Do you have a personal experience that persuaded your opinion on the possibility of MMR immunization causing/increasing chance of autism?

No anecdote will be of any use.
A. I immunized all at once on a regular schedule…kid is fine.
B. I immunized all at once on a regular shedule…kid has autism.
C. I rearranged the schedule…kid is fine.
D. I rearranged the schedule…kid has autism.
etc.
etc.
etc.

Vaccines DO NOT cause autism, plain and simple.

@shilolo Thanks for sharing your opinion, but to me an anecdote would be of use. That’s why I asked for one.

The agent that was once fingered as a potential cause is no longer present in children’s vaccines. The article below has a host of additional information as well as the exceprt I provided.

From the CDC

“Thimerosal is a mercury-containing preservative used in some vaccines and other products since the 1930s. There is no convincing scientific evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site. However, in July 1999, the Public Health Service agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated in vaccines as a precautionary measure.

Since 2001, with the exception of some influenza (flu) vaccines, thimerosal is not used as a preservative in routinely recommended childhood vaccines.”

@BBSDTfamily The fact that I delay (still give the MMR) is not because of autism. I have done research and haven’t found anything that supports that, but I am still wary of giving such a young child a vaccine…especially since I stay at home, and I find it unnecessary.

My son is 25 months, and will probably have it at 30 months (2½ years old) they usually do it between 12–15 months.

This is MY personal feeling on it, just a gut feeling. When taking your newborn to the pediatrician for the first time (you go a lot when they are little newborns) They give them vaccines the same day they are born (unnecessary), at a month old, two months, six months…and then it starts to slow down because they give them so many before they are even a year.
I wish I had delayed my sons vaccines more. So when he was a year, we just started to refuse them, but then caught up recently. He is only behind on his MMR, and will not be receiving the Chicken Pox vax. He also does not receive the Rotavirus vaccine.
To me, I weighed the risk vs. the benefit.
When we have our next baby, I do not want them vaccinating him/her the day she is born with Hep B, because I don’t think my baby will be exposed to dirty needles or whatever. BUT she will get it at a month old…just because I don’t want to be too far off schedule.

anecdotal evidence is not evidence, it is opinion based on personal experience.

Autism is believed to be a malfunction of the mirror neurons in the brain. It is likely genetic, or at least caused by a mutation in the DNA. Mutations can be caused by almost anything, including exposure to certain types of air pollution.

To not vaccinate your children at all is causing a threat to all other children that come in contact with your child. Delaying vaccines is probably fine, but complete avoidance is comparable to a man infected with HIV having unprotected sex with as many lovers as he can copulate with. It is not acceptable behavior in a social society.

@casheroo The notion that vaccines early on are somehow “bad” or “dangerous” is misguided. Infants are exposed to thousands of immunologically active agents every day through contact with breast milk, formula, food, saliva, skin, dust, dirt, etc. So, exposing your child to a few additional epitopes is a drop in the bucket. Further, none of the early vaccines are live viruses, and are designed to protect your infant from serious diseases (like meningitis).

When I rotated on the pediatric ID service, I saw three separate cases (in one month) of infants with meningitis that would have been prevented by vaccination (Pneumococcus x2 and Haemophilus x1). They were really sick, and likely had long term consequences. I wouldn’t wish that on any child especially since the diseases were preventable.

@shilolo I think the common hesitation about the MMR being given so young is because it is three viruses given all at once (actually 4, because here they give the chicken pox at the same time). At least that’s the only argument I’ve heard that seems to make possible sense… not a doctor though, so I don’t know. I know that there hasn’t been a case of measles in my state since 1992, so I think that if holding off the vaccine for a few months could even possibly reduce the risk of triggering a predisposition to ADHD or autism, then the benefit outweighs the risk. Do you think getting three seperate measles, mumps, and rubella shots over a short time span is wrong? Do you have a problem with parents choosing to do so?

@BBSDTfamily Since there is no data to suggest getting three attenuated viruses simultaneously is dangerous, I see no downside to the standard schedule. In fact, both of my children have had all of their vaccinations on schedule, with no adverse consequences. To me, the vaccines -> autism/ADHD people are misguided at best, and dangerous at worst.

To answer your second question, I have a real problem with people attempting to manipulate the public health system to their own benefit (I use the word benefit loosely, it could be to their detriment). It appears that medicine’s greatest success (the almost complete eradication of childhood diseases through vaccination) is being taken for granted (there have been no measles cases in my state since 1992, therefore….), so now people say “Why should I do it, let some other kid be vaccinated…” That is just plain wrong.

The reason some pediatricians acquiesce to this owes primarily to the economics of medicine than to science. Patients are “consumers” and doctors are “providers”, so if pediatrician X refuses to go along, she loses your business when you go to pediatrician Y that will do your bidding. That, I cannot abide.

@shilolo You are assuming I delay because of herd immunity, or something. That is not the case at all. I see nothing wrong with delaying, and I even told you I do most on schedule, I listed the ones that I don’t do on schedule. I know the consequences of the diseases and know which are ones I’m comfortable with dealing with rather than not. The ones you experienced as a doctor, I would not be and I do vax that.
Also, with what @bbsdtfamily said…is it true you can only get the MMR with chicken pox, I thought they still had a regular MMR.

@BBSDTfamily They took the separated MMR off the market, most likely for financial reasons…they get more money by pumping three vaccines in one. Totally pisses me off, because some adults just need certain vaccines (you’re pregnant, you’re titers will be tested..one will be done for Rubella, you want to have immunity against it or you’ll need to be vaccinated…i think after the baby is born.) Some women need example, just Rubella and now have to get all three ALL over again. Seems ridiculous, but seems the only logical reason is because greedy pharmaceutical companies.
I trust pharmaceutical companies far far less than I trust doctors.

There have been no credible links, no actual proof that giving vaccines increases anyone’s chance of anything other than not getting the diseases that they’re made for. There have been a lot of theories, but there are theories about everything. The reasons that there are vaccines for these diseases is because they can be dangerous and devestating and its not worth the risk to your child, and other children that your child comes into contact to, to not vaccinate. The vaccines have been improved and are constantly being examined for negative effects by people who research these things. I will be vaccinating my kids (when they come) on schedule because I would rather protect my kids from real, harmful diseases rather than worry about the yet unproven speculation that they might cause a disorder that is also being researched and probably has more to do with genetics than environmental factors.

I personally think that the “rise” in a lot of diseases has more to do with improved diagnosis rates, being better at recognizing diseases, than an actual rise in the incidence of the diseases/disorders.

@casheroo I knew that one company took it off the market but not that it was unavailable… I thought that another pharm company picked it up and is selling them seperately still. Don’t know. We have about 2 years until the first talk of MMR vaccine will come up, so plenty of time to think about it. Hopefully more research will be done to either solidify many parent’s minds that it is not harmful, or prove that it could be. Either way, I don’t like not knowing

@shilolo Although there is no hard evidence supporting the theory the MMR has something to do with increasing the risk of different diseases, there are a lot of parents of autistic children who have pretty believable stories. Maybe they’re looking for something to blame, or maybe some of them are onto something. Either way, I think it is the parent’s choice to make whatever decision they feel is best. There is a long history of things that current medical understanding has led patients to do, which later turned out to be harmful, so nobody can really say that it’s out of the question that something we use today won’t turn out to be proven harmful as well.

There are many out there that believe that MMR has a correlation with autism in thier child. I work at a school for children with autism and many of my students (especally those from out of the country) have never had the vaccine or not until they were much older. There is a debate as to whether autism is a condition ( like diabetes-life long not curable) or a disease ( like tb) in my experience it is a condition part of who you are.

There is a lot of research and theories out there but point blank at this point we don’t know why autism occurs even though there is a strong link to genetic factors.

Get the kid vaccinated before he gets polio from another kid who wasn’t vaccinated either.

The practice of medicine and the practice of public health are two different fields. Medicine deals with the health of the individual and public health is concerned with the health of the community. The two fields are interrelated, but decidedly different in some very specific ways.

In epidemiology (one discipline within public health), we take the number of cases of the condition of interest (e.g. teen pregnancy) over the total number of people at risk for the condition of interest based on specific time and location. So in the example of teen pregnancy, we don’t include the entire population of Pittsburgh, instead we look at girls between the ages of 12 and 19. Statistics are collected annually for reportable conditions and epidemiologists can assess the extent to which there are more or fewer cases than might be expected of any condition or disease. The time and location element is also important—we would expect more cases of coccidiodomycosis in the desert southwest (that’s where the pathogen is) and would not expect to see any cases in Ohio (not a lot of desert soil). A single case in Ohio would draw a great deal of interest whereas it would be much less attention-getting in Phoenix.

Some of the parents of autistic kids have compelling stories, but their assessment is not particularly scientific in that their study includes an “n” of 1. It is very difficult to accurately determine cause and effect when you are studying a single case. While the parents may be able to find all sorts of causal links, it is anecdotal at best.

There is also a great dearth of American parents who have actually studied science or understand scientific inquiry in a way that is helpful to sorting out a topic like vaccination of children. These individuals still blog and share their stories in different forums but they are not necessarily founded on any scientific observations (this statement is not based on the foregoing as I find most Flutherites better informed than most!).

The schedule of childhood vaccines is based on a number of factors many of which are based on epidemiological studies of disease, knowledge about maternal antibodies, some historic understanding of prevalence and timely observations about incidence. I understand the sense that parents have the right to make some decisions on behalf of their children. When their decision is not to immunize, from a public health perspective, I would prefer that they home school (keep kids away from public gathering places, etc.) and not place other unvaccinated children at risk.

Any given community in the United States is a single plane ride away from someone entering the group with a pathogenic organism for which individuals have no immunity. There will always be some kid who has a bad reaction to any number of things but I am not going to suggest kids not wear seatbelts because of the occasional accident wherein a seatbelt was harmful. The prevailing evidence is that seatbelts (and vaccines) save more lives than the handful of cases where they may be but a contributing factor to harm.

I have two personal scenarios for you.

1. My brother had his MMR shot. The next morning he woke up with red bumps all over him. He got the Measles from the shot. On the other hand, my first daughter wasn’t vaccinated for chicken pox because it wasn’t available. She got the chicken pox so bad that she has scars all over her body from the pox. Do you want your child to have to endure that? Her sister was vaccinated and got one little pox on her back. Each vaccine worth while. You may not think so with my brother but he was immune from that moment on. So in essence, the vaccine worked.

2. My brother and I don’t believe that vaccines cause autism. I believe that it is genetics. My youngest has ADHD and Aspbergers (a form of Autism). My niece has ADHD and high functioning Autism. My brother has ADHD and my other niece has ADD. There is no coincidence about that. It has to be genetics.