Study Says No MMR-Autism Link; NAA Says “Flawed”
September 4, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Cause, Vaccines
Lots of media coverage on the newly published study disputing an autism-MMR link. A September 3rd ABC News article opens with the story of Arthur Anderson, who’s now nine years old. He was five when he started to show “signs of autism” after receiving the MMR vaccine; he also had “chronic stomach problems” a couple of weeks earlier. “‘By 7,’” as his mother Sorsha Anderson says, “‘he was a completely different child. He could not make eye contact at all’”; he also “‘began losing language… and then he was diagnosed with autism.’”
While I’ve certainly come across numerous parental accounts of a child losing skills and “developing” autism after receiving a vaccine, the age of Arthur Anderson at the time of diagnosis stands out. 18 months is when children typically receive their first MMR; 18 months is also when children start to present with signs of autism, due to delays in communication, social skills, and play skills becoming more apparent. Much has been made of the temporal proximity within which these two events occur, as evidence for a vaccine-autism link. More would need to be known about Arthur Anderson; are there other cases of children five years and older seeming to develop signs of autism after receiving a vaccine?
A second point about the ABC News study. Laura Bono, a co-founder, board member and Research Committee co-chair of the causes of autism. Dr. Mady Hornig—one of the authors of the new study disputing an MMR-autism link—was also the author of a 2004 study on Neurotoxic effects of postnatal thimerosal are mouse strain dependent . This study is posted as a PDF file via the NAA’s library webapge; the 2004 Hornig study is also posted as a PDF file on the website of Safe Minds.
The NAA states in a press release that the new study by Hornig et al. is “‘flawed’” and that it “‘fell far short of what the public needs to prove safety of the MMR vaccine.’” The NAA also needs, perhaps, to note that its use of Hornig’s 2004 study as providing a sort of “sweeping conclusion” for an MMR-vaccine link also falls “far short.” (The relevance of research on mice who have “signs of autism” is difficult to assess; what such “symptoms” are in mice and how they are arise, is different from what occurs in humans.) The press release does not mention Dr Hornig as one of the authors of the new study.
Here’s Action for Autism and Left Brain/Right Brain.
Jeff Stimpson
Jill Cornfield
Do either SafeMinds or NAA or any of the vaccine/autism advocacy groups host the Berman paper? You know, the one that tried (really hard, like 10x harder) to see the effects of the Hornig mouse study and found it couldn’t be replicated?
My guess is no.
Will these organizations continue to support the idea that the original Wakefield studies are valid and ignore the new Hornig study?
My guess is yes.
Respectful Insolence also discusses the new Hornig, et. al. paper and rebuts some of the criticisms in the NAA press release.
Am trying to check (in the midst of some other things…..)—I’m wondering if they are still going to host her paper after this.
They give MMR here at 12 months, FYI.
MMR is given here at 18mths.
Will these organizations continue to support the idea that the original Wakefield studies are valid and ignore the new Hornig study?
Well, they seem to be working overtime to dismiss the reported results, and relevance in the big picture of the vast majority of published results to date. so I guess the short answer will be yes.
The publication itself seems to have created the equivalent of stepping into a yellow jacket nest. (Reading a couple of comments accusing Rick Rollins of being some kind of conspirator with UC MIND because of his published comments on the paper made for eyebrow-raising.)
I’m more interested in how the larger community, and the research and granting agencies are looking at these results.
(Sorry, BTW, about so many comments).
One last eye-roller.
I actually read a suggestion that the reason that Mady Hornig authored the study and published the results was because “someone had threatened her family” (unsubstantiated).
(I think the bottom has fallen out of the paranoia and grasping at straws barrel.)
Y’all have a good weekend.
We thought it was 18 months, but our son’s schedule was supposed to be MMR at 12 months. That’s Texas. Do schedules differ state to state? We also just moved back from California two years ago, and I didn’t notice a huge difference in the schedules.
Regan…holy moly.
I got curious as to the recommended schedules in the US and elsewhere–
FWIW, Eleanor got her first MMR at 15 mos in 1998.
Recommended US Schedule persons 0-6 years
1st. Between 12 and 15 months
2nd Between 4 and 6 years
Canada recommendations persons 0-6 years
1st 12 months
2nd 18 months or between 4 and 6 years
UK recommendations
1st 13 months
2nd 3 years and 4 months or soon after
France
1st 12 months, unless entering day care centre, at which recommendation is 9 months
2nd <24 months