Measles Aren’t Going Away, They’re On the Rise
November 28, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health, Vaccines
1049 cases of measles have been reported in England and Wales so far this year, the highest number in 13 years and exceeding the number on 2007, when there were 990 case. Today’s Guardian reports that health officials are seriously concerned about a possible epidemic of measles of between 30,000 - 100,000 cases. Measles has been spreading more easily because of the “relatively low uptake” of the MMR vaccine in the past decade:
The fall in uptake of MMR was triggered by now-discredited research claiming there was a link between the jab and autism.
Health officials in the UK are planning a mass vaccination program in some areas. The Daily Mail quotes Guy Hayhurst, consultant in public health at a local Primary Care Trust, as saying that they have identified 10,534 children who have no record of full MMR immunization.
Here in the US, measles cases are at their highest level in a decade.
It’s starting to seem more than unfortunate and regrettable that the theory of a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism—the so-called “leaky gut theory“—was proposed back in 1998 by Dr. Andrew Wakefield.
Jeff Stimpson
Jill Cornfield
@Kristina
People like Wakefield are treated like everything they ever uttered is false. Now, not only is there no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism (true), but there is no such thing as leaky gut. (If you throw this out just because it came from Wakefield, you may be throwing out something that can help. That should never be done no matter how dogmatic your feelings are toward Wakefield and in favor of vaccines.)
The reason that MMR became the focus that it did was because measles virus was found in the gut flora and in spinal fluid of autistics. There were several sources of this information. The methods were published for all to see. From this came the conclusion that autism is caused by the MMR vaccine. (false conclusion)
While causality cannot be concluded from the data, leaky gut and leaky brain can be concluded from it. The blood gut barrier and the blood brain barrier are linked together with tight junctions. Nothing passes through these barriers without going through a cell wall. Measles viruses will not pass through either of these barriers without a breach. From this, we can conclude that there was a breach. We cannot conclude that it stayed that way.
That the barriers can remain compromised has only been demonstrated for the blood gut barrier. It has been done by measuring peptide byproducts in urine samples of autistics. Again there are other published sources of this information.
The GF-CFs attacked it in the wrong way. Eliminating gluten and casein from the diet assumes that gluten and casein are the only leaking peptides. Gluten and casein peptides were the only peptides for which products were found in the urine. But assuming that gluten and casein are the only leakages of consequence is a false conclusion.
There is a lot of good information that is being thrown out because it skates too close to the thin ice of saying that vaccines cause autism. This is one example. Throwing such information out pushes medical help for autistic children farther away. The battle between pro-vax and anti-vax is not worth the sacrifice of this information.
Perhaps it might have been more responsible of the parties involve to emphasize the points you have, rather than to have spoken so quickly about causes of autism?
I do not disagree with your assessment about the parties you speak of. What I fear is that in the zeal to condemn people like Wakefield, any points like these that tread too close to that thin ice will not only fail to be acknowledged but will be shunned.
Wow. Very scary. I know a lot of parents who won’t vaccinate their children.
Ed, Wakefield condemns himself. Nobody forced him to produce a bogus study.
His research team claims that the research findings were falsified. Once someone falsifies research findings everything they utter must be questioned, reanalyzed or simply ignored. However, he is not being treated unfairly; those that believed him in the first place are the ones who have been treated unfairly.
@Another Voice,
Wakefield was pillaried as he deserved to be. My point is that in the zeal to attack Wakefield, much information that would be helpful is discarded because it is too close to the hole in the ice that he and others like him created.
Ed, Wakefield has never been pilloried, for that matter he has never even had his wrist slapped. The medical community in England is just now, 10 years after the fact, getting around to determining if he should be reprimanded. Lack of action must be some sort of inside joke within the medical community.
Do I see value in his work? No. I say that in the same way that I would not review the accounting ledgers of Enron for new accounting practices.
Hi Another Voice -
Ed, Wakefield has never been pilloried, for that matter he has never even had his wrist slapped. The medical community in England is just now, 10 years after the fact, getting around to determining if he should be reprimanded.
The medical establishment wants very, very badly to find him guilty of something, but is having a difficult time doing so. This is why a trial took years to put together and will be ongoing for another year, at least. If his crimes were so clear cut, this should be a simple matter. That ought to tell you something.
- pD
PD, the delay only tells me that the medical community really does not want to find fault with any of their members. In my experience I have been amazed by doctor’s inability to self regulate.
@Another Voice,
You are proving my point. There is medically useful information out there that is getting drowned in the animosity between the pro-vax and the anti-vax controversy. Leakage of the blood-gut barrier and the blood-brain barrier is an example of such information. Instead of asking how such information could be exploited for the benefit of our autistic children, we dwell on what to do about people like Wakefield. The best we can do to people like him is to leave him to the authorities and let him fall into obscurity. Otherwise he continues to be a destructive distraction.
The really unfortunate thing is the misguided fear that has spread among parents about vaccines, about what autism is, and about treatments, such as chelation (which I recently heard a mother say she had tried on her son, with the result that “we almost lost him”).
If my son had caught any of the diseases that he has been vaccinated against—measles, for instance—it would have been tremendously difficult for him.
The really unfortunate thing is that after 60 years of knowing what autism is, the medical community has nothing significant to offer the autistic community. The reason for going for chelation, hyperbaric oxygen, B12 and other therapies is that there is nothing from the medical community to take its place.
That’s not a very good reason then, if we can do it the honour of calling it a reason at all. I’m always very dubious of approaches that view it as a case of medical intervention versus alt-med intervention, it’s like the rest of the health care world doesn’t exist at all.
Personally, I prefer the non-medical therapies from the non-medical community, but then I would as it’s my area of study and my area of employment. Although that’s not to say medicine should never be given to people with autism - insulin for an autistic diabetic is fine by me.
Ed said:
“You are proving my point. There is medically useful information out there that is getting drowned in the animosity between the pro-vax and the anti-vax controversy.”
No, I am not proving your point, I am not engaging in a pro-vax/anti-vax controversy. My comments are about integrity or lack of it, and misleading people by fabricating findings in a report.
I will however take exception to your statement that “The reason for going for chelation, hyperbaric oxygen, B12 and other therapies is that there is nothing from the medical community to take its place.” Do you actually feel that since the medical community has not found a “cure?” for autism, you are therefore required to pursue chelation? I certainly hope not.
The statement about chelation is a statement about what is. Since modern medicine has nothing, people naturally look elsewhere. The answer to these treatments is for the medical community to come up with more than a shrug of the shoulders.
For this to happen, eyes have to be taken off of the pro-vax, anti-vax controversy and concentrated on the medical aspects of autism. To dwell on Wakefield is to dwell on the vax controversy. This makes the blood flow, but does nothing for the autistic community. Yet it seems to be the preferred topic.
“Since modern medicine has nothing, people naturally look elsewhere.”
Which is exactly the problem. As long as people think ‘modern medicine’ = ‘mainstream’, people won’t just look elsewhere, but risk overlooking what else is in the mainstream. Services for autism already struggle to stay open without the people who need them thinking they don’t exist at all.
Unfortunetly for the autism community, many people involved in propagating the vax controversy have a massive amount of money and time invested. They won’t let go because to do so is to admit a string of errors.
Rather sad really.
Ed: I agree that far too much time is spent on pro-vax / anti- vax. I wish that folks like Wakefield would go away after having their work discredited but all that happened was he left the UK and set up shop in the US.
Wakefield has followers that say he was not entirely wrong; as if they could magically determine which parts of his research were factual and which were fabrication.
The dialogue will not end there is too much money at stake.