MMR back in the headlines - Italian Court rules it WAS cause of boys Autism

[doradoo]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160054/MMR-A-mothers-victory-The-vast-majority-doctors-say-link-triple-jab-autism-Italian-court-case-reignite-controversial-debate.html - sorry for DM link....

This is surely going to reignite the debate around the jab - fwiw my DCs were vaccinated with VMMR (with chicken pox too as we're not in the UK) - but I was concerned about the jab having heard / seen the reporting surrounding it.

So is the court right - and what does it mean for the UK and parents here who believe that MMR damaged their children?

"Antonio Barboni, a doctor of forensic medicine and appointed by the judge to independently advise the court, wrote a report saying that ?in the absence of any other pre-existing conditions? it is a ?reasonable scientific probability? that Valentino?s autism can be ?traced back to the administration of the MMR vaccine . . . by the health authority?.

"Dr Barboni?s findings were endorsed by two other eminent doctors who examined Valentino, investigated his medical background, and gave evidence to the court."

Huge implications for this country - and other countries, surely.

Oh, sorry about those numbers.

"Antonio Barboni, a doctor of forensic medicine and appointed by the judge to independently advise the court, wrote a report saying that ?in the absence of any other pre-existing conditions? it is a ?reasonable scientific probability? that Valentino?s autism can be ?traced back to the administration of the MMR vaccineby the health authority?.

"Dr Barboni?s findings were endorsed by two other eminent doctors who examined Valentino, investigated his medical background, and gave evidence to the court."

Interesting. Back when the MMR debate raging, I asked my colleagues on Drug & Therapeutics Bulletin what they thought. They are expert reviewers of medical evidence. They said it was safe for almost all children but that the safety studies were not sufficient - i.e. more safety studies needed to be done. I thought, well, almost all isn't good enough. So I got ds singles - including rubella as I wouldn't want to be responsible for someone else's child being harmed. There's no more scientific evidence for singles than there is for MMR, btw, so mine wasn't an evidence-based decision. But it was one I was comfortable with.

It's interesting. I know that a lot of doctors will say that autism often tends to have a late onset, so a child will be developing normally and will suddenly regress. Inevitably in some cases it will happen soon after the MMR jab, so some parents have made a false correlation when in fact it's pure coincidence.

Clearly the doctors in this case thought differently and believe there's a genuine cause-and-effect. I'd love to know more about why the evidence that persuaded them of this. (I have an open mind, by the way.)

There's no telling which children it is safe for.

Clearly some families can get away with it and some can't.

No vaccine, like no medicine is safe for ALL people.

How do you tell who it is safe for?

No idea. But some children with autism often have symptoms that show they are less able to process certain toxins and foods.

I have always been a bit about the instance that the mmr is 'safe' because the science just doesn't make that possible for everyone.

MMR is safe for the vast majority of children but NOT all of them. That's not good enough for me and I have gone for single vaccines, although am waiting for mumps vax to be allowed into the UK. Apparently after the (government induced) supply problems, some mumps vaccines were produced and they were stopped on their way into the UK this year (by the government). There is nothing wrong with the mumps vaccines, the government are trying to restrict their supply by any means possible to make people have MMR.

Thanks government. I personally know one of the victims that vaccine would go into my DC over my dead body.

This should free up the system of getting singles.

This has always confused me too

I think Autism can be caused by lots of things, children react to different things, the MMR is ok for some but not for others

My dd2 reacted to both the MMR and the MMR booster, with the booster we ended up in hospital with a severe reaction, the doctors didn't want to addmit that the MMR had caused it and we got nothing in writing to conform it was the MMR (but were verbaly told it was) Dd2 was diagnosed with Autism at the age of 3, she went down hill after the first MMR. Dd1 is also on the spectrum but showed signs way before the MMR so i don't know what to think. I think its possable that the MMR either caused dd2's ASD or made her regress.

Would you consider trying for compensation now? Or is it all a bit heart-sink?

Theres a huge history of ASD in the family, i think i would find it hard to prove that the MMR was the cause or that it triggered any kind of regression . I feel guilty for letting my gp talk me into the booster (even though by then dd2 clearly had ASD), if i had my time again i would have payed for the singles. Even if dd2 did not have the MMR theres no saying that something else might have triggered off the ASD (i really don't know), all i know is that dd2 had great eye contact and was very resposive before the MMR, 2 months after and the eye contact had faded away and dd2 went into her own little world. Her sister was clearly autistic from the day she was born (hated being touched, hated people near her, was very unsettled and cried a lot) but then each child on the spectrum is different, maybe dd2 was born with ASD but because she was so different to her sister i didn't pick up on it?

I imagine you wouldn't want to go over and over it all again, which you would have to do if you tried for compensation. It would be a very hard road to go down. Of course you also can't know whether the singles might have had an adverse effect, too.

I agree with Marne.

Re: regression. Kids who have regressed after, say the MMR do so spectacularly in the cases I have heard about - they were totally normal with well developed language and then it all disappeared.

My dd (severely autistic not caused by MMR) also regressed around 18 months - 2 yrs but there were key skills she never had which my NT children developed quickly and strongly and before anything else. There were things she could do that appeared normal at 1 but also lots of things she never did at all which you would expect to see in a NT child.

How do you know that single vaccines are safe?

There is the argument that having lots of vaccines all at once overloads the system? Are there cases of vaccine-damaged children from a single?

The comments after that article are heartbreaking and it's making me think twice about my second son who appears to exhibit symptoms associated with a high risk of adverse reaction.

There was controversy about the whooping cough vaccine in the 80s causing fits. It was later thought to be febrile convulsions due to the reactive fever some children had from the vaccine. That is why there is now the recommendation to give paracetomol or ibuprofen following vaccines to regulate the temperature.

I decided not to let my daughter have the jab and she then caught whooping cough on holiday in Portugal. 100 night cough,it is called,it was awful.

Not sure on the MMR debate,will be interesting to see the WHO response to the Italy ruling as WHO fully support the vaccine.

I have never trusted that triple vaccine and its link to autism. It was just too much of a coincidence. Was it Tony Blaire who had his son 'done' in France so he could have them given singly. And it was all hush hush. MMR is probably OK for a lot of children but not for all.

Was the version of MMR given in Italy at the time the same or similar to the versions given in USA or UK?
The article says he had the jab at 9 months but elsewhere online says 15 months.
I can't find anything to say how old the boy is now, 10yo?

Having reacted badly to vaccines myself I decided on singles for my kids. DS already showed signs of ASD before the jabs and so i know they ddnt cause it, but I wonder if if he would have been more affected than he is if he'd had MMR.

I will never know.