Infant Primates Given Vaccines On U.S. Children’s Immunization Schedule Develop Behavioral Symptoms Of Autism
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/107989.php
A primate model for autism using the U.S. children’s immunization schedule was unveiled at the International Meeting For Autism Research (IMFAR) this weekend. The research underscores the critical need for studies into vaccine safety and the immune and mitochondrial dysfunction of autistic children. The National Autism Association (NAA) questions why the government hasn’t undertaken these vital studies and why researchers have had to depend on private money to perform this critical science that will surely impact the health of millions of children worldwide.
While the authors and organizations associated with this study are withholding comment until publication, University of Pittsburgh’s Dr. Laura Hewitson, Ph.D., described at the IMFAR meeting how vaccinated animals, when compared to unvaccinated animals, showed significant neurodevelopmental deficits and “significant associations between specific aberrant social and non-social behaviors, isotope binding, and vaccine exposure.”
Researchers also reported at the scientific meeting that “vaccinated animals exhibited progressively severe chronic active inflammation whereas unexposed animals did not” and found “many significant differences in the GI tissue gene expression profiles between vaccinated and unvaccinated animals.” Gastrointestinal issues are a common symptom of children with regressive autism.
NAA calls for the NIH to conduct large scale, non-epidemiological studies into the biomedical symptoms surrounding young children and all vaccines, including those containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal and other additives like aluminum.
This request for further research echoes that of Dr. Bernadine Healy, Former NIH Director in a CBS interview earlier this week. “I think public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as ‘irrational,’ without sufficient studies of causation… without studying the population that got sick,” Healy said. “I have not seen major studies that focus on 300 kids who got autistic symptoms within a period of a few weeks of the vaccines.”
Recently the government’s vaccine court conceded the case of Hannah Poling, admitting that vaccines triggered her regression into autism by exacerbating mitochondrial dysfunction. “The recent Poling case and this new research provide further evidence that the CDC has fallen down on their job to protect children from harm. The biomedical research to date suggests that parental reports of regression following vaccination is not only plausible, but likely in certain individuals,” said Scott Bono, NAA Chairman. “To date, the CDC has conducted no safety testing on the possible harmful effects of simultaneously administering multiple vaccines to infants, and has steadfastly refused to state a preference for mercury-free vaccines to be given to children and pregnant women. It’s time for HHS and Congress to step in and take vaccine safety away from the CDC.”
I guess I tend to be in favor of vaccines and the like because measles, the mumps, rubella, polio – they’re all crappy things that are avoidable thanks to Edward Jenner. Granted, some are less icky than others – a kid can get over a case of the measles, but polio is about as wack as crack and far more permanent.
That being said, additives are kind of retarded a lot of the time, and in this day and age it is unlikely an infant will contract measles before they’re older and exposed to more
vectors of diseasekids.But hey, so long as you’re not like that HIV+ chick who had kids, didn’t get them any kind of treatment because she believed HIV =/= AIDS, and they died, it’s all good. Freedom of choice, etc.
I thnk that vaccines are awesome and I’m grateful they exist. However, I question the schedule the CDC recommends. It seems like medicine is quite happy to jump on bandwagons and then say, “Oops” later. I’m not feeling thrilled about flooding my infant’s system with vaccine’s when an older (and bigger) child gets the same quantities each shot sometimes with fewer shots needed.
river has only had one round of vaccines, which he got before we researched the issue much. he’ll probably get the whooping cough (pertussis) one eventually, when he’s a bit older. there are risks on both sides, but vaccines freak me out. when i was looking into this, people recommended “the vaccine book” by dr. sears and “vaccinations, a thoughtful parent’s guide”, both of which go into pretty in depth information on a case by case basis. overall the dr. sears is more pro-vaccination, but not by too much.
*nod* We’ve been doing a lot of research. We are strongly leaning towards Pertussis early because it is still a noticeable problem around here. Given the kind of international travel we plan to do our kids will be fully vaccinated–I just don’t believe it is necessary in the first year.
The thing I hate about popular news sources reporting on science is that they often leave out critical details in favor of sensation, which details would lessen the sensation. I.e. — what was the genotype of the primates they used in this study? Did they use proper controls? Because it sounds an awful lot like they used animals that were already predisposed to the mitochondrial defect or something similar that would predispose animals to autism…
I completely agree that this article leaves out information I would like to have. But what I appreciate about popular news sources reporting on science is that most of the time people aren’t told anything at all and are expected to just trust that someone out there has proven that something is ok without seeing any kind of evidence. I don’t trust scientists just because they think I should.
Actually, everything held scientifically “true” is published. Abstracts of all current and most past (i.e. before the Internet) peer-reviewed articles can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez … Getting the full-length articles is a little more tricky, you either have to pay for them or go to your local university, though they do contain all the data. But, for the average person, this is a heady task — both in obtaining the articles and sussing through them. It would be better if science reporting were a little more thorough and trust-worthy. From what I’ve read (a friend of mine likes to forward me science articles from time to time), most popular science articles contain one ounce of truth for ten pounds of fluff. Which hardly seems to do anyone a great service…
I have had a fair bit of trouble getting at articles. Although I will confess that I’m a cheap-ass person who doesn’t want to pay a lot of money for each one that I am interested in given that often it takes buying 10-15 articles to really understand a topic.
I also would like to vote for science articles being more trustworthy. Why I appreciate them is: given that I am not in a science field I don’t have any idea what research is being done most of the time. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but given the sheer volume of things in the world that I “should” keep track of I’m kind of out of bandwidth.
Yeah, even if you think/study/read about science all the time, it’s damn near impossible to stay current on very much… if you want to have a life, that is…
If you want to find journal articles for a specific subject, let me know and I’ll see what I can find. I have free access to a whole pile of sources through SJSU.
Empirical Anecdote
Only one of my three sisters did not vaccinate her kids (now in their late twenties, early thirties.) One of her kids did get mumps in elementary school. He was quite sick, as I recall. Had he gotten it now, it would have been much more serious (infertility, I think?)
FWIW, I had both guys vaccinated.
Re: Empirical Anecdote
*nod* Don’t get me wrong–I am not anti-vaccine. Well, except chicken pox. Chicken pox is one we are skipping altogether.
Re: Empirical Anecdote
I got to agree with this one…. I would only give my child the chicken pox one if they hit puberty and still hadn’t had it. As soon as my brother got it as a child, my mom basically locked me in the room with him so I would get it too…. and you know what we were fine… now if a child makes it through child hood without it… well then maybe you need the vaccine ’cause chicken pox as an adult is much much worse….
Re: Empirical Anecdote
My dad arranged for me to have a sleep over with a sick friend in order to get the chicken pox.
My mom was furious, but I think it was the way to go. I missed two weeks of first grade, and other than a little itchy-ness, and a screaming headache/fever, it wasn’t too bad an experience.
What is the CDC?
Center for Disease Control
I believe in vaccines, but think the current recommendation is quite harsh. Giving a two month old baby five vaccines all at once seems like an awful lot of stress on such an immature immune system. We went ahead and did it to our little boy and he’s fine, but I’m still uncomfortable with it.