this way. It takes only a modicum of observational skills to tell that "it" is not the same in all people. There is no doubt in my mind that what "affects" my daughter is not the same thing as what affected the kids I once worked with in a school for kids with severe autism. There is equally no doubt in my mind that she is also not wired the same as the "typical" kid her age. But I don't presume that because she was "born this way" that everyone was. I do think that many of the people I know on the spectrum were born this way. I also think it is quite possible that in some people it was "caused" sometime after birth. Why is it so hard for some people to see that both "sides" could be right? It seems like most people feel it has to be an either or. That makes no sense to me at all because it prematurely eliminates a multitude of possibilities.

On another board I'm on, literally hundreds of parents blame the vaccines. The most common claim is that their child was normal, got the MMR, became ill (flu-like symptoms) and then when their illness went away, they became autistic and quickly regressed.

That sounds reasonable to me. A similar scenario could be that the child was normal, got a bee sting (or ate a specific food, or was administered penicillin) for the first time, experienced an anaphilactic reaction and became ill (allergic reaction, flu-like symptoms). I had just such a reaction to penicillin when I was about two years of age, but I have no idea if it influenced my probable Asperger's Syndrome. Maybe, maybe not.

Whether or not those activities and experiences "cause" autism-spectrum disorders, or that they might simply mimic ASDs, is up to the parents and their family physicians. But, I respect that parents are usually very good detectives of their own children's conditions before and after something that notable occurs.

I don't.

Our memories are shockingly unreliable. There's piles of psych info to support this. People alter details, mix up the order of events, all sorts of distortions, and yet we're mostly completely unaware of it. We tend to believe our memories are far more reliable than they really are.

So it really wouldn't surprise me if a parent misremembers their child's regression as starting right after the MMR when really it started two months before they got it, or three months afterwards, or something like that. Plus, video evidence has found that most kids who regress weren't as 'normal' pre-regression as they're generally made out to be. Parents just overlooked the subtle signs because there's such a contrast between pre-regression and post-regression behavior.

All of these distortions are part of normal psychology. You don't have to be crazy to distort your memories like this.

Just want to add that I completely and totally agree with the above! Well said- "absence of proof is not proof of absence". I am pro-vax and a lover of science. TRUE and evidence-based science. However, there is still so much we don't know about...everything. It's easy to be arrogant in this day and age about certain things science-related, but we are always learning new things and correcting past mistakes.

THIS! And that is if they actually regressed at all. I think some people (some, not all, I think it happens some times) "misremember" a regression that never actually occurred as well. With my daughter, the extended family percieved there to be a regression. I was there all the time, there never was a regression. Skills they were claiming she lost (this was around age 5) like being able to hop on one foot, skip, use a fork, hold a pencil, have a 2 way conversation... they were never there. At that age she had NEVER done those things. Yet everyone else around us, perceived a regression and a loss of those abilities AFTER the autism diagnosis... in part because they arent very observant, their memories are faulty, AND a lot of people equate autism with regression. So they expect there to be one, so they suddenly remember it.

95% of ASD kids have immune dysfunction. So it is better for ASD kids to be fully vaccinated than unvaccinated.

People have varying levels of immune function, and vaccinations have various risks and effectiveness. Some vaccinations give little protection against current strains of the disease, but use live viruses. In the past it contained mercury, and multiservice vials include preservatives and stabilizers. What feeds the fire is that the MMR vaccine virus, different from actual, has been found in the GI tract of a few ASD kids indicating they failed to form antibodies against them which indicates the vaccine was an immune load, it simply can not be determined if it contributed to their condition. Sometimes the risk of the vaccination is greater than the disease, and others the risk of the disease is greater than the vaccination.

I support intelligent vaccinating. The HepB at 12hrs old and triples (eg. MMR and DTP) should never by given to those with risk of immune dysfunction (ASD, ADHD, learning disabilities, lupus, cancer, diabetes,...). They should be spaced out by at least 4 months. Unless the mother has high riskof HepB (drug user or has multiple partners), it should not be given til the child is 2 to 4 years old. None should be given til the child is at least 72 hrs old, even if the mother is positive and high risk.

The CDC is heavily influenced by lobbying groups, including pharmaceutical companies.The CDC rules are geared to lazy and ignorant parents and parents with dangerous habits. So fully vaccinate as soon as possible for the better good of the most, with less concern about the welfare of the challenged few. The CDC can recommend but should not be able to dictate. Pharmaceutical companies are big business and huge lobbyists, dedicated to making money and avoiding law suits. Parents need to be educated consumers.

Yep. If an individual chooses to vaccinate, they should at least do it knowledgeably.

Yup. Had 'em all (the "childhood diseases," not the vaccines). I do not recall any kid I went to school with ever dying from the measles, either, though the vaccine driods today will tell you all sorts of scare stories about how deadly measles is. The only people I have ever met in my life who had polio, all caught it from the vaccine.

Its been well documented that polio vaccine, contaminated with the SV40 monkey virus, has been responsible for radically increased cancer rates among the 98 million people vaccinated with it. India, where Bill Gates has been distibuting polio vaccines, reported 47500 new cases of NPAFP [non-polio acute flaccid paralysis] in 2011. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received.

I have no reason to believe vaccines are responsible for the majority, or for any, cases of autism, but I'd be wary of assuming they're always safe.

That was largely childhood experience, too. Though, I did get the original, clean MMR vaccination at five years of age (entering public school). My mother chose to skip my polio vaccination (she knew about its dark side and, like me, knows people who were injured by it). I got the live-attenuated Rubella booster vaccination at about seven years of age (which I regret), skipped the Swine Flu-scare vaccination in 1975, and got a booster of some sort at 15 years of age. I have had the HepA and HepB vaccines at ages 27 and 28, but I regret agreeing to those out of principle. I had adverse reactions to penicillin at age two and the Rubella booster vaccination. So, while my few vaccinations have turned out okay, I also experience adverse drug reactions. I would have no problem with vaccinations if they returned to the clean variety that people like doctors-in-the-know and the president get. Until then, I doubt them.

As to the question about vaccination-influenced autism disorders, I see no reason why it would be the only disease or disorder that somehow, miraculously, can't be induced or mimicked artificially.