Shocking New MMR Report......Links with Autism due to underlying condition called Mitochondrial Dysfunction ?? Views Please ??

[cjones2979]

Have come across this very worrying new report regarding links with Autism and the MMR due to an underlying condition called Mitochondrial Dysfunction.

www.express.co.uk/posts/view/112286/Doctor-s-MMR-fears

My DS1 is 5.8 and was diagnosed with ASD at 3. DS2 is 10 months old & is due his MMR in a few months time.

I really don't know what to do as can't afford to pay for the single jabs, but don't want my son to be unprotected.

Prices to have these vaccines privately (I'm sure not many of us could afford these !!) Measles - £95

Rubella - £95

Mumps - £140

Prevenar - £60

I personally feel that as parents of children with ASD, we should automatically be offered the single vaccines for any younger children we have, or at least a test for Mitochondrial Dysfunction. Do you agree ?

Opinions please ???

[mysonben]

Very scary !
Only yesterday we took dd 14m to the gp to have her pcv jab, we said no to the mmr until she is older.
The nurse reminded us that ds is due his mmr booster, so again we said with regards to ds' asd we want to wait as we haven't made a decision about his 2nd mmr.
The nurse quickly gave us a run of the"mmr facts" that it is safe and doesn't cause autism,,,blah blah!!!
Yes well it's her job to reassure i suppose.

So we are caught between 2 rocks and don't know what to do because there is no way we can afford the pricey single jabs.

[Goblinchild]

Have a slightly different view, not banging any sort of drum, just reading around the topic.

holfordwatch.info/2008/08/11/patrick-holford-dr-richard-halvorsen-and-the-vaccinati on-schedule-as-a-r/

[mysonben]

Oh and yes i totally agree that they could meet us half way , at least giving parents of asd dc a choice of single jabs and screening for that M. dysfonction

[silverfrog]

It is a worry.

dd1 is ASD.

dd2 has had no jabs, but was FTT as a baby, and after a series of tests, we got a weird bloodworks result, suggesting mitochondrial dysfunction.

Her paed dismissed it, and ordered a re-test.

The results were the sa,e.

He again dismissed it, and recommended I forget all about it, and mentioned I should get dd2's jabs done.

tbh, mention autism and vaccinations in this country, and no-one cares (imo)

[cjones2979]

No, I totally agree silverfrog. At the end of the day, the professionals can harp on about no link etc etc, but as parents of children with ASD, we can't help but worry.

I can't believe your story. That is disgusting! Might be a different story if it was one of their children, hey??!

DS1 was showing no signs of Autism at the time of his MMR vaccination, and was developing "normally", reaching all his milestones. Who knows if it was linked, but we can't help feeling apprehensive about DS2 now the time is drawing closer to his being due.

[cjones2979]

Goblinchild - that link doesn't work, it says the page no longer exists ??

[cjones2979]

Thanks for that Pipin. You poor thing, how awful that no-one in this country seems to want to help you !

Would you mind posting the details of that Yahoo site so I can have a look myself please. I'm really interested to find out as much as I can.

Thanks.

[cjones2979]

Pipin, I'm so for you !!! It is disgusting that no-one seems to want to take notice. Why are us parents always made to feel like we know absolutely sweet FA ?!

[cjones2979]

Excellent, thank you PipinJo. I have requested to join.

[magso]

How do you test for MD?

[saintlydamemrsturnip]

The Kennedy Krieger Institute do a lot of work on this. I attended a talk given by one of their scientists. Very interesting and I emailed him afterwards as ds1 had many of the criteria (very mild motor delay pre-dx, regression following a virus, now some other strange symptoms). He was very helpful indeed and suggested I talked to a paed in Cambridge, who agreed it would be worth investigating in ds1, so I am waiting for his paeds to make a decision.

[pfft]

As far as I can tell from reading the research literature, mitochondrial dysfunction itself is associated with ASD.

While I am not denying that there are specific cases like the one above where parents see their child regress and link it to the day of the MMR jab ( for you PipinJo) the reason professionals don't know a lot about this link is that there just isn't very strong evidence that MMR and autism are associated, to the exclusion of other -potentially equally important- factors. For example mitochondrial dysfunction (in the restricted sense meant here - there are a lot of different ways a mitochondrion can be dysfuncitonal, many of them irrelevant here).

The doctor mentioned in the OP's linked article is someone who goes on and on about the link between MMR and ASD, whether or not there is any strong evidence backing his case this week. His viewpoint is regarded as marginal - not only by people who are being paid by vaccine companies - but also by people who are aware of the epidemiological evidence.

[saintlydamemrsturnip]

Pipin if you email me on nezumi35 at googlemail dot com I'll give you his details - he doesn't see people privately though.

There is often a lot of confusion about mitochondrial disorders and autism partly because this is very new research with very little published. You need to go to academic conferences really to get the latest information. 'Traditional' mitochondrial dysfunction yes can be related to ASD but it also related to very severe disability so the child might be affected by ASD along with a whole host of other things.

The mitochondrial dysfunction talked about in relation to the MMR is different, it is a milder dysfunction. The view of those at kennedy krieger seems to be that plays more of a role in cases where regression has followed a natural viral infection, but that it can occur after MMW as well - but probably not as frequently. They give quite a high figure though -iirc 10% - of autism cases having this mitchondrial dysfunction as a causal role.

I was interested in ds1 as he had the mild motor delay, regressed after a viral infection and was also given acyclovir (oral) as treatment which is apparently toxic to mitochondria, of course not enough to do damage usually, but if he does have a mild mt dysfunction then who knows.

[nikos]

What would be the symptoms of mitochondrial disorders?