Vaccines and Parental Worries: Books You Can’t Miss
June 20, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
While the scientific evidence refutes a link between autism and vaccines, parents of young children can’t seem to stop worrying about this and (as a June 18th CNN story reports) are wondering: Should they vaccinate their baby? Should they space out the vaccines and have a child receive their immunizations for measles, mumps and rubella separately, rather than in one vaccine, the MMR?
A new book, Do Vaccines Cause That?! A Guide for Evaluating Vaccine Safety Concerns,provides sensible and straightforward answers to these sorts of concerns. The book is written by Martin G. Myers, M.D., and Diego Pineda, the editor and the science writer for the National Network for Immunization Information (NNii) and the co-authors of more than 80 peer-reviewed articles on immunization issues. It might seem to be common sense, for instance, to give a young child one vaccine at a time and “space the shots” out; parents worry at the thought of giving multiple shots to a small child. As Dr. Myers and Pineda note (p. 178):
So, can a child’s immune system handle all those vaccines?
The answer seems to be simple: yes it can.* Even though an infant’s immune system cannot respond to all the different types of foreign materials (called antigens) in the same way an adult can, infants do have an amazing ability to respond to an extremely large number and numerous types of antigens. The number a child can respond to is many more than the number of vaccine antigens given in the early years of life.
* Because of newer ways of making vaccines, the number of antigens (substances that induce immune responses) in vaccines has actually decreased since 1980, even though there are many more vaccines given. For example, the old whole-cell pertussis vaccine contained about 3,000 antigens whereas the newer acellular pertussis vaccine contains only a few. So while we give more shots, the number of antigens that the immune system must respond to is actually many fewer than before.
The number of shots that a young child receives has often been noted with alarm; change the schedule! was a rallying cry among the Green Our Vaccines crowd. The book Do Vaccines Cause That?! addresses these sorts of concerns directly and, again, sensibly: The book is an antidote to what might be termed the current elevated concern (paranoia?) about vaccines being linked to autism.
And of course parents worry. Sometimes I think “worrying” is the default mode of being a parent, and not only the parent of a disabled child like Charlie (my own parents, I happen to know, worry plenty about their daughters and don’t get me started about what’s on the mind of Ngin-Ngin, my grandmother). But for a lot of us parents of autistic children, the worries can be pretty basic, and especially as we realize that our children may, and even will, need constant care and support to live and work for all of their lives. What happens not only to our lovely children as they get older but also as we, the parents, get older, develop health problems of our own; become ourselves disabled?
I was fortunate to be able not only to think about, but to talk about, these constant concerns on Thursday with the parents of older, disabled children. Yesterday I was on a panel at the annual conference of the Society for Disability Studies. The topic was Fostering Independence, Fostering Citizenship: Parents, the City, and Cognitive Difference and the other panelists were:
* Clare Dunsford, author of Spelling Love with an X: A Mother, A Son, and the Gene that Binds Them
* Ralph James Savarese, author of Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption
(* Jane Bernstein was to read from her book, Rachel in the World, but was unable to attend due to personal reasons.)
I know there is a huge interest and a need to talk about what causes autism; about how our children came to be as they are. But our disabled children will be adults who are disabled for the better part of their lives. Talk swirls endlessly about how to prevent future children from having autism and other disabilities: But we live with disabled children every day, and we need to figure out how to help them live the best lives they can. How can we change and challenge society to provide more and better daycare for disabled children, and better caretakers for adult children who might need such—how can we improve quality of life for disabled individuals and for those who take care of them?
We all talked about how aware our children are of the environments they inhabit, contrary to notions of disabled children as being too “withdrawn” or “out of it.” I read about traveling around New York City with Charlie; Clare read about her son at home and discussed two poems about “idiot boys”; Ralph read some essays by his 16-year-old son, DJ. There were lots of questions, from parents of disabled children, from adults with disabilities.
Something Clare said has been resonating in my mind and I paraphrase her words: How could she (how could the parent of a disabled child) not love her (their) child—-and how exhausting was the every day experience of caring for him. And how do we keep on doing it?
It’s not easy.
Still I know that I would not wish things to be otherwise and would wish for Charlie to know that, however different and disabled he is and is perceived to be, he is our child and the child we are so very, very glad and grateful every day to have.
Theories of what causes autism will rise and fall, but great kids—great people—remain and endure.
Books You Can\’t Missed?
My wife is an autism therapist who visits children at home. She hears the same story from the overwhelming majority of parents; “he/she was active, laughed and responded normally to her name but right after the vaccinations, she digressed to no talking, no eye contact etc…” We’re expecting our first next month and will not be vaccinating. This is very common among several of our expecting friends as well. Parents, do the research! At least have your vaccinations spread out instead of a battery of cocktails in rapid succession…
This article seemed to lack any real call to action other than read a book. Besides, why ask the institution of health care if they’re responsible for autism? Isn’t this self-incriminating? They will always deny any link between vaccination and autism. It then becomes the important responsibility of discerning parents to decide whether or not – or how to immunize.
So while we give more shots, the number of antigens that the immune system must respond to is actually many fewer than before.
Interesting. I think if I had to do it all over again, I might slow down the timing. No kids needs 3 shots in one day.
@Corey, it would be interesting if those parents your wife works with might read Do Vaccines Cause That?, as the book presents the kind of reasonable information that is too often missing from online discussions about autism causation. Anecdotal reports from parents need to be framed within the larger perspective of a child’s developmental history.
@sharon, the book addresses that very point with care. it sounds commonsensical to “change the schedule,” and pediatricians are agreeing to this, as the CNN story notes.
@Dr Chew; Thanks for the reply. A point of interest with the families my wife works with is that several of them have more than one autistic child. This would seem to support the theory that some people are predisposed to coming down with the symptoms given their developmental history. Hannah Polling, although the poster child for “demonizing” vaccinations, was predisposed to autism which was “severely aggravated” by the vaccinations.
Do you feel that it is somehow different if an almost unnoticeable case of autism becomes aggravated by vaccinations vs. vaccinations being the actual causation? Both seem equally undesirable…
@Corey, I think the question is how “almost unnoticeable” were symptoms of autism? For instance, in the case of Michelle Cedillo—from Arizona; hers was the first case to be presented in “vaccine court”—-when experts in diagnosing autism reviewed videotapes of her prior to her diagnosis, they noted other, more subtle signs of autism in her play, lack of joint attention. My son’s gross motor development was delayed, but autism was the last thing I was thinking.
I’ve met more and more families, too, with more than one autistic child and this would seem to point to some genetic link?
On a different topic, appreciate hearing about your wife being an autism therapist. My son has had many therapists over the years and remembers each very fondly.
Kristina:
“I’ve met more and more families, too, with more than one autistic child and this would seem to point to some genetic link?
To quote you previously in the vaccine debate:
‘Correlation does not neccessarily relate to causation’.
Ther are many well understood medical disorders that cluster within families and have high rates of multiple incidences, for example leprosy.
Classical twin study design (which does not have an environmental component and therefore cannot differentiate between genetic susceptability and genetic transmission) has reported a 60% concordance rate for narrowly defined autism in identical twins. A higher concordance rate in identical twins have been reported in many well understood medical conditions for example Mother to fetus transmission of HIV (92% concordance), Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (100% concordance) and leprosy (60 – 85% concordance).
@RAJ, right, and I think you’ve quoted some studies on leprosy before? Then there’s families like mine with only one child, and with numerous family members with numerous traits related to autism if not autism diagnoses themselves, and more and more to speculate on.
@Dr Chew; has there been anymore research or findings on the epidemiological study in the connection between ultrasound and autism?
Kristina: Thanks for your comments about the book. It is good to hear from someone who actually read the book, because others have attacked us without even reading it. Just go to the Amazon page of the book and you’ll see what I mean!
That’s not surprising—-I have more to say about your book, here and elsewhere.