Help me make sense of MMR - hype or theory

[felicity10]

OK, so I've been through a few pages of previous posts, I must be missing something because I can't make sense of it!

DD is 1 and I've had a letter about the vacs from the GP. I've heard about the MMR in the news few years ago and about the link to autism, but I just would really value your views.

Single vacs with no mumps or the MMR? Can anyone point me in the direction of key MMR issues?

I just don't want to get to the gp's and then feel like I am getting bullied into having the mmr - it is normally very no nonsense nurses who barely speak english, so will be unlikely to give me a clear answer as to any risks.

I am amazed that we have this lack of clarity in the UK.

Many thanks in advance!

"Asking whether a person coupd be mistaken in their cincerely held belief that their child is vaccine damaged is always interpreted as accusing them of lying, and is chatacterized as dismissive and sneering.

It is impossible to talk about a serious subject when there are fundamental questions that cannot be asked."

Seeker I'm really by this.

Why is it fundamental to ask an anonymous parent on an internet forum if they are right about their child. What real difference does that make to anything? We know that vaccine damage does happen, just as any other drug can sometimes of bad side effects - the existence of vaccine damaged children is a moot point. There were over 2000 children involved in the UK MMR litigation.

I only mention my daughter's health in order to explain why I am interested in this issue. I have already explained on MN that my DD hasn't had MMR. She reacted badly to her DTP vaccines (a brand of French vaccine which as since been withdrawn because of its bad safety record). I became interested in autism originally because my DD shares some of the digestive and allergic issues which manifest in many autistic children. The autistic community has been a massive help to me with regards to my DD's health.

"Excuse me Seeker: one of your first contributions was: "That's not evidence -- that's anecdote".

Absolutely no interest at all: complete dismissal of all cases.

That's not a contribution to a sensible debate in any way."

That was not dismissal. Saying "Look, just because you sincerely believe something that doesn;t necessarily make it true" is not dismissing, or rude or any of the other words use to try to make peopel like me shut up because we don;t want to seem disrecpectful.

Let me give you an example. I am convinced that my children's and particularly my ds's behaviour deteriorates significantly if they watch a lot of television. I sincerely believe that it does something to the way iis brain works.
There is no evidence for this apart form my observation"anecdote" if you like, and it could be something else entirely. If someone showed me brain scans from my own cild and hundreds of others shoeing that there is no change in activity when they watch TV, I would say "OK, it's not that, it's soemthing else" It wouldn;t be sensible to hang on to my TV hypothesis in the face of the evidence. Would it?

I know righissedoff - it is .

Here you go for the back story.

Them there Davis brothers keep coming up don't they?

By the way- just wanted to point out. Stat said that Thoughtful House fired Dr Wakefield. This is untrue.

Dr Wakefield resigned from Thoughtful House in order to keep the clinic out of the politics of all this. Thoughtful House is concerned with research and treatment of autism - the last thing it needs is the most unpopular guy in medicine being associated with it.

If someone showed you brain scans showing changes that were replicated in a hundred other children, it would be sensible to hang on to your TV hypothesis wouldn't it? If you withdrew television and watched the responses in your child and that other hundred children, and saw improvements, it would be sensible to hang on to your TV hypothesis wouldn't it? If a number of experienced neurologists agreed with you, it would be sensible to hang on to your TV hypothesis wouldn't it? In fact, it would be sensible to think that maybe there ought to be more research in what is affecting your child and that hundred other children, and that you ought to be taken seriously, wouldn't it?

You said: "It's not evidence". Total and absolute dismissal. If you're withdrawing that, excellent. If not, you're wrong.

Did you read the links from thoughtaboutit?

Beach, Dr Wakefield is astonishing. His sacrifice of family, career, reputation, is almost unprecedented.

Of course we know that on the next thread the same lies will be repeated.

I like your style of been there done that - here's what I said earlier .

If I won the lottery I'd be on the blower to AW in seconds handing over fistfuls of cash for more research. And a nice holiday in Hawaii.

btw Beach do you know thoughtaboutit?

virtually I mean

actually sorry that's a bit stalkerish

was just impressed that's all

Seeker you make an interesting point with this phrase;

"If someone showed me brain scans from my own cild and hundreds of others shoeing that there is no change in activity when they watch TV"

If somebody showed you brain scans of children then they would have clinically examined the children in question. Correct?

That is to say that they would have investigated the actual children thought to be affected by the phenomenon. Correct?

Except that that is not what is happening here. The children being clinically examined are not the children in question.

If somebody did a brain scan on a child with completely different symptoms to yours would you accept that as evidence? Actually, no change that - they don't do a brain scan - they scan the child's lungs and then make claims on your child's brain activity based on a lung scan of a child with different symptoms to your child. Would you be convinced by that?

No I don't know that poster or certainly not under that name.

I would have liked to ask her some questions but wouldn't want to be intrusive/risk her anonymity.

Might PM.

Don't worry - not stalkerish.

I like your style too!

may I just say rather childishly

hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha

at stata "behaving with dignity"

I think one of the roots of the problem is the definition of the word "anecdote". It does not mean "data", or "evidence" or "lie" or "delusion".

It simply means a story someone tells about their life.It may or amy not be objectively true. But the person telling the story sincerely believes it to be true.

There is no value judgement attached to the use for the word at all.

"Anecdote" "data" "evidence""case study""reseearch" all have useful, distinct and precise meanings. None of them, as far as I know, are insults.

ANd don;t be silly, rightpissedoff, all stata has done is question "your" orthodoxy. You are treating her the way you claim Wakefield et al have been treated.

seeker - what you say about the technical definition is true, of course.

but couple it (as stata does, frequently) with "delusional fools" and similar insults - couple it with openly saying you think the parents are lying, and really, the only interpretation can possibly be "sorry, that is not a true story"

a nice stroll through semantics, but often the rest of the post (or poster history/carry over form prvious on-topic threads) says a whole lot more.

so, the gut/brain theory?

the response of the immune system in an autistic child?

the protein malabsorption problem?

any thoughts?

because that is what this thread should be about - not the quibbling over semantics.

She doesn't, you know. The insults seem to be flowing the other way, as far as I could see.

And It is very important to be able to use the word 'anecdote" because it has a meaning. ANd that meaning is not "lie".

And parents who believe theri children to be vaccine damages should, if they come on a forum like this, accept that their views will be challenged. And saying "This is what I think, therefore it's true - you can't challenge me because you don't know my child. And even suggesting that I might be mistaken is Denying my child"" does nobody any favours.

I will get to thoughtaboutit's links this evening.

Interesting study which identifies the persistent measles virus infection in some autistic children's damage intestines as being consistent with the vaccine strain

This is also very informative.

The following is a link to a news article which speaks of a drug which is to be fast tracked by the FDA. The drug helps children with autism as it helps them to digest certain proteins - this is exactly what Wakefield says. He said it in the original 1998 Lancet paper. Wakefield has been ridiculed for pointing out the relationship between autism/the gut/impaired protein digestion and yet here we have the FDA all chuffed with a drug which targets that exact problem. You couldn't make it up.

abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/health&id=7353260

erm, I haven't said any of that.

and, yes, stata has often said non vaxxers are delusional fools.

I expressly said, in my earlier post to you, that I do not mind questioning at all.

I do mind being called a liar (which again, I have been, repeatedly).

question away - do ask whatever you want to.

stata asked, several times, and I provided answers (mainly she wanted to know whehter my assertion that dd1 was vaccine damaged was medically accepted. she first aske dthis a couple of months back. once she had that info, her references changed form "mistaken" to "liar" - nice.)

there obviously needs to be some stuff taken on trust - this is the internet after all, and none of us knows the other, but do you really htink that Beach, jimjams, pagwatch and I have been running a long game for trolling purposes?

we all have long posting histories. but honestly, why would we lie about this?

stata just dismissing us with a "well anyway I think at least half of you are lying" is denying our children. either she thinks we are lying about their issues, or lying about the medical acceptance. I now (in my case) and sincerely believe the others when they say so, that neither of these thigns is true.

challenge away, but do us at least the courtesy of accepting what we say in reply (when it applies to our own situation, I mean. not just blind acceptance of the science or the studies). anything else is all but an accusation of trolling.

re: the name calling. it has all been on stata's side, wher ei am concerned. I did not even swear at her (even though she took extreme offense as though I did) - I did swear at something she posted, but it was not personally directed.

unlike the repeated jibes form her re: mumbo-jumbo, making it all up, calling me a liar etc.

sometimes people only see what they want to see

would be interesting to read the whole paper

have to get on with some work now, but will try to dig it up later.

Ach seeker you're gonna start hurting my feelings soon!

Here I am posting some of the science that you requested and you are ignoring it.

I couldn't give a rat's arse what anyone on MN thinks of my personal situation - I'd much much rather discuss the science.

Some feedback on the science would be good when you have time. Take a look at the video of Dr Wakefield explaining his work. The bit about the inflammation being found in the guts of autistic children being consistent with an infection of viral origin are most interesting.

Especially in light of the fact that vaccine strain measles virus has been detected at the sites of inflammation.

Add to that the fact that a close temporal relationship between wild mumps and measles infection in particular, is associated with a higher rate of inflammatory gut disease. Plus wild measles infection is associated with disintegrative psychosis (a condition remarkably similar to autism).

Dr Wakefield did a lot of work in the field of measles infection and the development of Crohn's disease before he got embroiled in the vaccine thing. It is worth looking up also as it sheds a lot of light on these issues too. Wakefield must have fallen off his chair when he started to see what was being found in the autistic children's guts - it would have made perfect sense to him given his chosen specialism.

It is no coincidence that the team who stumbled upon the discovery of a potential viral/autism link were gastroenterologists. It was just sod awful bad luck that the viral element came from a vaccine.

Not only sod awful bad luck actually.

If they had made a similar discovery about autism and wild measles infection they probably would have been nominated for a fecking Noble Prize.

Wow silverfrog that looks mighty interesting.

They link to the full paper.

Love this

It expresses my sentiments so well.

Don?t want you to catch the mumps?meningitis too
Pertussis, hepatitis or the flu.
But everywhere I turn my eyes,
The internet is spreading lies.
So many parents scared by fairy tales and hate
I need to educate, so that I can vaccinate.

This bozo Wakefield said ?shots make you autistic?
But that fool was paid by lawyers just to jack the statistics
And now the public?s understanding?s unrealistic
These lies on the internet make me go ballistic
Like aluminum in vaccinations, folks say, ?Oh No?
But you get more in your diet just from eating some Ho Hos