AIBU to remind everyone that the MMR vaccine does NOT cause autism?

[TheHodgeoftheHedge]

Seeing as this worry comes up so many times on MN and in wider life, I feel obliged to post this and remind everyone that MMR has not link to autism whatsoever, as yet another HUGE study has found.

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/mmr-vaccine-autism-antivax-measles-study-andrew-wakefield-a8808086.html

Thanks.

@PinaColada1 totally agree!

vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/

Is a good site!

@Cathmidston a quick google tells me Donald is quite a controversial figure. Interesting but I'm not sure it quite proves the point you wanted to make.

Looks an interesting chap though, I will take a further look

Ones that don’t just say ‘get vaccinated’ we know best. Parents want to be more informed now.

There are plenty of sites with good information.
I'm not sure parents do want to be more informed. It seems to me that some parents follow the trend of giving credence to pseudoscience and any site that seems appealing. It also seems a case of general distrust with "establishment", which is not only a case of vaccines, but politics and science in general.
The problem is that most people are not trained to assess the information or don't have enough information. At some point, you do have to trust what you're told by experts because nobody can be expert at everything.

@donaldduck...
He was just the first one on the list of the link I attached.. I’m not vouching for him in any way... i was literally just giving an example of the type of information they had on the interviewees.. Montagnier was also featured...

it wasn’t just people questioning the hypothesis.. it was advocates as well

Alt medicine people are in it for the money just as much as “big pharma” and they make a lot of it.

Very much so, and more than big pharma. At least big pharma have to comply with rigorous testing by agencies and can't put forward demonstrable lies. Unlike Alt Medicine, which is largely unregulated.

Not having watched the documentary, did Dr. Niel Constantine, author of "Retroviral Testing and Quality Assurance", who worked for WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, with the Global AIDS Programme’s Diagnostics Unit in establishing research protocols for a number of countries, and addressing issues in HIV diagnostics, said that HIV does not cause AIDS?

No he was definitely in the advocate group but his comments were interesting

@lweij that’s probably true. I just think informed information is more than facts, it’s addressing the fears too. And debunking misinformation too. Even a question and answer e.g. how can you trust us?

To be honest the world of autism is full of misinformation and it’s so scary.

YANBU

Sadly I think this is very true

It also seems a case of general distrust with "establishment", which is not only a case of vaccines, but politics and science in general.

here we go again: history of autism diagnosis - & aspergers - the more profound form of autism (Kanner's Syndrome named - surprisingly after Kanner the first person to identify it in early 1940's) this form was the one most used in diagnosis until about 1980 BUT because disabled people/children were sent to asylums etc the exact number at that time & previously was unknown & many people - including those who are popularly known as having Aspergers (named after Asperger also identified syndrome in early 1940's but because it was in Nazi German/Austrian state was rejected until about late 1970's - read Laura Wing et al study on children with learning disability - Bermondsey I think it was were they identified a subgroup of children with undiagnosed issues as being within the parameters of Aspergers) Now the number of people increased because of several main factors the first being the DSM (American Diagnostic Criteria & second the changes in community care instead of asylums.

@Lweji I think it goes both ways. In many cases being more "informed" fuels anxiety

Again off topic but I had fertility problems, fertility treatment and then a very anxious pregnancy precisely because I did become far more aware of risks. I would have far preferred to have fallen pregnant quickly and remained largely ignorant blissfully of pregnancy associated risks. Physically my pregnancy (not birth) was pretty straightforward and I could have simply sailed through it happily had I not had the knowledge I had by that point. So in giving me the knowledge, I created risks from anxiety to the pregnancy that wouldn't have otherwise been present.

On the other hand- telling people to blindly trust without the time taken to address concerns fuels the theory of a conspiracy.

We live in an age where we are fed so much information and little guidance on how to filter that information. People naturally go with the most detailed approach... it may be bollocks, but we want to be taken seriously not told we wouldn't understand anyway.

And there's a discord between common sense and medical advice. Drinking water, getting enough sleep, eating healthy, good sanitation etc have progressed from being cutting edge discoveries to simply common sense in the modern world... will they protect you against measles? Alone, they're better than nothing and certainly save lives of people who get measles compared to places that don't have access to them.

But vaccinations on top of that and even better defence against infectious diseases like measles! But you get it 'seeming like' there's a conspiracy to laugh about the basics in favour of vaccines alone at combatting them.

No he was definitely in the advocate group but his comments were interesting

So, the documentary presents both sides, supposedly, but you decided that HIV doesn't cause AIDS?
Is it possible that the "interesting" comments from the advocate group were hand picked not to actually be a counterpoint to the theory that HIV doesn't cause AIDS?

I don't think that the MMR causes autism ,my son has a chromosome deletion thought to be the underlying reason for his autism and learning,however he is severely autistic ,he's non verbal he isn't toilet and whilst I love him to bits and can't imagine life without him, many people when they talk about autism never see the other end of the spectrum .

As an example of looking up information, DS only slept well on his front.
But I was told everywhere that babies should sleep on their backs (for some reason I wasn't too aware of swaddling).
Anyway, I looked at research papers (not documentaries) with actual research on SIDS. They told me the risk was indeed very small, particularly considering the absence of other risk factors (smoking, overheating...) and that babies with poorer head strength or deeper sleepers were most at risk. The risk indeed was twice as great for front sleepers.
I ended up letting DS sleep on his front when he was struggling with sleep because I judged the risk to be incredibly small, all considered. I still had some anxiety when I did let him.
Still, most of the information was available.

It's interesting that there's no advocates for sleeping on the front, distrusting official advice. Probably because there's no money in it.

But there's plenty of advocates for co-sleeping, which I don't think has any money in it either (you don't buy a cot, don't buy special bedding, don't need a monitor and so on) and is against the advice

True, but there are clear advantages to co-sleeping from a parental point of view.

Lweji the YouTube channel associated with it has the FULL unedited interviews of all those involved aside from the summary in the film which I found much more interesting ....

I was questioning the hypothesis years ago from listening to Kary Mullis etc so film was nothing new from that point of view

The problem with interviews is that the person has to answer questions from the interviewer. And is not likely to have watched the points by the "other side".

It's interesting that you choose to believe Mullis (one person) over 1000s of other people who disagree.

Again, how do you think HAART has worked to reduce the number of people who develop AIDS after being infected with HIV?

Mullis is one of very many.... I heard him, then started looking into it and what they were saying made a lot of sense
I answered that question earlier

Ah, found it.

But in answer to your question, less people are dying of aids because AZT is no longer used as a treatment. AZT which will almost certainly cause death from a breakdown in the immune system and bone marrow.... the people still dying from Aids are in the high risk groups for autoimmunity issues...like drug users etc

Well... to put it nicely... that's bollocks.

People with HIV faced certain death before AZT. The problem with AZT was that it worked initially, but because it was the first treatment and was used alone, HIV quickly developed resistance to it. Because it has a high recombination rate and new versions of its proteins emerge very quickly.

The point of HAART is that it uses multiple drugs, so that resistance is much less likely to emerge, by keeping viral load down and increasing exponentially the requirement for mutations and recombination events.

AZT is safe enough to use by humans, which is why it was licensed, and allowed many infected people to prolong their lives.

The people who still die from AIDS are those with late diagnoses.

publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2014/12/01/leaving-it-late-why-are-people-still-dying-from-hiv-in-the-uk/

"However, people who inject drugs (sometimes referred to as PWID) are often diagnosed late, with 51% diagnosed at late stage of infection in 2016"

Would you recommend to people living with HIV that they stop HAART?

Apologies to other posters for this, but here goes….

@Cathmidston – not quite sure what you’re now saying in this thread – in the last one you were inferring that HIV as a virus didn’t exist. I believe my last question to you there(unfortunately the 999th) asked “So...should I stop my meds? Since HIV doesn’t, according to you, exist?”. Or are you just saying now that AIDS doesn’t exist as a set of illnesses that untreated HIV can lead to? Also, are you suggesting that if a vaccination to cure HIV ever became available in my lifetime I shouldn’t have it?

Addressing some of your posts.…your 2 links upthread, well that documentary was made in 2009 and the publication dates of info used were from the previous 28 years (1981 on). I listened to a little of it and OMG science has moved on massively from then! I heard that we would not be able to take meds long term….ummm we know we can…and so on – sooooo much misinformation that might have been thought to be true then, but not NOW. For this reason any debate on this would be absolutely and utterly pointless.

Btw the documentary stated that no one ever being cured of HIV…incorrect. Google the Berlin patient (proven cured) and also, fresh off the press from this week – The English patient (needs an HIV after or you’ll get a link to a film!). Now he is not classed as yet as cured as it’s too early – some papers a bit too quick off the mark - but things look promising. This not a cure for everyone living with HIV unfortunately due to the process used, expense, risk etc, but shows it can be achieved.

Re AZT – the book you linked to was produced in 1990 and all articles (as detailed at the end) were from the 1980s. There is no denying that a lot of people couldn’t tolerate it in the early days and it did have nasty side effects for some – this was also due to it being prescribed in massive doses and the exact amount needed to suppress the virus was unknown at the start. However people did take it rather than face the alternative .

Now you said AZT (also called zidovudine or retrovir) is no longer used as a treatment. This is incorrect. It still is in other countries, and no doubt there are still some people taking it here due to it working well for them, although there are better meds. You might be surprised to know it is given to pregnant HIV+ women and also to babies as PEP when born of HIV+ Mums – yes, even in the UK, as it is still a very effective drug and well tolerated if given in the right dose and as directed. Further info from a reliable up to date source: www.aidsmap.com/Pregnancy/page/1730911/

As for Mullis – well all credit to him for inventing the PCR test, but for every one of him who says untreated HIV doesn’t lead to AIDS (and can’t give any other detail) there are many who say otherwise and who have supplied scientific data showing that it can. I won’t link – there’s loads and loads of reliable stuff out there.

Cath – I know I’m having a go at you, but regardless of how you treat your health and that of your family – please be careful of your facts and do your research from more up to date sources. Some of the stuff you post is quite frankly extremely dangerous and damaging to vulnerable readers. You should learn to become more informed of current views instead of dredging up articles from the past. Science moves on, and scientists’ thinking does too – it’s just the old articles that remain behind, along with people who read them and don’t know any better.

(@Lweji, you wrote “I've asked her (Cath) before on another thread if she'd have sex with an HIV+ person” Not with me she wouldn’t – not my type! )

That documentary is a good introduction ...like I said... and there’s a huge of amount of information out there
AZT. is utterly toxic and I don’t doubt that developing countries are tragically still using it. It isn’t used in the U.K. as far as I know. All the early users of it died very rapidly.
I used to work in oncology and it is pure poison.

It’s hard to debate this online..because you just end up back and forth and so on. I prefer face to face debates, but needless to say I utterly disagree with what youve stated above.

The documentary is good but you’re better off watching all the extended interviews if you have time ...from both sides of course.... they are much more interesting

Can't wait to see more up to date evidence. Particularly regarding the use of todays HAART.

Do you advocate stopping it for all HIV+s? Surely it's a waste of resources.

The newest reference to that article you linked is 2005 ...I would certainly hope they are no longer giving it to pregnant women