The "children are able to cope with lots of bacteria/viruses at once" is faintly rdicidulous. They're not necessarily designed to cope with several childhood infections at once. In fact catching measles and mumps in the same year of life does slightly increase the risk of developing an autistic spectrum disorder. Search on pubmed found the reference there before. Catching rubella very early in pregnancy is a recognised cause of autism.
Wakefield is very much pro vaccination by the way. Just safe. He;s found that there were brand effects, and the dodgiest brand has now been withdrawn.
Incidentally my son did not regress following vaccination, he regressed following a naturally aquired herpes infection. This has been accepted (Iand never questioned, met with nods and murmurings of agreement) by the medical profession and is written in his diagnosis letter. If you search for Wakefield's theory and read what he actually said his opinion is that in some susceptible children a viral infection can trigger the regression. In fact he has worked on herpes as well- this bit presumably isn't under dispute. ie it is accepted by the medical profession that a viral infection can and does cause autism (search for herpes and autism on pubmed- some of the autistic like regressions there were in teenagers!)
There are many different types of bowel disease found in autism. You need to distinguish between them. You can't just lump them all together. Autistic enterocolitis as described by Wakefield has been accepted as existing and as being novel. The cause is the bit under dispute, not the condition. Part of the reason it is poorly recognised is that you need to perform a colonoscopy to diagnose it. I don't think that can be done in the UK anymore. It is treatable though to a certain extent (the bowel disease), and is incredibly painful untreated so that's rather a shame.
Richard Lathe's book autism the brain and the environment is an interesting read. He invented a vaccination (the one for rabies), he advises as vaccination being one way to protect against autism (as it protects against encephalitis), but he still thinks that to suggest that approx 5 - 10% of cases of autism have been caused by MMR is entirely "reasonable" (his words). He lists the differences between that group and other subtypes of autism. He;s not an anti vaccination campaigner, he;s pro jabs but also recognises that that doesn't mean you have to deny it can ever happen.
DS1 attends an SLD/PMLD school. It;s been open since the 60's and has always taken the 'worst' cases locally, of learning difficulties. These were not children who could hide. Parents stay around after theiur children leave so we get to chat. One mum (now a govenor) had a dd at the school 20 odd years ago (her dd is now in her 30s or 40's). She said she's always staggered when she goes round the school at the number of children with autism in the junior years. DS1's class is a class of 6 severely/profoundly autistic boys- she said it was unheard of, a whole clalss of autistic kids, and these are not children with LD's plus ASD's these are (as the escorts say' "ooh you know very autistic") these children did not used to be at the school but they couldn't be anywhere else-0 nowhere else would have coped (and no it wasn't misdiagnosis, the biggest population in the school was children with DS). She said she just walks into classes and spots autism everywhere. Thinking back she can think of a handful of children spread across the school.
The changes are now happening in adult services as the cohort begins to grow up. We had a visit from someone running a home for severely autistic adults and he said he expects the numbers of such homes to increase dramatically over the next few years. Someone asked why and he simply replied 'becasue they're needed, there is not enough provison and numbers are increasing all the time". He was talking about the need for highly specialised services.
Note I am not linking MMR with the rise.
Most studies on regression etc are completely unreliable. There is no accurate way of recording it and anyway records aren't kept. DS1 is dxed as classically autistic, yet it is accepted (and says in the dx letter) that he regressed following herpes.
The majority of "cause of autism" studies don't even recognise that there are different subtypes. Most work on autism on the higher functioning end of the spectrum because it is so difficult to examine the lower functioning end. Wakefiled and Murch were the only 2 people in the UK (AFAIK) with the skills to perform colonoscopies. If you think anyone can do it search and read my thread about our local hospital being unsure whether or not ds1 had broken his ankle, because they didn't have the skills to find out. In the end they decided not to plaster him as they didn;t think they would be able to get the plaster off. Imagine being sent home being told 'yes your child may have broken their leg, but we can't tell because despite 5 people holding him down we couldn't get the x-ray we needed and we don;'t know how we'd get a plaster off anyway'. Last time I took him to the doctor it was because I thought he might have a raging throat infection. The doctor didn;t manage to examine him. People woirking with the severe end oif the spectrum (as Wakefield did) need incredibly specialised skills. Without them these children will not get examined or diagnosed (an presumably thwe condition he described will cease to exist- eyes tight shut can;t see can';t see)
Autism is a mass of different syndromes. At the AS end probably it is highly heritable as AS. At the severe end it is heritable, but in a different way. The family histories are full of autoimmune conditions, not autism.
Interesting paper in Gut magazine published at the end of last year. It didn't refer to autism, but it referred to autoimmunity including type 1 diabetes and MS. The model was for all intents and purposes a variation of Wakefield's model for the development of autism. It was the model that we had used back in 2002 when deciding what to do with our newborn ds2. Gut journal is highly respected by the way, and I personally think the paper was im[portant (even though it sensibly steers well clear of autism).
Of course the majority of people can be vaccinated perfectly safetly. Enough is known about potential risk factors that it would be relatively easy to screen those who needed modified schedule before they had the jab.
Wouldn't it be lovely? A world with hideous disease long forgotten because of vaccination AND a word with limited vaccine damage because vulnerable children were screened out and were given modified programmes. Never quite understood what is so bad about that.