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.

@Giliad Cath might well have an HIIV+ friend not on meds and doing fine. However, she could equally be lying given her posts. Who knows. That’s why it’s always best to give reliable proof.

Katerinna I said I didn’t believe in ‘germ theory’ .... that is Pasteur’s germ theory model ...not thecsne as not believing in germs

Fair point HIVpos. Given that you appear to have lived experience I'll go with you rather than Cath.

Do you believe germs cause disease?

@donaldducksgranonceremoved I would rather take a risk with vaccinations than risk the measles, that was my view when my eldest was born and it is still my view because measles nearly killed me, I was unconscious for 3 weeks after catching measles from my brother, I was too ill to be taken to the isolation hospital and my parents were told to prepare for the worst, our GP came round to the house every weekday after morning surgery to check on me and he also came round at weekends. When I regained consciousness he was amazed but unsurprised that I had suffered from memory loss, some hearing loss and I was unable to walk until I learned how to walk again, 50 years on and I still have limited memory of life before the measles, I have no memory of certain family members, no memory of certain events, no memory of certain places, but I have very vivid memories of other people, events and places.

Both of my children had the MMR, both of my children had reactions to it, both of my children have ASD, they were born with it and it is undoubtedly inherited through the paternal lineage.

I was born before the measles vaccine was available in this area and I know of other families whose lives were changed forever because of measles.

but it is thought that they lack the all important receptors on their CD4 cells that the virus needs to latch onto and infect/replicate within/kill

There is quite a lot of information about these people, actually. But it's a very small group of people.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_resistance_to_HIV
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3185609/

Cath might well have an HIIV+ friend not on meds and doing fine.

And yes, some people do seem to resist. And the incubation period can be quite long for some people.
Due to shortage of meds, in some countries treatment only starts when HIV+ patients show signs of AIDS development (usually a low CD4 count), but that's very risky because it could be too late then. ( www.aidsmap.com/REALITY-study-shows-which-HIV-patients-with-very-low-CD4-cell-counts-are-at-highest-risk-of-dying-soon-after-starting-treatment/page/3253252/ )

Do you believe germs cause disease?

Cath doesn't. It's antibiotics, drugs and rock and roll.

The number of lives saved by antibiotics is incalculable (though I’m sure someone has tried!). Some of this stuff is genuinely frightening.

My son is 4yo, was diagnosed with cancer at 16 months old, underwent intensive chemo, iv antibiotics and daily blood and platelet transfusions for nearly 6 months. He entered remission but the chemo wiped out all his baby vaccinations. There was a period of 6 months when he was totally reliant on herd immunity and whilst his immune system was compromised, measles could have killed him. Can you imagine - my child had overcome cancer but could be killed by something that should be totally preventable. I bricked myself every day that he may come across a child of a crazy anti vaxxer loon who could put him at risk. It was a huge relief when he could be revaccinated again (around 6 months after treatment ended) to protect him and others in the community (yes I care about the weak, very young, immunocompromised and those who can’t be immunised for medical reasons because I’m a decent human being). Oh and I forgot to mention in all this, he was diagnosed as autistic at 3.5 years old. This was f all to do with double dose of MMR, he was born autistic and will be autistic for life. Yes some of his regressions came shortly after his vaccinations but it was abundantly clear from birth that he had autistic traits.
My question to Cath is what would you have done in my situation- youve talked about toxicity of chemo, immune suppressant effect of blood transfusions and how antibiotics don’t work. What would have been your magical medical treatment suggestions for a 16 month old with Acute Myeloid leukaemia and myelodysplasia?????

it was abundantly clear from birth that he had autistic traits.

Same with both of my DC, one diagnosed and one on the pathway. When I look back at what they were like as babies, I always knew they were different to my friends babies and those differences became more pronounced the older they got. They were always autistic, we just didn't know it yet.

What would have been your magical medical treatment suggestions for a 16 month old with Acute Myeloid leukaemia and myelodysplasia?????

Drink more water, eat good food, wash your hands, have a positive attitude, ask some aliens to bless you.

Obviously.

I've spent the day with an anti vaxxer who also believes that chemo causes cancer and you cant catch any diseases if you eat a healthy diet and make sure all your vibrations are in order.

I have never been so mentally and physically drained!! Such a shame. I uses to really respect her but now realise that shes just 100% full of shit.

And to the others on this thread who don’t vaccinate their offspring- how can you justify putting people like my son at risk?

EwItsAHooman

@Jemimapuddleduk that must have been so scary for you. I hope he is doing well now.

Aww frig Ewits - that's where I went wrong. Nothing to do with having sex, I just didn't get blessed by aliens Now i'm thinking about sex with aliens....

Not sure who else is in this thread who doesn't believe in vaccinations other than Cath

Btw I'm going to put something together tomorrow explaining why people like Cath have the mindset they do. and why they will/might never change. Most of all why there is no point in engaging.

Some people need to spend more time actually studying science and less time spewing dangerous Alex Jones-esq conspiracy theories that have resulted in the deaths of children

"I've spent the day with an anti vaxxer who also believes that chemo causes cancer and you cant catch any diseases if you eat a healthy diet and make sure all your vibrations are in order."

A good friend of mine spent the first 30 years of her life living in a commune which believed exactly this. So did she.

Until one of her daughters developed neuroblastoma. It is a childhood cancer that has nothing to do with how healthy you eat or how pure the water you drink is, or how much you meditate.

You'd think the rest of the commune then would rethink their theory.

No, their solution was to reject my friend and her family and kick them out, because obviously they must have been eating burgers and faking their meditation sessions, and that's the real reason her daughter got cancer.

There is no point in trying to reason with fanatics.

@Jemimapuddleduk

Thank you for sharing your experience. It’s situations like yours that were behind me posting this thread. The problem with not vaccinating is exactly this, it’s not just putting your own children at risk, it’s putting other people who need the herd immunity at risk.

I’m one of those poor sods, on steroids and chemo drugs (not for cancer, they’re used for other things too). My immune system is a tad buggered.

Reading back:

if the presence of antibodies to a pathogen means immunity to that pathogen ...( the basic principles of how vaccines are supposed to work).. why doesn’t the presence of supposed HIV antibodies = immunity to ‘HIV’

Ah, not so simple.
Antibodies work well against some pathogens. Less well against others. I've worked with one of those pathogens for which a high antibody count meant illness and likely death with no treatment. Because high antibody levels were the wrong response. Our bodies are not perfect machines.

On HIV, for a while, the immune system does keep HIV in check, but not for long. The virus replicates very quickly and recombines at a very high rate. That means that it generates antigen diversity very quickly, to the point that it it basically evades and tires out our immune system. And keeps killing CD4+ cells.
There's low CD4+ counts that are on the grey area between what are considered normal values and low values, and very low CD4+ counts that are not seen at all in healthy individuals (or not for long, as they encounter pathogens).
There's at least another example of a pathogen that is deadly and keeps evading the immune system by generating a new antigen coat, thereby the body generates antibodies but it keeps facing new antigens that it's not prepared to fight. I'm sure you know all about it, Cath.

Getting back to the topic of vaccines, it hasn't been possible to develop vaccines to all diseases, such as most parasites and Dengue virus for example, because a simple antibody response is not always the most effective way to fight a pathogen and we may not acquire a lasting immunity.

Giving the benefit of the doubt, it's perhaps easy to think that anti-vaccination and anti-germ theories are mainstream because they are presented in more appealing manners. The overwhelming body of work done on vaccines and pathogens is more boring, but it's also a lot more impressive than the same half a dozen people who never actually worked on the subject but keep popping up as so called "experts".

A PubMed search of "vaccin*" gives 370 thousand hits. That's almost 400k articles on vaccines/vaccination.
"HIV" gives similar numbers.
A lot more than a handful of websites or "experts" that can be named. Don't anyone dare pretend that vaccines and germs as causes of disease are anything other than established and consensual among the serious and widespread scientific community.
And, no, don't fucking quote Kary Mullis (the same guy over and over) again.

Some of you might find this funny. It's about Nobel Prize winners.
www.cracked.com/article_18638_4-nobel-prize-winners-who-were-clearly-insane.html

the language ''anti-vaxxer'' paints a picture of the person who uses it.

It is not this cut and dry. Pro-vaxxer. Anti-Vaxxer. Fgs.

My children both HAD their MMR and I want to be allowed to point out what doesn't ring true, what doesn't make sense and most of all, all the voices that haven't been heard. The term anti-vaxxer makes me wince and I feel the person who utters it or types it as a form of put down will be a steam rolling bully shutting down any discussion.

The assumption on your part that all ''anti-vaxxers'' believe any one thing is so offensive. Check yourself. So one friend doesn't believe that chemo works. And you attribute that belief to the imaginary group ''anti-vaxxers'' who all allegedly believe exactly the same '(crazy) things. Do you pro-vaxxers have to go to these lengths to tar ''anti-vaxxers''? Is it necessary to throw EXTRA dirt??

Erm...
The pp didn't put the two together as the same thing. Their friend did.

"I've spent the day with an anti vaxxer who ALSO believes that chemo causes cancer"

Anti-vaxxer tends to be a certain profile that follows pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo and not only regarding vaccination.

Of course it's fine to discuss vaccines and vaccine use. Otherwise, pretty much all vaccine scientists would also be anti-vaxxers.

But I'm wary of random people who claim to want to discuss vaccines but use that claim to only put forward anti-vaxxer claims.

Lweji what a load of sanctimonious tripe

Good morning. Bad night?