to think that there is a witch hunt against Andrew Wakefield?

[MagalyZz]

I just can't believe that they're still gunning for this guy!?

Whatever you make of his research, it WAS his research and he found what he found and he should be allowed to "suggest a link"

I have a child on the spectrum who had the MMR and I do not think the MMR had anything to do with it, but I do believe Dr Wakefield that a tiny percentage of people do react very badly to this vaccine.

Leave the guy alone ffs!!

no, people are telling them they are wrong.

People are telling them that autism starts to manifest at around the time of mmr (what, within hours and with severe regression from being a normally developing child to one that has lost all speach?) People tell them that it is a mere coincidence that their child happened to regress following the vaccine.

or doctors tell them they are being over-anxious and stop making a fuss. Then when the child is eventually diagnosed, it's what a crap parent you are, why weren't you bothered, you were too stupid to notice... oh, and one classic that cropped up on MN, parents of children with SN whose children regress in toilet training over the school holidays are just too ruddy lazy to take their kids to the loo. As opposed to changes in routine being difficult for many children in autism, of course. MUST be the parents' fault. (And that was from a SALT of all ruddy people.)

My grandmother firmly believed that my father had a broen birthmark that was vaguely cat shaped in his arm because she had been startled by a cat in early pregnancy. Nothing anyone could say would shift her from this wiew.

People look for connections. If something horrible happens to them, they want to find out why. And a major and unusual thing happening around the time of the horrible thing is a obvious thing to blame. But there has not been a single properly conducted study that proves a link between MMR and autism. And lots of research has been done. And it doesn't matter how many anecdotes there are, if they are not scientifically provable they remain just that, anecdotes. And the plural of anecdote is not data.

and yes, regressive autism does occur in children who have not had the mmr, but that doesn't make the experiences of the parents of children who have regressed following mmr irelevant.

Afaik there is a mumsnetter whose child regressed following his mmr booster so he was three or four. He is now severely brain damaged as a result. Was that a coincidence too?

There is a compensation fund for vaccine damaged children, so vaccine damage is a recognized consequence of vaccination in a small portion of children.

WannaBe, if you genuinely believe that there is a link between MMR and autism (I am not arguing that point) then you should be really angry with Wakefield. If he had conducted a properly constituted scientific study within clear ethical guidelines and without any conflicts of interest then if he had produced significant results they would have been much harder to discount. He has made it much more difficult for parents with concerns to be taken seriously because his questionable methodology has muddied the waters so badly.

I don't think that anyone is arguing that vaccinations can't have serious side effects, or that people who have these side effects should not be compensated.

Leonie, I'm not sure how saying that Harris or Deer work for Glaxo means that Wakefield didn't fail to disclose a conflict of interest, or that it makes that video of him saying he paid for blood samples disappear, or magics up ethical committee consent for procedures he had carried out.

Perhaps the GMC examined the evidence when deciding which conclusion to come to.

HAs the vaccine damage fund ever paid out for a child who has ASD following MMR?

Can people please stop regurgitating the bullshit that parents link mmr with autism because mmr is given "at the time when autism becomes noticeable"

That is such ignorant crap it is untrue.

Mmr used to be given at 15 months + iirc, and the same was said trunk. The age has now been lowered and the same shit is spouted.

Please give parents some credit cor knowing just a little about their children.

FWIW, I have a dd with autism. I believe she was vaccine damaged. She was a newborn at the time, and even then, image baby less than a week old, it was bloody obvious. The change in her was immediate and clear.

She was clearly autistic from before the mmr age. Otherchildren, like my dd2 do not show any clear signs until way past 13 months old (dd2 is now 3.3, and has been showing signs of ADD for the last few months)

So please stop with the "parents are desperate to male connections" crap. It helps no one. I do not need connections. I need professionals to listen to me when I try to tell them there Is something wrong with ly children.

Yanbu pointless saying more because it's such a divided subject and neither side will ever accept the others opinions.

The trouble is, we are talking about two different things.

AW carried out unethical research. He also drew conclusions from case studies of 12 children which have not been reproduced by any other research. This is fact.

The media misreported his original findings and whipped up a scare which was damaging to practically everyone involved, and which confused the issue to an extent that it is still very difficult to comprehend. This is a fact.

Parents of children with ASD often find the medical profession unhelpful and ingnorant about their child's condition, and are not listened to as they should be. This is also a fact.

These three sets of facts have nothing to do with each other.

Pmsl. Talk about ignoring the issue of not spouting bollocks... are we just conveniently ignoring the "parents make irrational connections because they want answers" angle now?

Only I seem to recall (and apologies if I am mistaken) that that was one of your lines, seeker.

But you choose to grab the bit of my post which mentions not being listened to, rather than address my actual point.

Silverfrog im confused- so did your daughter 'change' after one of her baby vaccines or the MMR?

Nobody has disputed vaccines can have side effects and cause complications- people are disputing the MMR= autism 'link'

wannabe, because there is a low uptake of MMR where I live and because I'm too old to have had the MMR, I caught mumps a few years ago. I nearly died from complications. My neighbour caught mumps last year. He's just finished the tests and now knows he has a (more or less) zero sperm count. DH, who is a virologist, had all his virologist mates round to see a real case of mumps because none of them had seen one before. Sadly this is no longer the case, they've seen plenty in the last few years.

I also fail to see how developing a single vaccine, patenting it, witholding that piece of information from the body that funds your research, then suggesting that the triple vaccine is not safe can not be seen as unethical.

Sorry - I just wanted to post because earlier in the thread people were mentioning that outbreaks of mumps in older teenagers is currently doing the rounds at unis etc.

This may be because these individuals were not immunised with MMR but with MR or because they didn't receive a second booster at school age because of the lack of MMR available.

The MMR and Autism link is bullshit.

From everything that i have read over the years about Autism and how it is caused, mainly things i have read is that it can be hereditary and not just from the first parent. It can go back to generations in the family. It has no link from MMR. My cousin is 7 and autistic and he was given the MMR injection. But he was diagnosed with Autism before the MMR was given mainly because of things that were noted that he couldn't do at the age of 12months like lift his head, crawl etc etc.

that Dr Man has put childrens lives at risk

I didn't ignore it, silverfrog - I chose not to respond.

However. Yes, people are always making causal links where they don't actually exist - it's part of being human. It's not insulting parents' intelligence to say that they think like everyone else does. I mentioned my grandmother and her being startled by a cat theory.

There is no research that proves a the link between MMR and ASD, and it is an area where people have, naturally enough since Wakefield, been looking hard for such a link.

I've worked with two children who had conditions directly linked to non-vaccination.

One, who came from a country where measles vaccinations are not given, had severe ASD as a direct result of encephalitis following measles as a small child.

The other came from a country where Rubella is not routinely vaccinated against. This child had congenital rubella syndrome. This means total deafness, total blindness, severe learning difficulties, spasticity of the limbs - generally a difficult life for a young person.

We have the opportunity to prevent this kind of thing in this country.

As it happens, there was measles in the school I worked in while I was pg with DS2, on testing it turns out that I have no immunity to measles, as my jab from the 70's has worn off. So I plan to get jabbed at some point.

My own DS1 has ASD, but I consider that I am quite lucky in that I already knew there was something a bit different about him before any jabs, so don't believe that vaxing caused the problems.

I don't believe vaxing is risk free, nor do I think the NHS is providing enough information for true informed consent, however, on balance, based on my own experiences, I vaccinate my children. Wakefield hanged himself, IMO, with his dodgy research and undisclosed vested interests.

The idea of a child being forced (as they would have been) to undergo lumbar punctures or colonoscopies unnecessarily is just beyond the pale.

FWIW I blame the press for the hysteria and for the backlash - both were unedifying spectacles. But it is Wakefield's fault that he has been struck off - it is after all he who is responsible for inflicting extraordinariy painful procedures on children in order to satisfy his own ego and he who paid young children for blood samples.

Linden, see here regarding the recent mumps outbreak where 88% of those infected had received one dose of vaccine, and 75% had received two doses.

See also the WHO comments on mumps:

"Mumps is mostly a mild childhood disease. It most often affects children between five and nine years old. But the mumps virus can infect adults as well. When it does, complications are more likely to be serious. As more children receive mumps vaccine, it is expected that cases will become more common in older children than in younger ones."

Oh and I wholeheartedly agree with ChazsBarmyArmy - those who believe that there is a link between MMR and ASD should be furious with Wakefield.

so what is the point of vaccinating against mumps?

Surely the mumps element should be removed from the vaccine in order that children catch the illness younger and develop life-long immunity?

I wonder if this will occur in chicken pox, with more people taking up the cp vax and developing cp as adults when it's more serious rather than as children when it is not.

The mumps component is still there because prior to vaccine it was a leading cause of viral (less serious) meningitis. Although less serious there were a handful of children who were left with long term problems as a result of viral meningitis.

Sausagerolemodel says:

'If you don't have a vaccine that's 99.99% safe then instead you have a disease that kills children with alarming frequency.'

My four 'pulled through' measles uneventfully last year as I had always predicted they would. As did I, all my friends and all my family in the 1970s when people were not scared of measles.

I am frequently astounded by the extreme lurch in attitudes to this illness over the space of 30 years.

Can any of you jab enthusiasts take a step back from the ardent hyperbole and take in a more a reasoned, clear picture. There is so much shocking propaganda from people who really ought to know better.

BTW, my decision not to vaccinate pre-dates Andrew Wakefield and has nothing to do with autism.

I wonder what scare tactics will be used to promote mass vaccination against chicken pox.