MMR - another US case

[saintlydamemrsturnip]

news report here

jim carrey is the partner of jenny mccarthy, who has a child on the spectrum (she initially went down the "indigo child" route(!)), so I guess he may have an interest in vax issues.

120K is completely out of whack with the most serious negligence case awards isn't it?

silverfrog- I think there is going to be so much coming from the States about mitochondrial dysfunction over the next few years. Did you have any luck with that paediatric neurologist in Cambridge? I am gearing up to the next pead meeting to try and get some mitochondrial tests run. Wish we were in Cambridge then it would be easy!

The jury Is not still out on MMR and autism . Well, it is but only in the same way that the jury is out on evolution. Autism isn't even correlated with mmr never mind causation.

And you ask what I am worried about because I vaccinate? The answer is other peoples children. It's a human trait called altruism.

mso - you do understand that autism is not one thing don't you?

You don't seem to from your reply above.

MSO- I truky truly believe sceince is about having an open mind and accpeting that things sometimes cannot be "proven" everytime and one article "disproving" something isn't definitive.

In my research on the matter- and in my understanding of discsussions with soem people more quailfied than myself- I do believe there is a small group of children in society who are inherently more likley to becoome autistic. All sorts of things may trigger this - including vaccination.
So, if you have a child that shows certain traits and maybe have children who are on the spectrum, for the siblings of those children the vaccine would seem unwise.

Science is about having open eyes and critical appraisal of even peer reviewd papers.
Evidence based medicine is a very interesting place to start and to evaluate the inofrmation avaiable.

As for the jury still being out Richard Horton described the original Lancet paper under oath as excellent and said the Science still stands.

Several presenters at IMFAR 2008 mentioned vaccines as a potential trigger in various models for triggering autism.

And altruism is fine. But you wouldn't vaccinate your child if you thought it would leave your child without speech and needing 24 hour care for the rest of their life.

I haven't had time to look them up yet dh is away travelling crazily atm (he is here for 3 days this month, I think we managed 5 days last month, and dread to look ahead on the calendar...) and am just about keeping head above water with the normal day to day stuff.

I htink he is back at the weekend, so if I get any time off from mucking out tidying around after half term then I'll get onto it.

Look forward to more stuff on mito conditions though, will make interesting reading.

Oh mso- what a nasty nasty post.

Are you really showing altruism by berating people who have made difficult choices over their children's health.
Wow, i'm not often ruse on here, but you are what is known as a piece of work in this house.

I know the feeling! The paed in Cambridge was very helpful though so well worth asking for an opinion. I need to follow it up now .

Saintlydamemrsturnip, could you please provide a pubmed link to the papers that link mmr with autism? Do you have any comment on the recent decision of the autism society to stop researching vaccination as a cause for autism? The reason they gave is that it had been proven beyond doubt that there Is no link and it was detracting from credible research into the causes of autism. As an autism researcher what are your thoughts on this position? A link to your peer reviewed papers would be interesting too.

Atruism is selflessness.

Do you think the parents of the children who MAY end up vaccine damaged should show altruism to their child, or to "the greater good?"

And if said vaccine does damage the child- is £120k a sufficient amount for th gvmnt to pay, as this is what hey od now- but only if the child is over 2yrs old. if your baby is damaged then no compensation.

The gvmn ACCPETS that there are children who become vaccinae damaged... they pay out....so why would trhey do that if there is no eveidence?

oh, sorry- i see by your last post that your opinion has changed- now the "jury is out"... amybe by the end of this discussion you'll be of the opinion that is MAY actually cause damage, eh!

Can I just make clear that I am not advocating vaccination in the presence of clear risk factors. Of course you don't vaccinate those who are at risk of complications. That is precisely why it is so vital to vaccinate those who do not. Is it not likely that those at risk to their health from vaccination are even more at risk from the actual disease?

Oopsagain , you might want to re read that post. The jury is not credibly out on either mmr or evolution.

I'm a bit confused as to why you've come onto this thread all guns blazing, mso.

you have said that yuo think MN is a hotbed of anti-vaccine thinking.

i don't think it is, really.

you encourage everyone to vaccinate as it is "the only sane way"

you say people shouldn't encourage others to forgo vaccination (which doesn't happen anyway - I have only ever seen peole say "you must make up your own mind, I cannot tell you what to do")

and now you retreat into "of course if there are risk facotrs you shouldn't vaccinate"

I am a bit puzzled, really.

Gosh you're aggressive.

Well I'm not about to link to my peer reviewed papers as I prefer to be anonymous (I have talked a lot about my child on here in the past).

Which 'autism society' would this be? Autism Speaks for example (a larger autism research funder) is certainly still funding research that includes research on vaccinations. Have a look at their current funded projects. The NAS has always been a bit weak about pushing for research on vaccinations but that's rather political. And they don't fund research anyway. There's a lot of general research on the immune system and autism going on in the States. And an awful lot of work on oxidation states in autism -this has all sorts of implications for vaccination (and a potentially vulnerable group). Add in work by American scientists on mitochondrial dysfunction -again this has implications for vaccinations - including specifically MMR. And lots of money now being directed into gene environment interactions. And there is still work going into gut conditions and autism as well. I can't actually summarise easily because the areas being looked at are broad and wide ranging and people bring vaccinations into all sorts of models. The research goes way beyond Wakefield and MMR.

I have been to 3 international autism conferences in the last year. At each conference presenters mentioned the potential role of vaccinations in various models. No-one passed out or behaved aggressively. The moderate (and most common) position appears to be that in some cases autism has been triggered by a vaccination reflecting an underlying disorder. Or probably a whole bunch of different ones. Research money is being used to uncover those underlying disorders.

You see autism isn't one thing. I could turn your rather aggressive questioning back on you and ask you to link me to a paper where they have considered the existence of subgroups. One paper tried - and identified the subgroup completely incorrectly using inappropriate clinical symptoms. The others have just treated autism as one thing, with one cause and one underlying disorder. Which it blatently isn't.

Anyhow charming though it is to educate I'm off to spend the day with my son.

I have not said that either 'everyone' should vaccinate. Some are at risk, that's why they provide you with a leaflet which you should read. The vast, vast majority of those not vaccinated have no risk factors though. And I don't see where I have claimed 100% effacacy either.

I don't think mso is being aggressive, just disagreeing with the rest of you. I think mso's points are very interesting and relevant and although I understand that it is a personal and emotive subject for many of you I think some of you seem to find it incredibly hard to hear a different (and evidence based) view.

Dame turnip, which do you think presents the greater risk to those without established risk factors - vaccination or disease? That's the only relavent question here.

I don't think MN is particularly a "hotbed of anti-vaccination 'thinking'"; just the anti-vaccination-ers are more vocal.

I mean, I'm not going to come on a thread like this and post, 'Actually my daughter has had all her vaccinations and is just fine', because that's y'know, not very interesting. Well, I have just posted it but you know what I mean.

well, actually, I wasn't provided with the info for dd1's jabs - no leaflet, nothing.

And when dh & I queried this, and wanted some info, the nurse went ahead, jabbed dd1 and said "there, done now, no need to worry".

when i queried again (let's just skip the ensuing arguments there for now) at a later jab why I wasn't being given the patient info leaflet, Iw as told that they thought parents couldn't understand the info anyway, and that they felt it was best if time wasn't wasted talking things through when the best thing to do was vaccinate (yep, this was the MMR) When I insisted on reading, and carefully asking my questions, they huffed alot, and resented the time spent.

and my memory is hazy on this (was a few years ago now, as dd2 has not had any jabs at all) but unless they have significantly re-written the leaflets, it does not even begin to touch on what happens if your child has an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction.

ra29 - I have no probelm with anyone having a different opinion. what I took issue with is mso saying things like "vaccinate. it's the only sane way" when i do not believe this to be the case

mso, what would you consider to be established risk factors?

I thnk that is pretty relevant here too.

you have dismissed any vaccination/autism link - it just doesn't exist at all. what about if an mitochondrial dysfunctionled to autism? is mito dysfunction a reason to not vaccinate?

what are the (in your opinion, naturally) conditions which could be counted as risk facotrs?