The various vaccine manufactroversies that have spread in the wake of the Andrew Wakefield’s bogus claims that the measles component of the MMR vaccine might be linked to autism are too numerous to unpack in one brief blog post. One of the most persistent has been the Amish fallacy: Most Amish don’t vaccinate; there’s almost no record of autism in Amish communities; ergo, vaccines cause autism. (This argument has also been used, time and time and time again, to illustrate the efficacy of a proposed vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated study.)
Not surprisingly, no part of the Amish fallacy — which has been kicking around for over a decade and gained new prominence and attention with this, purely anecdotal 2005 dispatch* — is true. Over the years, Ken Reibel at Autism News Beat has documented the problems with the Amish report, although the myth still persists.
Yesterday, Reuters Health reported on a recent study in Pediatrics titled “Underimmunization in Ohio’s Amish: Parental Fears Are a Greater Obstacle Than Access to Care.” The study found that majority of Amish parents do, in fact, vaccinate their children…and among the minority that don’t, the most common reasons cited were the same anti-vaccine fueled fears that have infected people around the country.
Unlike the theories propagated by anti-vaccine activists, this study was definitely not anecdotal: It was based on surveys sent to hundreds of families in Holmes County, which has a large number of Amish families. As Reuters reports, “Of 359 households that responded to the survey, 85 percent said that at least some of their children had received at least one vaccine. Forty-nine families refused all vaccines for their children, mostly because they worried the vaccines could cause harm and were not worth the risk.”
The study’s conclusions summarize the issue quite succinctly:
The reasons that Amish parents resist immunizations mirror reasons that non-Amish parents resist immunizations. Even in America’s closed religious communities, the major barrier to vaccination is concern over adverse effects of vaccinations. If 85% of Amish parents surveyed accept some immunizations, they are a dynamic group that may be influenced to accept preventative care. Underimmunization in the Amish population must be approached with emphasis on changing parental perceptions of vaccines in addition to ensuring access to vaccines.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the days to come…and what objections will be raised to invalidate this latest piece of evidence.
* Correction: In the first iteration of this post, I attributed the Amish-don’t-vaccinate myth to the 2005 UPI dispatch linked to above; as was pointed out in the comments, it has been kicking around since at least 2000.
sethmnookin:
matthewherper (Matthew Herper)
bellasmommy808 (Isabella's Mommy)
carlzimmer (carlzimmer)
Yes, Olmsted was wrong–the Amish do vaccinate.
It would be interesting if Olmsted’s other point–that there is no autism among the Amish–was not also wrong. However, a group from the University of Miami and Vanderbilt University reported at the 2010 International Meeting for Autism Research that door-to-door ascertainment in two of the country’s largest Amish communities (including Holmes County, which was included in the study that you cited) produced a preliminary estimate of the the prevalence of autism of 1 in 271 children in those communities. While that is lower than the reported prevalence in the general population, it is clear that Olmsted’s idea that research consists simply of collecting anecdotes is wrong again.
The reported incidence of autism amongst the Amish is also not likely the true incidence. The Amish run their own hospitals for children with problems, and tend not to access state services. Many families quite deliberately avoid involving formal diagnoses. This is not evidence that the children do not exist (actually, because of problems with inbreeding, many Amish communities have a very high incidence of children with certain inherited cognitive disabilities, and no this is not hearsay, this is based on my having sorted through 10+ years of Amish birth announcements and community notices for a thesis project) — but they do not make these children particularly visible, either. And in the case of “mild” or “high-functioning” autism, where the children do not need intensive services in a hospital, they are often quietly integrated into the community without any label whatsoever.
Nutshell version: reported incidence likely much too low because of lack of formal identification.
http://amishamerica.com/clinic-for-special-children-benefit-auction/
http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-visit-doctors/
Do the Amish vaccinate according to the CDC schedule? For many of us, the question isn’t whether vaccines in general are beneficial. For a lot of us parents who look to balance the benefits and risks, the question is whether the current schedule is bloated and if so many vaccines given at the same time cause problems. Additionally, do the Amish vaccinate with HepB on the day of birth? For me, this is the most insane and unnecessary assault on infants. Unless the mother is a carrier, since the risk of contracting HepB in infancy is very small, why not wait until the child’s immune system is a bit more mature? My child has received all the vaccines according to the CDC’s schedule and has PDD. If I could do it again, I’d vaccinate, but on a very different schedule, more closely resembling the schedule my parents followed when I was an infant in the 60′s. Surely there has to be a middle ground that will protect children from both infectious diseases and possible harm to their developing immune systems. It seems to be that only the most rabid defenders on each side of this issue have a problem with a slower but still thorough approach to vaccination.
So I took all these courses in immunology and cell biology, and I can’t, for the life of me, remember anything about a mature/immature immune system. Do you mean by “mature” an immune system that has been exposed to more antigens? Or just age-wise?
Just curious. Thanks.
Rene,
if you find out the difference between “immature” and “mature” immune systems, would you be so kind as to let us know how an “immature” immune system responds to an infection of something like measles?
It strikes me that if an immune system were somehow “immature” it would be at greater risk of not being able to manage an infection. This would suggest that the protection offered by vaccines would be *more* important to infants.
Like you, just curious.
I would like to reply to this. If you were to search for more in-depth biological responses to toxins, you would find the answer. The human body has it’s own capability to detoxify substances (Super-Oxide Dismutase, Catalase) and an infant might not have that portion of it’s body as fully developed as an older child due to toxicity being BODY WEIGHT DEPENDENT. Bigger bodies can take more toxins. The toxins and other possible infectious agents inside of a vaccine might be too much for a small baby to handle and may cause untold damage to development withing the nervous system and brain.
So, please, STOP using your education to bully people who’s concerns you don’t agree with. You just might be wrong or have incomplete knowledge on the subject.
We can go around in circles forever with people proposing vague hypotheses about how toxins cause autism.
But we have data that shows clearly that, for example, thimerosal does not increase the risk of autism. Hypotheses that go against data are not a valuable use of time.
It isn’t a matter of whether I agree or disagree with people’s concerns. It’s a matter of the facts not fitting the concerns.
I’d be interested in what in my comment above you interpret as “bullying”.
bullying = anytime a strong argument is used to counter a weak argument.
For those of you that do not research and just want to believe what ever you are told and buy into the vaccine myth, I have hard evidence that thimerosal and vaccination does cause autism. lets take a look at what the creator of thimerosal, Eli Lilly and co. states in their Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) on Thimerosal and than a Tripedia insert.
The following are excerpts from the Material Safety Data Sheet for thimerosal, published by Eli Lilly and Company. Effective date is 22 Dec 1999. Seasonal flu vaccines are being recommended for use in pregnant women, despite the following warnings taken directly from the Material Safety Data Sheet.
Primary Physical and Health Hazards: Skin Permeable. Toxic Mutagen (causes genetic mutation). Eye Irritant. Allergen. Nervous system and reproductive effects.
Caution Statement: Thimerosal may enter the body through the skin, is toxic, alters genetic material. Effects of exposure may include numbness of extremities fetal changes, decreased offspring survival and lung tissue changes.
Exposure to mercury in utero may cause mild to severe mental retardation and mild to severe motor coordination impairment.
Reference: http://www.vaccine-tlc.org/docs/Thimerosal%20Material%20Safety%20Data%20Sheet.pdf
Below is the original Tripedia – Diphtheria, Tetanus Toxoid, and Acellular Pertussis Vaccine (DTaP)Vaccine Insert from Sanofi-Pasteur. Tripedia was discontinued in 2011 and the Sanofi Pasteur will continue to distribute the vaccine until supplies are depleted in the 2nd quarter of 2011. Certain information that was originally included in the insert was later deleted before it was taken off the market. Encephalopathy a term for any diffuse disease of the brain that alters brain function or structure. Encephalopathy may be caused by infectious agent (bacteria, virus, or prion), metabolic or mitochondrial dysfunction, brain tumor or increased pressure in the skull, prolonged exposure to toxic elements (including solvents, drugs, radiation, paints, industrial chemicals, and certain metals), chronic progressive trauma, poor nutrition, or lack of oxygen or blood flow to the brain. The hallmark of encephalopathy is an altered mental state. Depending on the type and severity of encephalopathy, common neurological symptoms are progressive loss of memory and cognitive ability, subtle personality changes, inability to concentrate, lethargy, and progressive loss of consciousness. Other neurological symptoms may include myoclonus (involuntary twitching of a muscle or group of muscles), nystagmus (rapid, involuntary eye movement), tremor, muscle atrophy and weakness, dementia, seizures, and loss of ability to swallow or speak. Blood tests, spinal fluid examination, imaging studies, electroencephalograms, and similar diagnostic studies may be used to differentiate the various causes of encephalopathy.
Reference: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/encephalopathy/encephalopathy.htm
In the German case-control study and US open-label safety study in which 14, 971 infants received Tripedia (diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine) vaccine, 13 deaths in Tripedia (diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine) vaccine recipients were reported. Causes of deaths included seven SIDS, and one of each of the following: enteritis, Leigh Syndrome, adrenogenital syndrome, cardiac arrest, motor vehicle accident, and accidental drowning. All of these events occurred more than two weeks past immunization.2 The rate of SIDS observed in the German case-control study was 0.4/1, 000 vaccinated infants. The rate of SIDS observed in the US open-label safety study was 0.8/1, 000 vaccinated infants and the reported rate of SIDS in the US from 1985-1991 was 1.5/1, 000 live births.34 By chance alone, some cases of SIDS can be expected to follow receipt of whole-cell pertussis DTP35 or DTaP vaccines. An OURAGEOUS STATEMENT!! But yet they finally took it off the market without giving a reason why.
Another example of how the people you trust just dismisses that Tripedia causes SIDS, Autism and encephalopathy. You should be outraged as I am. When your child is injured the government is not responsible, your physician is not responsible and the pharmaceuticals are not responsible. Who did you look up to, too protect you when you were a child? Your parents!
Additional Adverse Reactions:
As with other aluminum-containing vaccines, a nodule may be palpable at the injection sites for several weeks. Sterile abscess formation at the site of injection has been reported.3,36
Rarely, an anaphylactic reaction (ie, hives, swelling of the mouth, difficulty breathing, hypotension, or shock) has been reported after receiving preparations containing diphtheria, tetanus, and/or pertussis antigens.3
Arthus-type hypersensitivity reactions, characterized by severe local reactions (generally starting 2-8 hours after an injection), may follow receipt of tetanus toxoid.
A few cases of peripheral mononeuropathy and of cranial mononeuropathy have been reported following tetanus toxoid administration, although available evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation.37
A review by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found evidence for a causal relationship between tetanus toxoid and both brachial neuritis and Guillain-Barré syndrome.37
A few cases of demyelinating diseases of the CNS have been reported following some tetanus toxoid-containing vaccines or tetanus and diphtheria toxoid-containing vaccines, although the IOM concluded that the evidence was inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship.37
Adverse events reported during post-approval use of Tripedia (diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine) vaccine include idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, SIDS, anaphylactic reaction, cellulitis, autism, convulsion/grand mal convulsion, encephalopathy, hypotonia, neuropathy, somnolence and apnea. Events were included in this list because of the seriousness or frequency of reporting. Because these events are reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequencies or to establish a causal relationship to components of Tripedia (diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine) vaccine.2b
Reference: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM101580.pdf on page 11 of 13
https://www.vaccineshoppe.com/assets/pdf/tripedia.pdf on page 11of 13 and
http://www.rxlist.com/tripedia-drug/side-effects-interactions.htm toward the bottom
“I have hard evidence that thimerosal and vaccination does cause autism.”
Which vaccine on the American pediatric schedule is only available with thimerosal. Do not include influenza, because half of the influenza vaccines are vaccine free. Also, there are two other DTaP vaccines without thimerosal.
Please be reminded that lawyer written vaccine inserts are not scientific evidence because they leave out one very important bit of data: relative risk.
” The rate of SIDS observed in the US open-label safety study was 0.8/1, 000 vaccinated infants and the reported rate of SIDS in the US from 1985-1991 was 1.5/1, 000 live births.3″
Old research, especially since there have been changes in pertussis vaccines. Here is more recent science, which if you did real research you would not ignore:
Vaccine. 2012 Jan 5;30(2):247-53.
Lack of association between childhood immunizations and encephalitis in California, 1998-2008.
Pediatrics Vol. 126 No. 2 August 1, 2010 (doi: 10.1542/peds.2009-1496)
Lack of Association Between Acellular Pertussis Vaccine and Seizures in Early Childhood
Pediatrics. 2010 Oct;126(4):656-64. Epub 2010 Sep 13.
Prenatal and infant exposure to thimerosal from vaccines and immunoglobulins and risk of autism
Pediatrics, February 2009, Vol. 123(2):475-82
Neuropsychological Performance 10 years after Immunization in Infancy with Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines
Pediatrics, February 2008; 121(2) e208-214
Mercury Levels in Newborns and Infants after Receipt of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines
Vaccine. 2007 Jun 21;25(26):4875-9. Epub 2007 Mar 16.
Do immunisations reduce the risk for SIDS? A meta-analysis.
Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2006 Sep;25(9):768-73.
Encephalopathy after whole-cell pertussis or measles vaccination: lack of evidence for a causal association in a retrospective case-control study.
Rene & Matt, do you think it is OK that modern medicine is apparently pretty ignorant about the newborn immune system? And we’re just piling on more and more vaccines but, according to you, in your basic classes in the immune system there was nothing on the maturing of an infant’s immune system? Are you assuming that, unlike for example the GI and nervous and muscular systems, the baby is born with a fully mature immune system with no changes to occcur other than developing a memory of various microbes?
I can’t believe you’re making fun of Cathy for suggesting that an infant’s immune systems may be immature.
Here’s an interesting article about how little we really know about “Early Life Immune Challenges”:
http://passionlessdrone.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/a-brief-overview-on-early-life-immune-challenges-and-why-they-might-matter/
Here’s and interesting article about how inadequate are the studies on the Hep B vaccine:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/07/hilary-butler-on-unanswered-questions-about-hep-b-vaccine.html
They’re making fun because yes, the immune system works immediately, otherwise babies would all die from nothing more than all the viruses and bacteria in our vagina.
We’re covered in infectious material and breathe it in and touch it and eat it all day. Babies are constantly exposed to all kinds of things just by being picked up and snuggled. That’s why evolution created the immune system, for all its imperfections.
I took a look at the passionless drone post and my medical background is not good enough to comment on those pieces of research. My first question would be “Is the immune response created by injecting something that causes septic shock (LPS or gram-negative bacteria) equivalent to a vaccine?” I don’t know the answer.
I hope that someone with a medical background can address that issue for you. I know my limits.
As for Age of Autism…that article approvingly quotes Wakefield. ::shakes head:: Not touching that with a 10-foot pole.
“Rene & Matt, do you think it is OK that modern medicine is apparently pretty ignorant about the newborn immune system? ”
I think that modern medicine is far more educated about the immune system that people who spend a lot of time talking about the “immature immune system” as a talking point about vaccines.
I stopped reading the Age of Autism blog. After years and hundreds of posts, I found it to be a frustrating waste of time. They substitute hatred for understanding. And that is on a good day. They are one of the major sources of misinformation on autism on the net. They have a stated mission to create fear of vaccines.
I believe this statement made it quite clear–
Would you be so good as to point out where I was “making fun” of anyone? I asked a serious question. Perhaps you might take the question seriously rather than dismissing it and my motives. That would help to insure a discussion rather than the sort of nonsense that is the mainstay of your source, the age of autism blog.
Just to be clear–
would you be so kind as to explain how a newborn’s immune system would differ from an adult’s in the response to a measles infection?
It is a serious question. Part of the answer, I suspect, is that the infant is less likely to survive, or to get through the infection without permanent injury.
Here is a quote from the Zepp article that pD mentioned–
The argument about “immature” immune systems is generally that they are “overwhelmed” by vaccines. How, exactly, does that happen if their responses are “weaker, slower and less specific”?
Another argument is “why are infants given the same dose in a vaccine as an adult”. Given the “weaker, slower and less specific” nature of their immune system, how exactly is the dose question a problem? Shouldn’t they be exploring higher doses for this population, if anything?
Well, T cell development in the thymus is very robust until puberty. We are not sure how T cell population is maintained after puberty, when the intrathymic T cell lymphopoiesis drops to a tiny fraction of what it was before. Maybe we should look into the literature that studies the T cell repertoire heterogeneity of infants vs someone post-puberty and see if that impacts the generation of immunological memory?
Amen, Cathy!
Could I ask you to clarify, Amen to what exactly?
As Rene points out, the idea of the “immature” immune system isn’t supported. For another example, children are not given the MMR vaccine until 12 months. This delay is not because their immune systems are “immature” quite the contrary. The infant’s immune system is working well, and is producing antibodies based on the mother’s transfer. The Measles vaccine doesn’t work in these young infants because their immune systems are working.
She also said “I’d vaccinate, but on a very different schedule, more closely resembling the schedule my parents followed when I was an infant in the 60′s.”
Depending on when in the 1960′s, there was no schedule. Infants were given as few as one vaccine: polio. Possibly DTP. The measles vaccine wasn’t licensed. MMR didn’t exist. There were outbreaks of rubella that were causing large numbers of miscarriages and birth defects, and no protection. Meningitis was a relatively common childhood disease (the vaccine didn’t come out until the 1990′s, if I recall correctly).
In the 1960′s, a child might get the whole cell pertussis vaccine. Not the more modern acellular vaccine. Preserved with thimerosal.
Somehow I would have thought you wouldn’t be comfortable with whole cell pertussis and thimerosal. What about allowing measles, mumps and rubella back? Hib meningitis?
I’m not going to amen that.
Most of you know nothing about living through the 60;s(and 50′s) and actually having the diseases. Your comments are made with no understanding or education of those times. Well–hello-I lived through the 50′s and 60′s and was in school then. I grew up in in large metropolitan city -had 1800 in my high school and never knew one person in my school or neighborhood who went to the hosptial for any of the diseases you talk about–and certainly nobody who died or got autism. I had all the diseases as did my sisters and friends etc etc. It was no big deal and I got immunity for life from them You all write as if half the population walked around with the plague and then died. You all sound so ridiculous.
This is exactly why anecdotes are not the plural of data.
I was born in the late 1950s, and I knew people who were affected by the diseases. Even when the standard of the time was to keep bad things away from children.
When I was in first grade we were living in California because my father was serving in Vietnam. One time I entered the kitchen where my mother was talking to a neighbor. I only caught part of the conversation, they stopped when they saw me. It was about another child who had measles and needed to go to a different school because he became deaf.
Do you think Roald Dahl made up the story about his oldest child, Olivia? Do you think your parents would have told you about friends they knew who had a child with Congenital Rubella Syndrome, and then had to be sent to an institution like Willowbrook?
Did you even know or care that somewhere in your state were schools specifically for the deaf, the blind and the mentally disabled? Like the one Arthur Miller, the playwright, sent his son with Down Syndrome to as an infant. At least that has a happy ending, not like what happened to the epileptic daughter of Henrietta Lacks (there is a book with her name in the title, read it).
Do you think the numbers from the CDC Pink Book Appendix G are fictional? Do you think the following papers are fictional:
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2006 Mar;160(3):302-9.
Impact of specific medical interventions on reducing the prevalence of mental retardation.
Brosco JP, Mattingly M, Sanders LM.
J Infect Dis. 2004 May 1;189 Suppl 1:S210-5.
Measles hospitalizations, United States, 1985-2002.
Lee B, Ying M, Papania MJ, Stevenson J, Seward JF, Hutchins SS.
Epidemiology Program Office, and National Immunization Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30333, USA.
J Infect Dis. 2004 May 1;189 Suppl 1:S69-77.
Acute measles mortality in the United States, 1987-2002.
Gindler J, Tinker S, Markowitz L, Atkinson W, Dales L, Papania MJ.
National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
yes, I think the CDC numbers are fictional since you are asking. come on 36,000 people have died from the flu for the last 20 years.
Downs syndrome is genetic.
Every person who is blind, deaf and mentally challenged didn’t get that way just from rubella, measles and the mumps. Come on—another ridiculous point of yours. This is exactly why biased information is trouble for some. Do you even care that the numbers of autism are 1 in every 58 boys in this country? Do you even care that in the next few years there will be almost a million children on the spectrum about to become adults-most who will never live independently, and most who will have no services at all, and most that we will all be supporting with our taxes? Do you even care how much these children suffer ?
Maurine, do you even care that you have been making the same ridiculous claims for years and still don’t have any real science on your side?
The point I made about Arthur Miller’s child is that he was warehoused in an institution. Which is also where children who were disabled from measles, polio, rubella, meningitis ended up.
That is why they were not in your high school.
Are you really trying to go back to the days where one out of a thousand kids are permanently disabled or killed by disease?
Do you really want the return of places like Willowbrook?
Chris-No, I don’t want to return to Willowbrook but I fear what will happen to all those children on the spectrum who will soon be adults and what will happen to them, especially when their main caregivers die. The numbers will be anything beyond anything you have ever imagined.
There you go again, Maurine, assuming an increase in incidence when no such data exist.
Maureen, then why are you campaigning so hard for those diseases to return?
First, your experience in high school doesn’t matter because the kids who had autism, Down Syndrome, were deaf and/or blind, and had a variety of other disabilities due to genetics and diseases were in institutions like Willowbrook. Disabled children were not even allowed in most public schools until after 1975!
What part of that do you not understand?
Second, you need use real data of what the real risks are. Not your silly anecdotes, especially since you are oblivious to what it was like fifty years ago.
My son is permanently disabled by seizures he from an actual disease. I know all too painfully about the lack of resources for disabled adults. This wild goose chase against vaccines is both a waste of money, and a guaranteed way to cause more harm… and more adults permanently disabled due to measles, pertussis, Hib, meningitis, etx.
Chris-No, I don’t want to return to Willowbrook but I fear what will happen to all those children on the spectrum who will soon be adults and what will happen to them, especially when their main caregivers die
Would you be so kind as to point me to where your advocacy has placed an emphasis on a better life for autistic adults? Given years of effort, there should be a great body of work you can point to.
Unfortunately, most of what I see is an effort to point some sort of blame on vaccines as a causative agent. Besides being on the wrong side of history and science, this effort has done nothing towards a
In fact, by denying the existence of a great population of autistic adults (as has been necessary to promote the “epidemic”), one could make a good argument that your efforts have actually been counterproductive towards improving the status of autistic adults.
Hi Matt Carey –
Regarding the measles vaccine and the appropriate functioning of the infants immune system, I think that all we need to do is look elsewhere on this blog to find that many of the infants who got the measles in the “outbreaks” were listed as “too young to be vaccinated”. Yet, our children receive vaccines within a day or week of birth, at two months, at four months, and again at six months; long before we give the MMR.
Why? Why not just give the MMR at birth? Or at the two month appointment? Why is there any age at which any infant is unprotected if the infants immune system can generate an appropriate response to a vaccination from the day they are born?
There have been attempts to vaccinate younger infants in the past with high titer measle vaccines; unfortunately several populations experienced increased mortality rates and/or persistent immunological changes from these experiments.
Divergent mortality for male and female recipients of low-titer and high-titer measles vaccines in rural Senegal
In the 4-year period, the female/male mortality ratio was 1.33 for recipients of high-titer Edmonston-Zagreb or Schwarz vaccines, compared with 0.67 for recipients of the Schwarz standard vaccine (p = 0.013). The Schwarz standard and high-titer measles vaccines had divergent sex-specific effects on mortality throughout childhood to be taken into consideration in future studies of measles vaccination.
(snipped for space purposes)
The measles vaccine is somewhat of a special case, I think this is likely the result of an attenuated but still alive measles virus and associated immunosuppresive features of measles. Maybe some others out there know more.
Regarding maternal transfer, I believe that what is happening is that the mother transfers antibodies to the infant, as opposed to the infant generating its own antibodies; this is functionally different than the infants immune system working the way it works once they are older. If the infant was creating their own antibodies, there would be no reason for a vaccine at all; they’d already have the capacity to do what we want the vaccine to do.
In any case, I think that we should tread very carefully in proclaiming that the immune function of a neonate or infant is equivalent to that of a child or adult. I have another post with links in moderation that speaks towards recent research to this effect.
- pD
If you have read any studies regarding infant immune systems, you will know that there is a certain amount of maternal antibody transfer that occurs, pre-natally, which continues to protect the child for months after birth. An infant’s immune system is ready and able from birth to create its own antibodies, but the maternal antibodies add extra protection. Not because the immune system is immature or faulty, but a serious infection can affect other systems that aren’t yet mature. Digestion, circulatory and respiratory systems for example.
Another factor to consider, if a mother is breastfeeding her child, there will continue to be a maternal antibody transfer for about four of five months after birth. The measles antibodies in particular seem to be resilient in the maternal transfer to the infant and that is why the measles vaccine isn’t administered earlier, the maternal antibodies left over from maternal transfer cancel out a natural immune response in the infant. Research studies have shown maternal antibodies from measles don’t disappear from an infant until they are 12 to 15 months of age. That is why the measles vaccine is postponed until that time because giving a child a vaccine that will be ineffective, is just pointless.
“Yet, our children receive vaccines within a day or week of birth, at two months, at four months, and again at six months; long before we give the MMR. ”
Too young to be vaccinated against measles
That’s different than a blanket “too young to be vaccinated”.
“Why? Why not just give the MMR at birth? Or at the two month appointment? ”
I believe you touch on the very reasons in your comment:
The reason for the delay with the MMR is that it doesn’t give immunity if given so early. The explanation I have heard is that this is due to the transference of immunity from the mother–an immunity which attacks the weakened measles virus before it can provide the lasting immunity intended.
That was Jenny’s amen choir.
Did you know that Jenny McCarthy is selling ‘The Rescue Bullet” now with a portion of each sale (she doesn’t say how big a portion, or how small for that matter) going to Generation Rescue? It’s essentially the Magic Bullet blender but blue. Even though blue is my favorite color, I still won’t come anywhere close to buying this. She’s advertising on HomelandHousewares channel on YouTube. Is it just me or is that completely tacky?
I’ll counter your anecdote with two of mine: Both of my children were vaccinated according to the CDC’s schedule and they don’t have PDD. In fact, they’re both quite intelligent and advanced for their ages. Hey, vaccines make kids smarter!
Oh well, maybe not. Too bad. That would be pretty awesome, though.
There are a few problems with the slower approach. First and foremost is that there’s no good medical reason for it. As Rene notes, there’s no such thing as a “mature” immune system. The reason vaccines work in little babies is because they’re ready to go from the start. In fact, they get a head start from mom, via those cool antibodies that last for six months or so.
Another problem is that the vaccine schedule has been worked out with some care to give the vaccines as early as possible in order to try and reach kids before they’re exposed to the diseases. The longer you wait, the more chance that kids will get the disease first, and that’s kind of what we’re trying to avoid.
A third (minor) problem is one of simple administration: Pediatricians have to keep track of a lot of data and if you screw with the schedule, vaccinations might get missed because the doctor assumes your kid has already had it. It’ll get caught eventually, thanks to the state’s requirements for school, but it’s still a risk.
(One more anecdote: I’m glad I didn’t delay my 2-year-old son’s varicella vaccine, because he caught a very minor case of chicken pox recently. Thanks to the vaccine, it was so minor I almost didn’t learn what it was!)
In my copious free time, I’m reading up on the HepB vaccine, because I’m not sure of the logic behind the very early administration of it. I don’t want to comment on that until I’ve learned a bit more.
Not all hepB positive mothers know they are infected, or want to confide to their doctors/nurses. And the test for HepB is not 100% effective. The virus can be passed to the infant during birth, and the vaccine can prevent infection in a newborn who is exposed while passing through the birth canal.
You cannot catch HepB from the HepB b vaccine, since it is made with recombinant technology. Since it became available 30 years ago, over 100 million people have received the vaccine in theUS and no serious side effects have been reported in the medical literature.
Thank you! I gave both my kids the HepB vaccine gladly, but I didn’t know what the specific logic was behind the early administration.
Cathy,
That vaccine schedule from the 60s contained more antigens, and more thimerosal, than today’s schedule. Did you know that?
I’d also like to know what an “immature” immune system is.
one other thought that comes to mind is modulating the amonut of vaccine in the jab proportionate to the body weight of the child.
Why would we do that?
Researchers have already reduced the number antigens far below what it used to be. Simply halving the amount of liquid in the shot isn’t going to improve anything.
Heck, what kids get in the shots is a lot less material than they’re exposed to walking down the street or playing on a playground.
“one other thought that comes to mind is modulating the amonut of vaccine in the jab proportionate to the body weight of the child.”
The MMR vaccine, if I recall correctly, has 1 measles virus particle. How, exactly, would you reduce the dose?
Recall that the immunity transferred from the mother is enough to overcome the measles virus in the vaccine before it gives immunity. So, this is not an overwhelming challenge, is it?
Alright, so I did some research and read some books on immunology. I then reviewed the published information on vaccines. Oh, and I even dug up some notes from my professors. Guess what? The immune system is good and ready to go at birth, and here’s why: http://blog.epiren.com/2011/06/does-your-immune-system-tell-fart-jokes.html
Cathy says:
“do the Amish vaccinate with HepB on the day of birth? For me, this is the most insane and unnecessary assault on infants. Unless the mother is a carrier, since the risk of contracting HepB in infancy is very small, why not wait until the child’s immune system is a bit more mature?”
The reasons for the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine are stated in the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendations:
“Hepatitis B vaccine can be administered soon after birth with only minimal decrease in immunogenicity, compared with administration at older ages, and no decrease in protective efficacy”
“[A]dministering a birth dose to infants even without [hepatitis B immune globulin (HBIG)] serves as a “safety net” to prevent perinatal infection among infants born to HBsAg-positive mothers who are not identified because of errors in maternal HBsAg testing or failures in reporting of test results. The birth dose also provides early protection to infants at risk for infection after the perinatal period. Administration of a birth dose has been associated with higher rates of on-time completion of the hepatitis B vaccine series. In certain populations, the birth dose has been associated with improved completion rates for all other infant vaccines, although findings have not been consistent.”
A Comprehensive Immunization Strategy to Eliminate Transmission of Hepatitis B Virus Infection in the United States
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5416a1.htm?s_cid=rr5416a1_e
This study abstract states that, “Holmes County, Ohio, one of the largest Amish communities in the world, has persistently low immunization rates. Studies of other Amish communities have revealed that parents do not immunize their children because of lack of access to immunizations.”
Of 1000 surveyed, only 359 responded. It’s quite possible that those who don’t vaccinate feared reporting that they don’t vaccinate. Of those who did respond, “68% stated that all of their children had received at least 1 immunization, and 17% reported that some of their children had received at least 1 immunization. ” There is no indication as to whether any of these children received the full CDC recommended schedule, and at what age they started vaccinating. Hepatitis B on day of birth? Two dozen vaccines by age two? It does not appear that this study says whether that was the case for any of these children. In the 1980′s we gave far fewer vaccines than now, and had much lower autism rates. As the vaccine schedule increased, so did the rate of autism. One vaccine IMO is unlikely to cause autism. A series of multiple vaccines over a the first two years of life is not the same as a much smaller number of vaccines, maybe just one vaccine, maybe received at a later age.
Nothing in this study contradicts Dan Olmsted’s articles. This study focussed on asking why people don’t vaccinate. It did not look at autism rates. Based on the abstract it did not look at how many vaccines were received at what age. It stated that the rate of vaccination is generally much lower among the Amish.
From Mr. Olmsted’s original series on autism (May 20, 2005)
Mr. Olmsted didn’t even do the simple work to find out that (a) there is no religious stance by the Amish on vaccines and (b) that there was a clinic in Lancaster County which was working hard on increasing the vaccination rates amongst the Amish.
The reasons why the Amish are not vaccinating are now fear. 10 years ago, the reasons were different.
Who cares exactly how Olmsted has been wrong over the years. The fact of the matter is that he not only has caused harm to the autism communities, he has caused harm to the Amish.
To paraphrase JB Handley, Dan Olmsted can “take a bow”. Too bad his life’s work has been not just a waste, but a cause of harm.
Twyla wrote: “Nothing in this study contradicts Dan Olmsted’s articles. This study focussed on asking why people don’t vaccinate. It did not look at autism rates.”
Apparently you neglected to read my comment, the first response in this thread, which was posted nearly an hour before you wrote. If you read it now, you’ll learn that a research effort by scientists at reputable universities (Vanderbilt University and the University of Miami School of Medicine), which included door-to-door ascertainment in communities dominated by Old Order Amish, resulted in a preliminary estimate of autism prevalence which showed, in quite direct contradiction to Olmsted’s nonsensical articles, that autism is indeed common among the old order Amish. These results were disclosed over a year ago.
There’s just no way that you can spin this. Olmsted is wrong—yet again.
http://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2010/webprogram/Paper7336.html
Mr. Olmsted is a paid publicist for an anti-vaccine interest group. He has already made up his mind what he wants to be true, then fabricates evidence to support his claim. That is the opposite of how science works.
The most important part of your post was the IMO. Your opinion doesn’t really matter much in the greater scheme of things. Opinion is just that, what you think, your personal take on a situation. And opinions can be wrong, particularly when fact and science are there to prove it is wrong. Perception can become skewed (for example, a paranoid individual walks into a room and everyone stops talking and looks around at them. Was everyone really talking about that individual or is that individual just being paranoid?) and that is why anecdotes can never prove a scientific theory.
I could tell my story too about my children and my own experience growing up unvaccinated, but I’ve told it before. And in the greater scheme of things, my story doesn’t mean squat either. What does matter is the scientific evidence that has shown vaccines don’t cause autism, they never have. While it appears that autism is on the rise, much of that is due to better diagnostic methods and screening tools. That will account for a good majority of the increase today. How many people did you go to school with that were just a little bit off, not quite normal, did weird things and were not quite right? What are the odds that those people had an ASD as is defined today in the DSM-IV? Back then, autism was limited to the severely and profoundly autistic, not to those who today have Asperger’s or even PDD-NOS. These people weren’t put in schools where we would have seen them, most of them were institutionalized and kept away from society.
I mentioned something the other day to my partner just as a humorous thought, because I had read that there is significant evidence that shows advanced parental age can create a significant increase in the risk of having a child with ASD. So, when we were children, our parents were younger then we are now and having children. The generation before was even younger. It isn’t uncommon for a woman now to build her career first and put off starting her family until she is in her 30′s or even 40′s. What caused this trend to occur? Well, the feminist movement of course. The Equal rights movement fought to give women greater power and freedom in the community and in business. That being the case, the women took that freedom and made it in the business world and postponed their child baring until later. One could almost take that information and say the feminist movement caused autism.
As ridiculous as that may sound, that is exactly how the vaccine causes autism theory sounds to everyone else. It’s all coincidence and nothing more. It isn’t that hard to figure it out, it just takes reading the information and applying common sense. Of course, it’s possible that those who follow this line of thinking are only doing it because they feel the need to make themselves special and feel like a victim and who better to be a victim of them government and big pharma.
Nobody can convince me that vaccines caused autism in my son, or in anyone else. This debate is over and needs to be set aside because research studies are coming closer to finding the real cause and it has NOTHING to do with vaccines and everything to do with pre-natal development and even going back to conception. Eventually, the key will be located and the door will be unlocked. What will you do then? Will you still cling to this old and tired routine? Good luck with that.
Thanks for sharing this Seth. I just downloaded and read the paper. I noticed that only 356 out of 1000 surveys were returned. Of these 68% had given their child at least one shot. Does this mean only 242 of the 1000 families had at least one vaccine? The paper also states that 47% of this group of 242 know someone who had an adverse reaction to a vaccine. With only one or more vaccines administerd (most likely the Tetanus shot at an older age) this adverse reaction event might raise some eyebrows. It seems if you get all 70 some vaccine doses now reccomended for kids safety might be a concern for some. Thanks for the information Seth. Were you able to read the entire paper?
This blog post surprised me because anecdotally, vaccination rates among fringe religious minority groups like the Amish are lower than for the general population. To this point, I remember reading an article in the Journal of Infectious Disease from the early 90′s about measles outbreaks in unvaccinated children in the Amish community. Investigators at the CDC examine an Amish community in Pennsylvania to observe the relative severity of Measles in primary infections as compared to secondary infections. This topic would have implications for herd immunity and population vaccination rates.
Sutter RW, Markowitz LE, Bennetch JM, Morris W, Zell ER, Preblud SR. Measles among the Amish: a comparative study of measles severity in primary and secondary cases in households. J Infect Dis. 1991 Jan;163(1):12-6.
I still see the Amish story pop up in internet discussions. Carolyn Maloney (representative from NY) is still pushing the idea:
She has proposed legislation built around this (the link for the latest version, still citing the Amish, is on the page linked above).
I would point out that both you (Seth) and representative Maloney are incorrect. The idea that the Amish don’t vaccinate and don’t have autism can be found in documents going back to around the year 2000. I recall reading old SafeMinds literature pushing the idea. Olmsted may have taken the idea and popularized it, but he didn’t originate it.
That said, someone needs to remind representative Maloney that the idea holds no water. Again.
It is worth pointing out that the idea that the Amish do, indeed, vaccinate is old.
2006: Vaccination usage among an old-order Amish community in Illinois
Even in 2001, long before Dan Olmsted took the story and ran with it: Haemophilus influenzae Type b Disease Among Amish Children in Pennsylvania: Reasons for Persistent Disease. The Amish were vaccinating then.
The Hib study gave a survey to parents who didn’t vaccinate their kids. The reasons were not based on fear. If the change between the Hib study and the recent pediatrics study you discuss are real, it paints a very disturbing picture. Fear of immunization had been injected into the Amish communities. This is the sort of damage that JB Handley of Generation Rescue seemed proud of when he told his readers to “Take a bow” for similar reports of increased fear.
The study of autism prevalence amongst the Amish was almost ready to submit when I contacted the lead author last fall. The sad thing about this saga is that the IMFAR abstract was available (and I believe Mr. Olmsted was aware of it) before the book “the Age of Autism” went to press. And, yet, Mr. Olmsted went forward with the story that “there are only a few of them [autistic Amish] in the United States”.
At best Mr. Olmsted started out sloppy. But to continue to push the idea beyond the point when the facts are in is not just sloppy.
If you check page 112 of Evidence of Harm, you will see that Lyn Redwood presented the idea that the Amish might be a pool of unvaccinated subjects in the year 2000. Mr. Olmsted didn’t even originate the idea.
He did manage to travel to Lancaster county and not stop at the cryptically named “clinic for special children”. The CSC could have informed Mr. Olmsted that (a) the Amish communities there do, in fact, vaccinate and (b) there are autistic Amish. If I recall correctly, Mark Blaxill wrote a few pieces trying to exonerate Mr. Olmsted’s poor journalistic efforts. As far as the CSC went, there was some blame-shifting involved where the CSC didn’t return Mr. Olmsted’s phone calls. I don’t recall a reason for why Mr. Olmsted didn’t just walk in the front door of the Clinic, or why Ken Reibel had no difficulty speaking with people at the clinic. (in a bit of irony, Dan Olmsted uses Ken Reibel’s blog as his source for information about the Clinic in the chapter on the Amish in the book “The Age of Autism”)
The Amish supposedly have syndromic autism, which doesn’t count as autism, except when Hannah Poling has it, then it’s indistinguishable from real autism. Hope that clears everything up.
When he set out to find if there were autistic Amish in 2005, Mr. Olmsted was of this mindset:
Apparently he didn’t bother to question his premise. This would have been simple had he but knocked on the door of the Clinic for Special Children, which had been running vaccine clinics for about 15 years by that time.
It took me a day or so when I first heard about this hypothesis to track down scholars on the Amish and pose the question of vaccination to them. I was told at the time that the Amish do not have a religious prohibition against vaccination. Each community makes decisions on vaccine policy, and early on this was confused by health officials referring to vaccines as “insurance” against disease. The Amish do not appear to take to the idea of insurance.
Mr. Olmsted might have opened some books and done some research. One might consider that he would open: Amish Society by John Andrew Hostetler (1993) :
He can probably be forgiven for missing “Microbial diseases: notes, reports, summaries, trends” by Carl W. May, as the title is not obvious that it would be pertinent. But this statement seems clearly contradictory to Mr. Olmsted’s presumption:
Sorry for the formatting error in the previous message. The last three paragraphs are my writing.
Mr. Olmsted might have questioned how Polio was eradicated if the Amish were shunning vaccines. A picture from a book by the March of Dimes shows a vaccine clinic serving the Amish in 1959. The fact that there was a polio outbreak in that community might have been a tip to a news man doing background work.
When one does research now, it is clear that the “Amish Anomaly” myth has propagated. Many books can be found quoting the idea that “the Amish don’t have autism and they don’t vaccinate”.
It is unfortunate that rather than correct the misinformation, Mr. Olmsted has continued to play on his own poor journalism. He’s done harm and he continues to do harm. Now would be the time to start correcting the damage.
Seth Mnookin tried to dismiss the argument about unvaccinated Amish not having autism. What does it prove anyway? It was hardly science in the first place. Since Mnookin is so convinced that there is no link between vaccines and autism, then why isn’t he out there publicly demanding a carefully conducted, independent study comparing the health of never-vaccinated children with fully-vaccinated ones. If never-vaccinated kids also have the same health problems, including a one percent autism rate, that would finally settle the issue. With so many parents now too afraid to vaccinate, the study group is out there.
Quibbling about whether the Amish really vaccinate proves nothing.
Anne Dachel
Media editor: Age of Autism
Then why do folks at AoA keep bringing it up? Even to the point of Olmsted referencing it in his book?
Um, did you miss this study? And if you don’t like that, there is nothing stopping AoA, SafeMinds and Generation Rescue from funding their own studies. I’m sure between Handley, Blaxill, Redwood and others enough funds can be pulled together.
Chris,
GR tried to get money from a class action suit against Airborne (makers of a OTC supplement) to fund a vaccinated/unvaccinated study. They wanted to use the Homefirst clinic (with Mayer Eisenstein as an investigator, I believe) and homeschooled children. I don’t recall if they felt they could work with the Amish.
Again, if memory serves correctly, a principle investigator for the proposed study was the same guy who used to run “pauloffit.com” as basically a fan site for JB Handley. I wouldn’t be surprised if that idea is still floating around, or even being pursued to some extent.
An abstract presented at IMFAR showed precisely one of the potential problems with such a study. Many unvaccinated children are siblings of autistic children and siblings have a higher autism prevalence.
Let’s say we wanted to find a population with lower vaccination rates. A population with, say, the vaccine schedule of the 1960′s or the 1970′s. How would we obtain such a population? The answer is obvious: look to adults. Groups like Generation Rescue have claimed that if we went back to the vaccine schedule of the early 1980′s, we would see autism rates drop to 1 in 10,000. Seems to me like adults, aged about 25 years old, received that schedule. How about doing an adult prevalence study?
I bring this up often when Ms. Dachel posts her comments on the net. I point out that the organizations she represents refuse to support such a study. She will not support such a study. Such a study would be difficult to do accurately. But accurate enough to say that the autism rate for those adults is not 1 in 10,000. That should be feasible.
At the same time, a study of autistic adults would open the doors to valuable information for parents such as myself. Parents who need to know what has and has not worked for that generation. Parents who need to know what does and does not work for adults–something that would be good to learn now rather than leaving it to guesswork for us in 10, 15, 20 years.
I can’t fathom why autism organizations would not support these studies. Then again, the organizations Ms. Dachel represents aren’t really autism organizations, are they.
Since SafeMinds has funded researchers (like Mady Hornig), I don’t see why they cannot combine their resources with AoA and Generation Rescue to fund the study they want.
Perhaps, because it is exactly the reason you give: they are not really autism organization.
Dachel and her ill-informed fellow travelers seem to think that the only way to find if vaccines are associated with autism is to compare the prevalence of autism in unvaccinated children and vaccinated children. This is quite clearly untrue; moreover, while it is not the ONLY way, it is just as clearly not even the BEST way to answer the question. I can’t presume to speak for Seth Mnookin, but that is why those who actually have a grip on epidemiology and scientific methodology are not “out there publicly demanding” the study that Dachel seems to think will settle the issue.
It’s interesting that Dachel now dismisses the importance of the absolute refutation of Olmsted’s nonsensical twin premises. Olmsted claimed that (1) the Amish don’t vaccinate, and (2) that autism is rare among the Amish. Although he was yet again shown to be wrong, that poorly-“researched” drivel provided much of the impetus for the “vaccinated versus unvaccinated” study stillborn from his keyboard. Dachel is just shifting the goal posts again.
However, the real problem is that vaccine-phobic activists have already repeatedly rejected the overwhelming evidence that both of their previous premises (that thimerosal or MMR is responsible for an “epidemic” of autism; Dachel et al. wouldn’t believe the results from any study which adds to the mountain of evidence that already resoundingly refutes her anti-science world view.
Way to throw Dan Olmstead under the bus! He put in a lot of work to make up something that sounded like it was science, carefully invented all sorts of evidence that supported the idea, and diligently closed his eyes whenever he got near real evidence, and now you say all his efforts don’t matter, simply because it was all false. Where’s the loyalty that antivaxxers traditionally show to people who are willing to make up stuff? Next thing you know you’ll abandon Andrew Wakefield, just because he got caught altering data. For shame!
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Seems to me the purpose of this blog is to jump on OLMSTED.
His idea of doing a comparative study of vaccinated vs unvaccinated cohorts is a good. So get off his case.
If the Amish do indeed vaccinate, then WE should all be trying to find another cohort that does not vaccinate so that we can get the study done.
Why hasn’t the FDA jumped on the idea of studying vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts? We would have had the answer 10 years ago!
I believe the FDA does not want to find the cause of this epidemic because they screwed up. They failed to test these vaccines to a standard of “DO NO HARM” before approving various vaccines for mass vaccination.
They failed to study the possible interaction of the vaccines in the mandatory schedule. They failed to call for jab size modulated for body weight. They failed to put a long term tracking system in place. Now I am basically a layman but I’m positive their are many other omissions that others more knowledgeable than I can add to the list of the FDA failure to insure no harm
Doesn’t matter. Anti-vaccine people and groups will just move the goalposts. Either the researchers will be declared as having a conflict of interest, the groups studied will not be satisfactory, or the definition of what “autism” is and isn’t will not be to their liking. There’s no reasoning with a vast number of anti-vaccine people, no matter what science/studies/reasoning you use.
See my earlier reply.
Those are not the kind of studies funded by the FDA. And the CDC has spent plenty of our tax dollars, and even bent over backwards trying to satisfy Sallie Bernard of SafeMinds, but she had a hissy fit when the results were not to her liking. So, I say again: if you all want that study, then lobby the folks at SafeMinds (which has funded researchers like Hornig and Burbacher), AoA, and Generation Rescue to pay for it.
Hello friends –
Regarding a ‘mature’ or ‘immature’ immune response, I believe it is critical to acknowledge that there are very real differences between the immune function in infancy, childhood, and adulthood that we are only now beginning to detangle. While this is not evidence that vaccines can ‘overwhelm’ an infants immune system, it is reason to believe that we treat all things as being equal between an infant and a child at great risk to reaching valid conclusions.
By way of example, Ontogeny of Toll-like receptor mediated cytokine responses of human blood mononuclear cells followed 35 infants longintudinally and measured the immune response in vitro over several timeframes.
Newborns and young infants suffer increased infectious morbidity and mortality as compared to older children and adults. Morbidity and mortality due to infection are highest during the first weeks of life, decreasing over several years. Furthermore, most vaccines are not administered around birth, but over the first few years of life. A more complete understanding of the ontogeny of the immune system over the first years of life is thus urgently needed. Here, we applied the most comprehensive analysis focused on the innate immune response following TLR stimulation over the first 2 years of life in the largest such longitudinal cohort studied to-date (35 subjects). We found that innate TLR responses (i) known to support Th17 adaptive immune responses (IL-23, IL-6) peaked around birth and declined over the following 2 years only to increase again by adulthood; (ii) potentially supporting antiviral defense (IFN-α) reached adult level function by 1 year of age; (iii) known to support Th1 type immunity (IL-12p70, IFN-γ) slowly rose from a low at birth but remained far below adult responses even at 2 years of age; (iv) inducing IL-10 production steadily declined from a high around birth to adult levels by 1 or 2 years of age, and; (v) leading to production of TNF-α or IL-1β varied by stimuli. Our data contradict the notion of a linear progression from an ‘immature’ neonatal to a ‘mature’ adult pattern, but instead indicate the existence of qualitative and quantitative age-specific changes in innate immune reactivity in response to TLR stimulation. (my emphasis)
This paper was published in 2010 and should be telling us that broadstroke descriptions of something as complicated as the development of the immune system serve little utility, except, perhaps, as bullet point tweets.
- pD
passionlessdrone, I want to thank you for your insightful inclusion of the article by Corbett et al; indeed there are age specific developments that inform the biology of vaccination. One point that I thought I should make about the article you mentioned- vaccine efficacy is assessed principally by neutralizing antibody titer whereas acute safety is measured in innate immune responses. The cytokines and TLR activation detected in this article are measures of the innate immune system and would not be indicative of how efficacious the vaccine would be as this is a function of the adaptive immune system. Safety of vaccination is very important, but it really doesn’t matter how safe a vaccine is if the adaptive immune system is not ready to mount a response. Obviously we know when the adaptive immune system is ready to handle vaccines based on the outcomes.
Hi Brandt Levitt –
I want to thank you for your insightful inclusion of the article by Corbett et al; indeed there are age specific developments that inform the biology of vaccination.
Considering that we are only now gaining the insights from papers like Corbett, some two decades after dramatically increasing the number of vaccines given, it looks to me more like we are starting to learn about these nuances largely after the fact.
One point that I thought I should make about the article you mentioned- vaccine efficacy is assessed principally by neutralizing antibody titer whereas acute safety is measured in innate immune responses. The cytokines and TLR activation detected in this article are measures of the innate immune system and would not be indicative of how efficacious the vaccine would be as this is a function of the adaptive immune system.
Indeed, there is a very robust set of literature regarding generation of antibodies in regards to efficacy. That infants can mount an immune response following vaccination isn’t a question that I think needs to be answered; though some others might feel differently. (?)
Regarding your statement that “acute safety is measured in innate immune responses” however, I think you might be surprised at how little data there seems to be regarding the innate immune response following vaccination; especially in the infant population. In any case, I’ve found very little touching on this; perhaps you could point me to some research regarding the innate immune response following vaccination in an infant population? I’d think that some comparisons between infants, children, and adulths might be benificial in understanding more deeply the subtleties of the ‘mature’/'immature’ immune system discussion.
- pD
passionlessdrone,
We are only now learning about the subtleties of the pediatric immune system because of the dramatic shift in technology. Think of the myriad of things we can do now that weren’t possible in the 80′s- cloning genes, deep sequencing, high throughput genotyping etc. If we waited until we fully understood everything before using a drug or medical device, we would never treat anyone with anything. We recently learned the mechanisms of action of many drugs that have been in existence for centuries. Would you advocate that humans never should have used aspirin until they understood the biology of neurotransmitters and such?
I respectfully disagree with you about the efficacy point. I feel that this is a central component of when we choose to vaccinate. Again, if the vaccine isn’t as effective and some portion of the population gets pertussis, this informs the overall safety of the intervention.
A cursory search in pubmed reveals hundreds of hits for “vaccine infant innate” but to be more specific- there is a review that I especially like (Zepp F. Principles of vaccine design-Lessons from nature. Vaccine. 2010 Aug 31;28 Suppl 3:C14-24) You will find an overview of the innate immune response to vaccination in subsection 2:Understanding how the Immune System Works. Further, the central text in Immunology is by Janeway called Immunobiology and is available freely on pubmed. I suggest looking at chapter 14 which touches on immunization, vaccine history, natural infections, vaccine design, humoral/cellular immunity. Specifically, 14-16 spells out the safety requirements for a vaccine and 14-17 illustrates the impact this has had on pertussis. At the end of the chapter, is a terrific references section with seminal articles about vaccine safety in children.
All the best,
Hi Brandt Levitt –
Would you advocate that humans never should have used aspirin until they understood the biology of neurotransmitters and such?
Of course not. I do, however, believe that we should be attempting to integrate these newer findings into how we perform our reseach and craft our policies. In much the same way that we are rethinking the administration of paracetamol to infants after several studies show associations with asthma and atopy, but only long, long after we understood the basic mechanisms by which palliative ends were achieved. I don’t see much agreement that such analysis is necessary in the vaccination realm except in the vaguest terms.
Regarding efficacy and safety, I think we are in general agreement, my concerns aren’t so much in the area of safety, and more in terms of the possibility of unintended consequences of vaccination. In an acute sense, when administered within guidelines, paracetamol is safe. That does not mean the only thing it does is provide pain relief.
A cursory search in pubmed reveals hundreds of hits for ‘vaccine infant innate’ but to be more specific- there is a review that I especially like (Zepp F. Principles of vaccine design-Lessons from nature. Vaccine. 2010 Aug 31;28 Suppl 3:C14-24)
I don’t have access to the Zepp paper, but have asked the author for a copy. That being said, the mechanisms by which an innate immune response is marshalled and interacts with an adaptive response isnt’ really my concern, and doesn’t really speak towards a distinct lack of clinical data regarding what happens to the innate immune response as a result of vaccination; espeically considering the very real, very recently discovered differences in neonatal immune response and/or impacts of an innate immune response during critical developmental timeframes. Do you know of any studies that provides measurements of the innate immune response post vaccination, as opposed to reviews of how the immune response works? This isn’t really a question of ‘does the immune system generate a response four months after vaccination question’; those are the types of questions I think have largely been answered.
By way of example, one paper that does have something to do with the effect on immune function outside of antibody generation as a response to vaccination is: Modulation of the infant immune responses by the first pertussis vaccine administrations.
Many efforts are currently made to prepare combined vaccines against most infectious pathogens, that may be administered early in life to protect infants against infectious diseases as early as possible. However, little is known about the general immune modulation induced by early vaccination. Here, we have analyzed the cytokine secretion profiles of two groups of 6-month-old infants having received as primary immunization either a whole-cell (Pw) or an acellular (Pa) pertussis vaccine in a tetravalent formulation of pertussis-tetanus-diphtheria-poliomyelitis vaccines. Both groups of infants secreted IFN-gamma in response to the Bordetella pertussis antigens filamentous haemagglutinin and pertussis toxin, and this response was correlated with antigen-specific IL-12p70 secretion, indicating that both pertussis vaccines induced Th1 cytokines. However, Pa recipients also developed a strong Th2-type cytokine response to the B. pertussis antigens, as noted previously. In addition, they induced Th2-type cytokines to the co-administrated antigen tetanus toxoïd, as well as to the food antigen beta-lactoglobulin. Furthermore, the general cytokine profile of the Pa recipients was strongly Th2-skewed at 6 months, as indicated by the cytokines induced by the mitogen phytohaemagglutinin. These data demonstrate that the cytokine profile of 6-month-old infants is influenced by the type of formulation of the pertussis vaccine they received at 2, 3 and 4 months of life. Large prospective studies would be warranted to evaluate the possible long-term consequences of this early modulation of the cytokine responses in infants.
This was published in Vaccine in 2007. How do you reconcile the idea that the editors and peer reviewers of Vaccine and the paper authors were all unaware of existing studies on the effect on the innate immune system from vaccination is such research is well quantified? Why would they write, However, little is known about the general immune modulation induced by early vaccination., if, in fact, much is known about such interactions? This paper, it turns out, does not show up in a cursory search of ‘vaccine infant innate’, for which, I show less than 150 papers.
There were some recent papers similar to Corbett that include the refrain that gaining a better understanding of the development of the infant immune response is critical because there is still considerable difficulty vaccinating at the earliest ages because the children do not appropriately respond very early in life. Has it occurred to you that, perhaps, this delayed responsiveness and impaired function is an artifact of selection as opposed to something to be overcome? As to why this might be important, you might take a look at some work by Pittman or Bilbo in particular (there are others) concerning difficult to predict consequences of early life immune challenges. Food for thought.
Your tone is very much appreciated.
- pD
Let us not forget, newborns do not immediately produce bile. That’s a no brainer. Excretion of toxins!!!
But they do pee, right? Guess what the kidneys do too? And all that poop, no toxins being excreted there?
#logic #fail
I know lots of unvaccinated kids. I know lots of kids with autism. Ever meet an unvaccinated kid with autism? Me neither.
Yes, I have. Next question.
I take it you have not met Kim Stagliano’s youngest daughter, who is not vaccinated and still has autism. Nor have you read any of Venna’s comments.
Aside from myself, I know a lot of parents who have children with autism who were unvaccinated. Unlike me, they fell into the clap trap of the anti-vaccine propaganda (my reasons were financial in nature, not a lack of desire to vaccinate) but after these parents’ children developed autism without the vaccines anyway, they went ahead and got their children vaccinated. So now they are vaccinated, even though they weren’t prior to the onset of autistic symptoms. Don’t just assume everything you think in your small circle of experience is correct. I can bet you there are at least three other people out there whose experience is completely different.
So I came across this “article” while reading the blog for the “Panic Virus”, some how I ended up at:
A POSITIVE ASSOCIATION FOUND BETWEEN AUTISM PREVALENCE AND CHILDHOOD VACCINATION UPTAKE ACROSS THE U.S. POPULATION
by Gayle DeLong
Link: http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/vaccines/Vaccine%20and%20Autism%20correlation%20US%202011%20J%20Tox%20Env%20Health.pdf
Anyone actually take this apart yet — like the above Amish studies?
Off hand I would be suspicious because:
1. The author is an economist, or at least works in the Department of Economics and Finance, Baruch College/City University of New York, New York, New York, USA.
2. The author is an executive of SafeMinds, a potentially biased source.
3. The Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, appears to be vanity press, it cost $41 to view this paper on their site, but is posted freely elsewhere on the net.
But I’d like to know more about the “article” itself, the sources, the science etc. I’m going to sit down and read thru it, but I suspect someone has already “critiqued” this paper who is an expert on this topic.
Thanks.
Orac dismantled it here: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/06/more_bad_science_in_the_service_of_the_discredited_idea.php
While children with autism can have Speech or Language Impairment services, not all children with Speech or Language Impairments are autistic:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/06/speech-impairment-and-autism-inseparable/
And don’t forget Prometheus’s usual masterly review at Photon in the Darkness: http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=222
Readers interested in actual autism science would do well to read through the archives at Photon in the Darkness, especially Autism Science.
Also see Neuroskeptic Vaccines cause autism, until you look at the data.
You might also want to take time to read the comments — quite interesting.
As noted above, the paper has been analyzed in multiple places on the web and been found lacking.
A few comments on the paper:
1) they define “autism” as “autism+speech or language impairment”. SLI is not the same as autism.
2) the author defines “vaccination rate” as completely adhering to the 1995 vaccine schedule. Since the author chose to start the study period at this time, of course the vaccination rate (as defined) increased as states and pediatricians and parents adopted the new schedule. The vaccination rates were never really as low as the author presents.
3) Most important: the data are not consistent with the author’s conclusions. One can look state-by-state and see the “vaccination” rate increase substantially during the first couple of years considered. However, autism, as strangely defined by the author, does not increase as predicted.
One can take the 1.7% prevalence increase (calculated by the author). This means that if the “vaccination rate” were to increase from none to fully vaccinated population, the “autism rate” would increase from whatever baseline, say 0.5%, to baseline+1.7% (2.2% of the population in this example) It doesn’t happen.
The paper should never have been published. It is that obviously wrong. It isn’t even a matter of interpretation or of statistical methods. It is just simply and obviously wrong.
*THIS IS ME RAMBLING*
There are actually quite a number of children with autism that developed it prior to vaccination, mostly because their parents bought into the anti-vax hype. So, they decided against vaccines, around the age of two or three their child is diagnosed with autism anyway, so they go and get the vaccines for their child current because at that point, they figure what have we got to lose, other then our child to a deadly disease.
My thoughts are, these parents of children with autism who developed it without vaccines don’t really care about this debate. Their primary focus is on caring for their child and getting the therapies needed for progress to be made. The point has already been proved negative in their minds so the debate is over for them.
While I understand their position completely, I find this a bit unfortunate, because it’s people who have these experiences who might be able to counter act the damage being done by the anti-vaccine people and their push for additional studies, even though every study that has been done they fail to accept, and the rerouting of precious funding away from areas that really need it. Someone said it before (I don’ remember who, sorry) that the anti-vaccine people aren’t in it to help their children overcome autism, not really. They want to sue someone, they are in it for the money and the only way they can get money from someone is if there is an external cause. Their child, in essence, has become a pay day, but unfortunately, given what we know about science and vaccines, that pay day will never come.
It’s unfortunate also that these poor children must suffer brutal ‘treatments’ at the hands of these doctors and their parents allow it to happen without any thought to the ultimate price they might have to pay. Let’s just say, in another universe, there was a legitimate study done and was able to find there was a link between vaccines and autism. So these parents get their pay day, then what happens to their children? Perhaps that is the question we need to be asking them. If you won your case, what would happen to your child? It doesn’t change the fact that their child has autism. Maybe it will just put them at ease because it gives them someone to blame besides themselves. I say, what I’ve said before regarding these people; they haven’t really come to terms with their child’s diagnosis and the lifetime impact that it will mean for them (the child). After all, it isn’t the parents who have autism, it’s the child and would that child really want to be used and abused the way they are if they had the ability to say something about it?
I look at my son and see the same little boy he was prior to hearing the words, “Your son has autism.” Nothing has changed for me really, nothing has changed for him either. He still can’t talk other then simply one word requests and repeating things he hears, he gets lost in lining up his toys and watching things spin, he get overwhelmed when there’s too much going on and he stims regularly. He did all these things before the diagnosis, what changes is now I know why and I have a path to follow which will allow me to do something about it. When I heard autism, I wasn’t shocked or in denial or angry or even sad. It wasn’t something I wanted, but I did suspect it for about a year and a half before I figured out where to take him for evaluation. I hoped I was wrong, but when I finally heard it, I was relieved because it can be treated and there are a number of people that respond well enough to treatment that they lose the autism diagnosis.
Autism isn’t a dead end. For me it is the light at the end of the tunnel and it gives me a guide on where I need to go. To me, it doesn’t really matter what caused it, although finding the cause may lead to finding a cure and also prevention, but I do know it wasn’t caused by vaccines. Sure my story is anecdotal, but unlike the anti-vax crowd, science backs my anecdote up.
“My thoughts are, these parents of children with autism who developed it without vaccines don’t really care about this debate.”
Unfortunately, there is one notable exception. One of the most vocal proponents of the vaccine-causation idea has a child who was not vaccinated.
Yes, she believes somehow that vaccines still damaged her daughter even though there were no vaccines that could have. Funny how even common sense gets lost when a person is caught up in greed, anger and self righteous indignation. There isn’t anything that will convince these people and I feel so bad for their children because they will never get the treatments that really will help them.
Alison MacNeil once shared her unique theory of how vaccines can cause autism in vaccinated children:
“I have a dear friend who vaccinated her first son, he regressed into her autism.She didn’t vaccinate her second son, born when her first son was around 2.5, he regressed into autism.Is it possible that her 1st son’s vaccines shed horizontal virus to her second child? Second question…my daughter was 4 and was and remains nt and received her boosters just as my son was born. He fell apart accumulatively as we completed all his vaccines by 15 months with the final blow then the mmr. Could he have been affected by her shots?Alison M”
Maybe I was thinking of someone else who had a daughter diagnosed with autism who was unvaccinated. I think the story I heard was that she believed the vaccines she received herself (when she was a child) is what infected her daughter inutero. Vaccines can now travel through time to perform their mayhem.
See also:
Yoder, J. S. & Dworkin, M. S. (2006). Vaccination usage among and old-order Amish community in Illinois. Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, 25(12), 1182-1193.
“A total of 189 (84%) households with children reported that all of their children had received vaccinations; 28 (12%) reported that some of their children had received vaccinations; and 8 (4%) reported that none of their children had received vaccinations.”
“Among the 36 respondents who had unvaccinated children, 16 (44%) cited concerns about vaccine safety as the reason their children were unvaccinated; 3 (8%) attributed their children’s unvaccinated status to religious objections. Not having received vaccinations as a child (OR, 4.2; 95% CI, 1.1–16.3) and seeking nonemergency medical care [less than or equal to] 2 times during the preceding year (OR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.1– 6.0) were statistically associated with having unvaccinated children.”
“Among all respondents who knew their own vaccination status, 281/313 (90%) reported that they had received vaccinations as children. Stratified analysis revealed that younger respondents were statistically significantly more likely to have been vaccinated as children; 194/202 (96%) respondents aged <45 years had received vaccinations, whereas 87/111 (78%) respondents aged [45 years or older] had been vaccinated (OR, 6.7; 95% CI, 2.7–16.9; P < 0.0001).”
Vaccines are simply not safe for everyone. In addition to the number of doses,(36 before age 2), vaccine ingredients can be problematic, especially for susceptible subgroups. First are adjuvants, substances added to boost effectiveness and allow smaller doses of vaccine antigen to be used. The most common adjuvant is aluminum, which is found in vaccines for hepatitis and diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus.Third are ingredients to which some people have severe allergies: stabilizers such as gelatin, and eggs or other proteins that are used to prepare vaccines for flu, MMR, and other immunizations.
Second are preservatives — such as thimerosal, which is 49.6 percent mercury. Thimerosal is still contained in many flu shots, although it was, except for trace amounts, removed from other child vaccines a decade ago. Many child vaccines (including those for diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus, HIB, and hepatitis) contain formaldehyde, which was just added to the government’s list of known human carcinogens. Carcinogen yes, but also OK to be injected into the develping brain of your baby as well. No problem there according to The Government.
Boost your immune system with diet, excerciese and high quality supplementation. Vaccines are deadly. We administer more vaccines than any other country on the planet, and are second form the bottom in infant mortality. We are 32nd ranking behind Slovenia according to WHO.
Think twice before injecting these chemicals repeatedly into your child’s developing brain. Follow the money trail, and understand what it truly happening here in the US.
“Follow the money trail, and understand what it truly happening here in the US.”
I followed the money trail – it led to Andrew Wakefield, being paid off to lie about the MMR.
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Using the Amish as a test group is problematic on so many fronts. Their diet is significantly different from the general population. Their level of involvement with formal healthcare is quite atypical. Finally, it is a spurious argument to conclude that because the Amish administer some vaccines this lumps them in with the general population.
In my state children are required to receive more than 20 different vaccines before entering Kindergarten. From my reading, Amish children receive less than 10 at most. Thus I would conclude that it is impossible to cite this as conclusive proof that vaccines are not related to autism rates.
That said, since their food is largely organic and local, their level of physical activity is generally greater, and their consumption of drugs (both prescription and elicit) is significantly lower than the general US population, there could be any number of environmental/lifestyle reasons for the disparity.
A huge concern of mine is the agenda of those who attack Wakefield. Certainly Wakefield should be able to provide more conclusive evidence, but many of his critics sem to have a pro-vaccine agenda. Listening to a radio interview with a public health official in 2005, there was a shocking admission. She stated that even if there were a link between MMR and autism, the vaccine should continue to be required because the public health benefits outweigh the risks.
As a parent of an autistic child I was offended and threatened. I realized with certainty that my government was not necessarily on my side. I don’t expect we will ever get an honest investigation into why autism rates continue to skyrocket. Breast cancer rates have gone from 1 in 11 to 1 in 6 just in my lifetime, yet no one even wonders why. Sure there theories and claims from those selling organic foods, water filters, and exercise equipment, but where are the scientific studies?
If the truth were known about the source of cancer and or autism, likely there is nothing that can be done about it and frankly, to paraphrase a movie quote, Americans couldn’t handle that.
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