to think it's not terribly helpful to keep referring to parents who haven't MMR'd as "whack jobs"...

[MsGillis]

..or morons, or unfit parents, or up there with people who drink and drive?

I appreciate that people have very strong feelings around the subject, but I think that we need to understand that there are a significant number of parents who didn't/haven't vaccinated, not because they are crystal waving nutjobs, but because they are actually scared shitless and paralysed into indecision?

Surely there are ways and means to communicate information, and arrogantly shouting about how one person is right and anyone who disagrees is all kinds of nobhead is not going to be conducive in opening up reasonable dialogue?

WhenSheWas - Why would I say anything about school years? We were talking about the age around which regressions happen, when MMR is also given. No schools then that I'm aware of.

Read jimjams' link.

In Japan, MMR was given later (to older kids) than in the UK, iirc.

No-one is suggesting that MMR is responsible for the rise in autism cases when - so Japanese autism rates with & without MMR/MR tells you more or less nothing.

I suppose it would be possible to argue that the childhood illnesses used to go in cycles simply because children were exposed to all of them on a regular basis, and one set of germs was stronger than the others, gained a foothold and caused an epidemic..........

As good a hypothesis as some of the others!

Sorry cote my mistake you said children don't get different infections in the same year (not school year, don't know why I added the school bit).

saintly I don't get it though, how can you argue that mmr causes autism but not expect to see a drop in autism cases when mmr is stopped.

cote what age did Japan give the mmr then?

Because autism is many things & the numbers believed to have been affected by MMR are very small indeed.

The type of autism my son has isn't remotely like the type of autism someone diagnosed with Aspergers & lots of autism in the family has - they're not the same thing, they're different conditions with (unfortunately) the same name. So lumping them together and treating them as if they are the same thing tells you nothing.

No seeker - that's not what happened - the arguments in the paper are rather more plausible than that.

Saintly I am glad that your link which says:

Over a century ago, clinical epidemiologists in the UK noted that epidemics of measles and whooping cough were typically out of phase?a major epidemic of one was followed approximately a year later by an epidemic of the other (Creighton 1894; Laing & Hay 1902).

confirms that my memory of diseases going in phases was essentially correct.

And just as a matter of interest, what is the epidemic now? Is it just measles or is it 'measles and mumps' or 'measles and some other disease'?

No saintly it doesn't tell us nothing it just doesn't tell you what you want to hear. I have already said I think that there should be further work undertaken to further investigate whether a tiny tiny tiny fraction of at risk child could be at increased risk of autism (spectrum disorder).

Whatever causes autism, it is not the MMR vaccine. Honda et al link

Whenshewas - the Honda paper is treating autism as one thing. I'm not quite sure why people have such trouble understanding this.

So in the time that Honda covers the autism dx was expanding - so many people who in the past would not have received a dx had one. Many thousands & thousands. In (very) general terms this group tends to include multiplex families where the broader autism phenotype is apparent & the traits are inherited. Meanwhile a much much smaller group may have been affected by the MMR. They do not have the same condition as the multiplex families despite having the same name.

Not a great comparison but a bit like assuming that melanoma & lung cancer are the same thing because they're called cancer then shouting at everyone that they're stupid for saying that the sun might cause melanoma (because it doesn't cause lung cancer).

It is a terrible shame that so many epidemiologists seem entirely unaware that autism is not one condition but another reason for valuing the opinion of immunologists who do I think.

Actually apologies to Honda as I have just found this relating to that paper The study cannot rule out the possibility that MMR triggers autism in a tiny number of children Incidentally Brent Taylor says the same in his Lancet paper which shows similar results. It's a bit unfortunate that the people who were working on MMR kept saying that it's a small number of children that they were talking about to apparently no avail.

Ah apologises to Honda because you have now realised it says what you want to hear.

The study cannot rule out the possibility that MMR triggers autism in a tiny number of children yes this is true. And I have said there should be further research.
It does seem though that you are reading can't rule out the possiblity and interpreting that as evidence that mmr does cause autism (one of the kinds of autism).

At the moment you have only presented the hypothesis that there is a link, not once have you provided any evidence.

Widow, I didn't 'hone in on autism' . You mentioned it in one of your posts - that MMR should actually be protecting against autism by decreasing number of CRS cases. I was just wondering why we haven't seen a correlation if that was the case.

No, apologies to Honda because he had accounted for the subgroup theory. Just unfortunately didn't seem to realise that small and subgroup is the hypothesis for MMR.

And no I am not interpreting it as therefore MMR causes autism. Where have I said that? I used the word 'may' You're the one speaking in absolutes - 'whatever causes autism it's not the MMR'. That paper doesn't say that - it says MMR is not responsible for the rise in autism cases - I have never once suggested it is.

As I have said repeatedly - it's better to look directly at the children rather than try and spot small effects in large populations that aren't even clearly defined. In the meantime I'm inclined to listen more to immunologists rather than epidemiologists. And of course the parents of children I know who had MMR reactions that put them into ICU and following that regressed, but I'm not allowed to mention them on here. I expect the immunologists might be interested in them though........

Jimjams,
I think we'd all love to see evidence about all those children you know who had reactions to the MMR and then regressed. Published papers, that sort of thing? Or maybe you could name some of these many immunologists who you know who are so willing to share their opinions of the causative role MMR has in regressive autism with you, so that we can contact them directly? I know you don't think an email is as good as a chat, but on the other hand it does have the advantage of being written down?
Until you offer some sort of evidence you claiming you know all these children is simply that, unsubstantiated claims.
I would also add that whilst I have every respect and sympathy for any parents, at the same time I would not actually regard their opinions of the genesis of their children's autism as evidence of a link between the MMR and regressive autism.
Cheers.

Spink and Karlos -- In most states in the US, where vaccination is mandatory (exceptions for religious, philosophical reasons that have to be proven) health care for children is done by pediatricians, hardly ever by family practitioners (knows as GPs in UK and Ireland). You would be hard pressed to find one who would give you the time of day based on your extensive googling.

The American Academy of Pediatrics' position on vaccinations is that it supports vaccination wholeheartedly and in fact this year recommended vaccination of pregnant women with DTap due to the risk posed to newborns from people in the community who have the wild pertussis disease because of refusal to vaccinate. There are pockets of very woo people in the pacific northwest who have contributed to epidemics in those areas.

AAP-supported vax schedule

It seems in general the more specialised pediatric education a doctor has the more inclined he or she is to recommend vaccination, and not less vaccination but more.

Again, if you just want some doctor to finally put his or her hands in the air and agree with you then you should say so. Looking for what you presume will be more expert opinion from a higher source smacks of calling customer service and demanding to speak to the manager when you don't get the answer you want from the hirelings.

saintly those weren't my words.

You're the one speaking in absolutes - 'whatever causes autism it's not the MMR'.

That was a quote (I did link the source). My wording would be more there is no evidence mmr causes autism.

There are children who have regressed after MMR and were awarded compensation because this was recognized by the experts and the courts.

Is that evidence? Or will you be requiring something other than actual living people who have been permanently damaged?

magdalen - We are not writing "emails" here. Is that why you write little letters in each post, ending with that "cheers"?

Sorry Cote

Your example won't hold water, because one of those courts awarding compensation was Italian, and because the Italians sentenced some geologists for failing to predict an earthquake, it follows that all Italian court judgements are suspect.

Cote,
I was asking for identifiable individuals who jimjams could identify so we could contact them directly to ask about these children suffering from regressive autism caused by the MMR. Obviously, I would much prefer it if they published accounts of some kind in peer reviewed journals or something like that, but they seem strangely reticent about doing so.
I sign off "cheers" because it at least allows people to identify me on what is a very anonymous board format.
It appears to work.
Cheers.

When it comes to compensation, what the courts decide is not necessarily what science indicates.

Magdalen as you are no doubt aware the only immunologist I have mentioned on this thread has been the one who has publically quoted her opinions in mainstream media & I linked to them.

You were the person I was thinking of when I said I wasn't allowed to mention personal experiences. Obviously I'm not going to identify a child - which is why my one tiny mention was vague. I was talking about my beliefs - I.e. I believe the parents. You have made it clear on repeated threads that you think parents are too stupid to recognise regression. So ignore the one sentence relating to personal stories.

magdalen - "I was asking for identifiable individuals who jimjams could identify so we could contact them directly"

HAHAHHHAHHA and you actually thought she would IDENTIFY people she knows in RL so a random stranger can phone them up?

On a separate note, would you just try to stop writing "cheers" at the end of each post? I know you said you can't help yourself, but I just can't understand how an adult who is coming here to debate on an intellectual/scientific level cannot stop herself (himself?) from writing an extra word. May I suggest sitting on your hands when you finish what you want to say, until the urge to bid us all "cheers" passes?