If there is one thing the anti-vaccination crowd does really well it is moving the goal post. They know that vaccines cause autism and demand science prove their certainty right. Something in vaccines causes autism they think, and they won’t stop demanding more and more studies of whatever they can think off. It’s win-win for them; they’re not running out of imagination anytime soon.
The typical anti-vaccination rant is provided by Age of Autism’s own J.B. Handley in a post titled 2004 and the Birth of the Hungry Lie, “Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism” in which libelous claims of “lying” are thrown around without so much as a second thought. Someone ought to edit these writings a bit more carefully I think.
I will not waste time going through Handley’s entry point by point, but I would like to point to what I have perceived as the new gambit being thrown around by the anti-vaccination proponents, the “no vaccinated vs unvaccinated study” gambit. It basically goes like this:
There isn’t not one study of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children looking at the connection between vaccines and autism.
This is thrown around anytime we in the pro-health community provide studies showing no association between any specific vaccine and autism, such as the famous Danish Study which looked at MMR and autism. It looked at over 500,000 children of which over 96,000 had not received the MMR shot. It found no differences in autism rates between the two groups. The authors concluded:
This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism.
Now, you might think that having presented a study like this you’ve won the argument. You should be prepared to handle the gambit above; what they mean when they say vaccinated vs. unvaccinated is completely unvaccinated, as in not even one dose of vaccine has been received by the child. They are demanding a study comparing vaccinated children vs. children who have never received a single dose of vaccine in their lives.
This is a typical moving of the goal post: first they said thimerosal in vaccines causes autism; science proved it didn’t. Then they said the MMR shot causes autism; science proved it didn’t. Now they say any combination of vaccines causes autism, essentially putting up a hypothesis which will never be satisfied by any amount of research. First it would be unethical to willingly withhold vaccines form a child for the purpose of a study; so randomizing children to receive the shots or not is completely out the window; so where does one find a population of children that is completely unvaccinated and for which other variable can be controlled to do the study? Where are you going to find willing people who do not vaccinate at all to participate in such a study? What kind of access to their child will a person who distrusts medicine to the point they deny their children every vaccine, allow to a scientist?
Second, think of all the doses of vaccines a child receives in the first 6 years of its life. Think of all the possible combinations of vaccines/ingredients one can hypothesise as culprits. Well maybe the MMR doesn’t cause autism, but the MMR and the pertussis shot combined do; maybe MMR and DTaP don’t but when you throw in the yearly flu shot then it causes autism; well maybe it’s just the varicella vaccine and aluminum or…. and so on and so on. The combinations are endless; the anti-vaxxers know this, they know they can keep pretending science is ignoring these obvious leads when in fact science has been doing nothing but following up on all leads.
This sort of tactic is similar to going up to a detective investigating a murder case and saying “I think you should conduct a search of that vehicle there” and if he agrees and nothing is found, you go back to him and say “OK, but did you search….that vehicle over there” and so on and so on, pointing to vehicles just because you think there may be something there. How seriously do you think you’d be taken by the detective?
These demands by the anti-vaxxers are dangerous because they create the impression that science is refusing to look into the vaccine safety issues. It is easy to demand more and more studies when one is not shouldering any of the work, or funding. Doing a study takes lots of time and even more money. Sitting back in one’s chair dreaming of new things to demand for science to study is easy; easy and lazy.
Furthermore, from experience we know that it is intellectually dishonest; that the moment science shows no effect the anti-vaccination crowd will not sit back and reassess their position, but they will either ignore the science, claim it is part of the conspiracy, and/or move the goal post to the next position and start demanding more studies for their latest fantasy.
The facts and science are irrelevant to the anti-vaxxers beliefs. They know they’re right; they’re just waiting for science to catch up. Until it does, they will keep accusing it, and all of us in the pro-health community, of lies, conspiracies and “shillism”, which is, to say the least, utterly pathetic.
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The “vaccinated vs. unvaccinated” demand,and the barriers to doing such a study, has been widely discussed in the science blogosphere. I collated the discussions at http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2011/01/the-issues-in-undertaking-a-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-study.html.
The leaders of the anti-vax movement are not interested in honestly evaluating studies, only in making up excuses to dismiss studies that don’t tell them what they want to hear. Compare the following cases (they involve thimerosal, which isn’t in MMR, but they highlight the severely flawed nature of anti-vax logic):
Case 1: A 2003 Danish study compared children who received 125µg ethylmercury (an ingredient in thimerosal) to children whose vaccines did not contain any thimerosal. There were no meaningful differences. Prominent anti-vaxxer Mark Blaxill claimed that since American children used to receive up to 187.5µg, maybe 125µg isn’t enough to cause any symptoms but 187.5µg is.
Case 2: A 2009 Italian study compared children who received 137.5µg ethylmercury to children who received 62.5µg. Again, there were no meaningful differences. Prominent anti-vaxxer JB Handley claimed that this is because *all* of the children received ethylmercury, so the lack of difference meant that *all* were *equally* damaged.
Each case taken individually appears reasonable, but when you compare them you discover the following anti-vax logic: 187.5µg is definitely enough to cause autism. 137.5µg is also enough. Slightly reduce the dose to 125µg and it’s suddenly *not* enough to cause *any* symptoms. But drastically decrease the dose to 62.5µg and suddenly it *is* enough again, and causes just as much harm as 137.5µg!
This ridiculous contradiction reflects how the movement’s efforts are not aimed at uncovering a coherent picture of what’s actually going on. They don’t offer the sort of genuine criticism on which science thrives, but rather grasp at straws to create a smear campaign against any research that does not validate their preconceived beliefs.
Denying vaccines cause neurological disability is foolish and adds to the number of kids injured by avoiding proper research.
The FDA and CDC admit autism is rising at epidemic rates. Genes CANNOT cause epidemics, but increasing environmental triggers can. Vax cause brain damage, shots have tripled over 22 years. Merck’s MMR package insert has 5 pages of adverse events, warnings etc. Merck claims it’s not proved or disproved MMR is the cause, but admits MMR is associated with encephalitis, seizures, arthritis, diabetes and much more.
In 2008 Dr Bernadine Healy stated in a CBS news interview “Vaccines may cause autism” and “It’s inexcusable the proper research has not been done”. Dr Healy, Dr Wakefield and his 12 co-authors called for clinical research to investigate their 1998 paper and still do. Jenny McCarthy calls forresearch and “greening vaccines”
I don’t agree with everything Jenny says. I agree with EVERYTHING Drs Healy and Wakefield state. Both honorable people, accomplished physicians, prolific peer reviewed publishers. Both seek to help and protect kids by stopping the damage we cause
Here is evidence autism is triggered by sensitivity to toxins NOT genes
April-2011 PMID 21522181 “despite the strong influence of genetic factors, association studies have yet to identify… major effect genes”
July-2011 PMID 21727249 “Susceptibility to ASD has MODERATE genetic heritability and a SUBSTANTIAL… environmental component”
Since 1988 we have been making more vax antigens and drugs in gene altered bacteria. The “purified” product is ALWAYS contaminated with toxins and cell debris. Since 1988 we have tripled the number of shots kids get. Since 1988 vax profits and autism have risen. Since 1988 vax makers can’t be sued for the damge they cause
To increase profits drug companies add preservatives and adjuvants. These for-profit-toxins come with side effects, adding to what infants and kids with immature immune systems must deal with. The denial of the connection increases the numbers of kids and families thrown into the hellish world of regressive autism with no help, compensation or insurance.
Merck executives and scientists make 13 vaccines and many drugs. In 1996 Vioxx was killing people in clinical trials. Merck’s people hid the info and threatened doctors and researchers like Topol and Nissen who warned us. They lied to the FDA for approval and journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, to publish fraudulent support of their killer drug. When FDA Associate director of Drug Safety, David Graham, warned his superiors of his plan to publish a study about Vioxx deaths he was advised not to and ended up seeking whistleblower protection from the very agency charged with protecting us from bad drugs.
Merck paid Elsevier to publish a fake journal. They advertised Vioxx while publishing “studies” in the fake journal supporting it. This was one of 22 Elsevier was working on for over 30 drug companies. 9 were published, 13 were in the works, a secret until…
…Vioxx litigation subpoenas in Australia revealed this SEVERE breach of ethics in 2007. Elsevier publicly apologized. They stopped work on the 22 journals and promised to never do it again… the promise of a PROVED and knowing deceiver
Merck killed 45-60,000 Americans and injured up to 120,000 more with Vioxx (according to The Lancet) and payments so far have amounted to over $4 billion. Merck denies wrongdoing. Everyone at Merck who was knowingly involved should be charged with murder.
these same executives and scientists at Merck make about 13 pediatric vaxs. They put profits ahead of the lives of customers, they killed parents with Vioxx for money, they will kill and injure kids too
Your denial that vax injure kids when Merck’s admits they do helps vax makers profit while hurting kids.
My conflicts? I have a relative with regressive autism, a friend’s daughter with Asperger’s (which is not autism), a friend who has suffered a stroke from Vioxx
Mr. Polidori, you provided two cites:
April-2011 PMID 21522181, which is: Eur J Hum Genet. 2011 Apr 27.
Gene-ontology enrichment analysis in two independent family-based samples highlights biologically plausible processes for autism spectrum disorders.
and July-2011 PMID 21727249, which is Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011 Jul 4.
Genetic Heritability and Shared Environmental Factors Among Twin Pairs With Autism.
Neither of these are available in full. Could you do us a kind favor and email the full papers to the owners of this site so that they can be evaluated in full? Because the abstracts do not seem to point to vaccines. Thank you.
And really, the rest of the rant in now proves that vaccines cause autism or have risks greater than the disease. Could you please be specific on what real scientific evidence you have that shows the MMR vaccine causes more risk than measles, mumps and rubella? Though I suggest you read the comment that came after yours.
I knew one sounded familiar:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/07/genetic-heritability-and-shared-environmental-factors-among-twin-pairs-with-autism/
On a related theme, Leart, here’s Meryl Dorey commenting on the Pertussis vaccine trial in Australia which provides the first dose at six weeks instead of two months of age. She is responding to a commenter who states “Who in their right mind would sacrifice their new born to be a guinea pig? And what if there was a reaction will the powers that be, deny that the child was healthy in the first place?”
Dorey: “Maxine, since there are several other shots given at birth (vitamin K and Hep B), if your child reacts, you will really have a hard time laying blame because each drug company can blame the other. This is one of the ‘benefits’ to big pharma of multiple and multi-valent vaccine schedules. You can’t take legal action without being able to show what vaccine caused the reaction. And if there are many – you are out of luck.”
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=176397455730554&id=55142201924
Anti-vaccination liars are on a no-lose road paved with accusations of which reasonable people could only dream of inventing.
Then again, one of Dorey’s favourite fallacies is the Argument from ignorance. She doesn’t have to prove anything. She just makes accusations and never substantiates anything.
[...] to borrow Handley’s silly phrase, is that the kind of studies he and his ilk demand are unsafe and unreasonable as they’d literally endanger the lives of thousands of children. “Feigned exasperation” [...]