Old and New Reporting on Vaccines and Autism: Pro, Con, Myth
July 18, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
It is an understatement to say that lots and lots and lots has been said, written, argued, and debated about the theory that vaccines or something in vaccines such as the mercury-based preservative thimerasol causes autism. The misconduct hearings of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who first proposed an MMR-autism link, and of two other doctors who worked with him at the Royal Free Hospital, are only adding more fuel to a highly combustible pile of articles, books, and more. UPI reporter Dan Olmsted has been a regular contributor to the debate in his The Age of Autism columns—-and today sees his final column in the UPI series, The Age of Autism: The Last Words. I suspect that we will be hearing more from him about mercury poisoning, the environment, and health, if not able autism in particular: Olmsted presumes that autism is mercury poisoning, and the jury is still very much out on this.
Orac at Respectful Insolence and Arthur Allen have written about why the myth of a vaccine-autism link is here to stay. With that in mind, I am always glad to hear new perspectives on this topic such as the voice of Angry Toxicologist. His July 2nd post on Vaccines and Autism provides a rundown of “pro and con” arguments about vaccines and autism. Here are some:
Pro – Thimerosal is mercury! Sort of, it’s ethyl-mercury which isn’t as toxic as methyl mercury, the mercury in polluted waters and in fish.
Con – Thimerosal is ethyl-mercury which isn’t very toxic. Wrong. Although not as bad as methyl-mercury, the ethyl version still gets into the brain and does damage after reverting back to elemental mercury, just like methyl.
Con – Autism advocates are crazy. Hmmm…very scientific. Let me note that citizen advocates for almost anything can seem a bit, um…enthusiastic, but it doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it just means they don’t have a PR firm. Some are probably a bit nuts, but let me ask you, how many organizations, even professional ones, don’t have a few nuts? Heck, even the Senate has some.
Pro – Mercury poisoning looks like autism. In many ways it does, although autism usually develops in a different way than mercury poisoning does.
Con – It takes tons more mercury to create mercury poisoning than the amount of mercury present in the vaccines. This is a very strong con-point. It is possible that the timing of the mercury exposure or the co-administration of the rest of the vaccine may effect the child in a different way that mercury poisoning does, but the size of the dose doesn’t support a link.
Did the Greeks believe in Their Myths? is the title of a book by French classicist Paul Veyne: It was the Greeks who laid the foundations for science as we know it today; who can be said to have (in the West) invented reason and philosophy—-and yet it is the Greeks, too who bequeathed to us the myths of the wily trickster Odysseus, of the archetypal ancient hero Achilles, of Oedipus the King, whether you read his story in Sophocles or Freud. We might say that the Greeks believed both the myths that Homer sang of and the science Hippocrates refers to in (for instance) On the Sacred Disease.
Perhaps the question to ask is not only why do we still confuse myth with science, but what do we really believe in?
I think so many still believe it is because it explains a cause for the autism that does not blame the parents. I have heard everything from there was nothing wrong with her just bad parenting to we just don’t give her enough attention. It is sometimes nice to have a different cause to explain it to others who may not understand that the research is still out on what causes autism but that I believe it is genetic. mercury causes autism is much easier to cling to when you feel everything else is out of control.
Hello friends –
“It takes tons more mercury to create mercury poisoning than the amount of mercury present in the vaccines.”
The phrase, ‘mercury poisoning’ is used again and again on both sides of this debate; but in my opinion, it shouldn’t be. You don’t have to show classical signs of poisoning to be affected by very low levels of heavy metals.
Low-level environmental lead exposure and children’s intellectual function: an international pooled analysis
“After adjustment for covariates, we found an inverse relationship between blood lead concentration and IQ score. Using a log-linear model, we found a 6.9 IQ point decrement [95% confidence interval (CI), 4.2-9.4] associated with an increase in concurrent blood lead levels from 2.4 to 30 microg/dL. The estimated IQ point decrements associated with an increase in blood lead from 2.4 to 10 microg/dL, 10 to 20 microg/dL, and 20 to 30 microg/dL were 3.9 (95% CI, 2.4-5.3), 1.9 (95% CI, 1.2-2.6), and 1.1 (95% CI, 0.7-1.5), respectively.”
The CDC will tell you that anything above 10 microg/dl is cause for concern, yet we can clearly see from the above analysis that going from 2.4 – 10 microd/dl costs on avergage, 3.9 IQ points. What’s more, once you go from 2.4 to 10, you’ve lost the majority of the IQ you are going to lose going all the way up to 30. These children did not meet the criteria for poisoned, but that doesn’t mean they were not affected.
Take care!
-pD
I get that it’s a hypothesis that gives parents a sort of hope that an etiology and treatment are already here. What I don’t get is that after so many years of the same thing, with no indications that their kids are progressing any faster than the kids of those of us who do not use fad cures, with the evidence piling up against them, with no counter-arguments to offer, they continue to stubornly cling to it. It’s beyond groupthink. It’s hard to describe and grasp.
The association between lead exposure and IQ loss is well known and scientifically sound.
The association between mercury exposure and autism is purely speculative and no scientifcally sound studies find an association.
If you’re looking for a similar corollary for mercury (and possibly PCBs) and neurological impairment, you might want to read the literature. It looks nothing like autism.
Sufficiently significant exposure to heavy metals will clearly result in brain damage and even death in some cases. (That’s regardless of whether the ecological meta-study passionlessDrone cited really looked at all possible confounds and so on). It’s not clear why passionlessDrone wants to make the debate about something everyone agrees on. Well, no, it is pretty clear.
I think he’s making a point about the “low level” of lead exposure. I would note that 10 micrograms/dL is not the same as 10 micrograms exposure total. That’s a level in blood that is sustained despite excretion and so forth.
It is highly doubtful that thimerosal from vaccines would cause any IQ loss. (I’m not even arguing autism).
There was a study done showing that anyone who received a flu vaccine for 5 consecutive years had a 10X higher chance of developing Alzheimers.
A different study showed there was positve results in IQ with Chelation treatment.
http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20031215/chelation-therapy-ease-alzheimers
There is absolutely no indication of any dose-response in mercury and autism. None at all. There most definately is in lead exposure and IQ loss.
“There was a study done showing that anyone who received a flu vaccine for 5 consecutive years had a 10X higher chance of developing Alzheimers.”
I do not believe this is true.
“A different study showed there was positve results in IQ with Chelation treatment.”
I do not believe this is true either. There was a study in rats that found the opposite. Several studies with lead-exposed children have found no effect.
“http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20031215/chelation-therapy-ease-alzheimers”
That’s an article about a study. I haven’t read the study to be able to make a judgement about methodology. There was a similar prior finding, but it was a single-blind study only.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=8122302&query_hl=28&itool=pubmed_DocSum
Mercury poisoning is one thing; perhaps it is a comorbidity in a subset of autistic children. But to equate it with autism as Olmsted has so consistently done—-with so little recognition of and reference to what it is like to be with autistic children and persons—-has not helped understanding of autism.
But it has helped me to think about how parents feel when confronte with an autism diagnosis.
Joseph,
I do not know you well enough to believe your opinions. So the best either one of us will be able to do is agree to disagree.
It’s a totalizing belief system, I think, Joseph–sort of like psychoanalysis. If you’re not progressing, it’s b/c your body hasn’t flushed out the toxins yet, or they’re hiding out in tissue somewhere; if you are progressing, it’s b/c of the chelation/diet/whatever.
Not sure if I believe the theory about Mercury however, Autism has hit across varied demographic and economic populations so much that it appears to me that this could be random process variability within the vaccination’s manufacturing and/or clinical implementation processes.
Could the variation in the process by which the syringes were created in the clinic or back at the manufacuturer produced some batches or vials that had slight more mercury and some with slightly less?
Could it be that our children were the unlucky 1 of 166 that received these higher than average doses?
Something to think about as I have seen many processes that yield uneven results. This is the basis behind Deming’s theory and seems that it could apply here.
In plain terms, perhaps the nurse making the syringe didn’t shake the mulit-dose vial or spin it properly to yield the correct amount of thimerisol that day.
If anyone knows more details about the process please feel free to comment.
I find it hard to believe that vaccines cause autism. Thimerosal was present in vaccines between 1930 and 1999 yet autism is more prevelant than ever before. Why? My 4 year old autistic son was vacinated 4 years after thimerosal was removed explain that? I think autisim is more likely a genetic trait. I truly think my husband is autistic and was never officially diagnosed. Looking back now, my son showed signs of autisim at birth before the vaccines, he rarely ever made eye contact or liked to be held for long periods of time.