"MMR-Autism link is dismissed - again"

[CoteDAzur]

That is the title of the article anyway.

If there are any doctors among us, could they explain why the study was looking for a "raised concentration of measles antibodies"? What was that supposed to show?

And how come none of the autistic children in the test group had any 'bowel symptoms'?

I guess because they didn't want to test the ones that did?
Because they feared what they might find?

sure somebody else will be along soon who knows a whole lot more about it..

farking classic posts underneath the article.

talk about conflict of interests.

the one thing i've learnt from years of gess's posts is that the study that needs to be done is on those autistic children whose parents are convinced that their children regressed post mmr.

which this study is not.

It's a pile of bollards. I can only think that they haven't read Wakefield's research because it's really not that hard to understand.

They looked at 98 odd children with autism. The suspicion is that children ho regress following MMR form about 7% of the autistic population. So if you take a sample of 98 children the chances are that none of them will be in this subgroup.

They didn't find differences in measles virus levels. Well why would they unless they were in the MMR-regressive group. They didn't find enterocolitis- well why would they as 93% of autistic children don't have autistic enterocolitis. Hardly surprising. I'd like to know how they looked at it as well. I can't believe they scoped 98 children (which is how its is diagnosed).

So yet again they have treated Wakefields theory as being 'MMR causes all autism'. When it is not that at all.

They need to identify children in the subgroup. So if they wanted to look at measles virus levels they should have found children with autistic enterocolitis to look at. Not some random sample of autistic children without ulcerated guts.

Idiots. God knows how such poor research gets published.

It's the Guardian. Even Patrick Holford has complained about their pro-pharmaceutical stance. Really odd in a supposed champion of the underdog paper.

Mind you, it's been everywhere else too and at least the Guardian publishes the comments. Many don't.

The Guardian is the champion of the underdog? I must have missed that. I don't think any newspaper wins the outright medal for that.

Tests have repeatedly proven that there is no link. I choose to believe that. It may trigger early onset autism in those pre-disposed, as some people suggest (but without no proof), but it has not been proven to be the cause.

If you break down the conspiracy theory that exists about pharmaceutical companies, it would be easy to believe that certain political individuals might profit from bad research or misleading information on the subject.

But the long-term costs to governments around the world would surely negate any temporary gain. I don't believe that any one is sitting on a time bomb here. There is no link.

Which tests have repeatedly proven that there is no link Desi? I haven't ever read a study that even tests the hypothesis. Would be interested to. Would be nice to see the work being done.

yurt1

what are you going on about?

"They looked at 98 odd children with autism. The suspicion is that children ho regress following MMR form about 7% of the autistic population. So if you take a sample of 98 children the chances are that none of them will be in this subgroup."

how do you work that out? surely the chances are really quite high that one of the 98 autistic children is one of the 7%? especially if all the 98 children had the MMR.

they haven't assumed that Wakefield's theory is that MMR causes all autism - regression was counted as a variable in the study.

have you read the full study, or are you calling them idiots because their conclusion didn't tally with your beliefs?

I must be being stupid here but I don't get the sums either.

Surely if 7% of the autistic population are the ones who regressed after MMR then in a samply of 98% some of these would show up. Isn't the 7%, 7 children out of 100?

sample not samply

But Wakefield's theory is not that all regression is caused by MMR. Nor is there any sort of theory that all children who regress have enterocolitis.

They've said that none of the children had enterocolitis- so why would anyone expect them to have a higher measles antibody level? If you want to start measuring measles antibodies you have to do it in the correct population.

I'm also not quite sure why they looked at measles virus in the blood. The particularly interesting thing about the measles virus in the children who regressed following MMR was that it was present in the gut. Then later it was found in the CSF. There have been various studies over the years that have looked at levels in the blood- and the results have not been consistent. Some have found higher levels some haven't.

Yurt knows what she's on about I reckon. I couldn't deconstruct this study but then any newspaper article will only give an abstract anyway. It takes someone who knows about the field.

7% is a small population. 98 is a small population. "Autism" is a hugely broad category. It would be incredibly easy to sample 98 children with autism and not sample any who happen to have regressed after the MMR.

I haven't seen their sampling method- but will have a look as soon as I get a chance. But as they say they found no evidence of enterocolitis- then presumably they have missed the group. That is the group. The original Lancet paper was about enterocolitis. All the children Wakefield has studied have enterocolitis. If they had no children with enterocolitis then they're not looking at the same group of children. That is the group that have to be looked at.

It's 98 children - so on a statistical front that might suggest that about six children would fall into that subset. However it depends on the selection criteria, as I don't think this was a random selection of 98 children with autism, but probably 98 of the children at that particular clinic. However as the Wakefield theory has never been proven, I think it is a perfectly valid piece of research. Can't see any conflicts of interets in the posts after that article (anyway it's not a particularly vaild point - conflicts of interest don't really come into comments)

yurt ... God love you. I know this is a red rag to a bull subject for you, and I don't want you to think for one minute that I'm being purposely antagonistic.

I can only say that the evidence that supports no link is far more widespread than the evidence that supports a link.

At this stage in research, the only thing a parent of an autistic child can say with any semblance of unproven conviction, is that the MMR jab may have triggered the early onset of a predisposed condition.

Many professionals will say that it is at eighteen months, plus, that signs of autism start to show, and that the MMR jab is a convenient red herring.

I'm not in your shoes and I fully appreciate that. But governments around the world have been researching this for legitimate reasons, and all tests so far have proved no link.

The biggest, conducted in Japan, is still underway, and the results won't be through for a few years yet.

If you think there is a conspiracy theory along the lines of politicians getting rich from unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies, then I am sure this will come out in the course of time. Corruption in high places is almost always rooted out.

But I honestly don't believe this to be the case. There have always been autistic children. I just believe that the diagnosis of autism is a relatively new thing, and that parents are understandably looking for causes.

Sometimes, there just isn't one.

They wouldn't have got ethics approval to biopsy the children's guts as there wasn't anything wrong with them (the guts that is). Research ethics being one of the things that Wakefield got wrong (indeed the crux of the GMC case). I guess that's the problem in trying to follow up the research - getting biopsies from a large enough sample of children including those with no symptoms (to see if the levels are similar) is likely to be extremely difficult, but that would be the only way to really say whether Wakefield's theory has any validity, given that all the large studies have shown no increase in autism following MMR.

Well I suppose it's valid in telling us that MMR hasn't triggered autism in lots of cases but we knew that anyway. It doesn't tell us anything about the Wakefield work because the children he looked at all had ulcerated guts.

Desi.. autism first defined as a "new" disorder in 1938.
And where ARE the one in one hundred autistic men who've always been with us?

sorry sarcasm not helpful

I mean my sarcasm.. you weren't sarcastic

Stuffitall - the one in 100 autistic men were always around I guess

Like the (very successful) 60 year old bloke I worked with who was only diagnosed with aspergers 5 years ago.

My daughter is nearly 13 months and due for her MMR. After reading up I am none the wiser. Originally thought of paying for separate jabs but have been told these are not licensed(?). Is there anywhere I can see impartial info?

Sorry yurt - I am confused. Can you explain a bit - is there a specific group of children who are already autistic who regress when they have MMR? Is it only autistic children with enterocolitis who are likely to regress when given MMR, or something else? I think what I am trying to say is are there certain pre-dispositions that will cause a regression? Or is it less discriminate than that?

Stuffitall, in generations since past, autistic people just weren't called such.

1938 is hardly ancient history.

I was at school in the 70s, and I never heard the term used once. Sure, there were children (some), with certain learning and/or behavioral difficulties, but I don't recall discussing it in any depth.

Maybe autistic children weren't mainstreamed? I don't know, I really don't.

But I don't believe for one minute that autism by any other name is a modern disease. It has always been present.