Immunizations, Children, and Lots of Questions

Mention vaccines in autism and you can feel the mercury rising and the conversation become an exchange of volleys between those who state their child became autistic because of a vaccine (such as the MMR) or because of something in vaccines (such as mercury via the mercury-based perservative thimerasol, which, with the exception of some flu vaccines, is no longer used in the vaccines used to protect preschool children against 12 infectious dieases). Harsh and sometimes ad hominem criticism and invective—-as well as some not unviolent tactics—- have been directed against those who state that there is no link between vaccines and autism.

Immunizations are a hot, hot topic in autism discussions because of the continued fear that those vaccines could “damage” or “harm” a child, in contradiction to the very meaning of the word “immunization,” which is from the Latin immune, which means “exempt, free from, devoid of”: Immunizations are supposed to make a person “free from” a disease like measles of Hepatitis B or whooping cough. Perhaps this is one reason why some parent autism advocates are all the more up in arms in claiming that there is a link between their child receiving a vaccine and the onset of symptoms of autism, as if the vaccine has made a child sicker, not healthier.

On Wednesday night I had the chance to converse about immunizations with a group of health care professionals and bloggers about health and parenting: I participated in a conversation about immunizations that was made possible by Revolution Health. Dr. Stacy Beller Stryer, a pediatrician in Maryland, responded to questions ranging from vaccine schedules for infants and older children; she noted that college students also need to get certain vaccines (Dr. Stryer has recently blogged about her 11-year-old daughter, who does not have autism, attending an autism camp as a “shadow”). Other participants included Catherine Morgan, who blogs on health and wellness at BlogHer and women4hope; Aliza Sherman Risdahl of Babyfruit: the miscarriage blog and motherhood diaries, who has a 13-month-old daughter; Tammie Booth of Susan Wenner Jackson of Working Moms Against Guilt; Denise Tanton who blogs on health and wellness at BlogHer; and myself of this blog. Cynthia Samuels of Cobblestone Associates, LLP, moderated.

Most of the participants are mothers, mothers-to-be, or thinking of being mothers and the vaccine-autism issue soon came up. I noted the lack of evidence for a link between autism and thimerasol; the recent vaccine court hearings in which lawyers for 12-year-old Michelle Cedillo argued that vaccines or something in them had caused her autism; chelation as a treatment for heavy metal poisoning and its dangers; and my son Charlie’s own history of vaccination (he is up to date). I referred to journalist Arthur Allen’s book, Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver and pointed that vaccines have long been regarded with suspicion.

Gardasil, the HPV vaccine was mentioned, but the conversation circled a number of times back to a possible link between vaccines and “something.” One participant noted the alarming pronouncements of both those who blame vaccines for causing autism, and those health professionals and scientists who point out the risks of catching measles and other diseases. And that to me is all the more reason why conversations like the one I was fortuanate to be part of on Wednesday night need to keep happening—-why there needs to be dialogue about an issue that so many parents feel, rightfully or wrongfully according to science, something more than strongly about.