CNN story about autism and vaccination

[purchasemonkey]

   So I just read Should I vaccinate my baby? on CNN. As you might expect from the title, it's not exactly a fair and balanced look at the subject, but, in my opinion, a horribly irresponsible piece of sensationalistic scare journalism.

Comments

[imnotbob]

Fear sells.

A better story would be "Don’t be an irresponsible dumbass; Vaccinate your kids" but who would buy that?

[tamago]

Not to stir up the shit, but Teo's doctor (admittedly, GP, not Pediatrician, but she has kids of her own) has been keeping up on the research and in the last year there were two reasonably reputable studies published that she says show some causal linkage between vaccines and autism (or autism-like symptoms which may or may not be an immune response.) But, she said, incidents of autism or autism-like symptoms diminished greatly on a slighly delayed schedule and advised us to wait until certain fontanelles on Teo's head are closed before starting the vaccines normally started at 18 months (a delay of anywhere from 2-6 months.) Furthermore, this practice has a policy of not giving more than three shots per visit, and spaced out all the baby vaccines that way. Their evidence on this one is anecdotal (but they're trying to get a study funded) but they have much lower rates of vaccine-related "minor" complications like high fevers and seizures

[tamago]

Teo sees her in August. I'll ask!

[kid_lit_fan]

I wholeheartedly agree. There are two factors, one possible, one definite, in autism, that are just not discussed in nearly as frequently as OMFG, VACCINE MAKES AUTISM, RUNNNN!

A) There is a possible link between an older father (I don't mean 30's and 40's, I mean the 60+ men who father children by their much younger wives or others.) and autism. I am too lazy to find the info right now, but IIRC, thanks in part to Viagra, more older men are able to get their sperm to eggs.

B) What is considered autism has increased. Used to be parents wouldn't think of asking the doctor if something was wrong if a kid had signs of (what is now known as) Asperger's Syndrome. But it and various other degrees of not-being-exactly-on-par-in-social-coping-skills add to the OMG AUTISM IS UPUPUP! stats. However, if we hear "Autism is up XX% in children ages X to XX," the media are counting on us to picture the rocking in the corner, no response too stimuli sort of autism, not Asperger's or another behavior pattern outside ever-shrinking "norms."

[britgeekgrrl]

...yet another reason I don't read/watch CNN.

Bah.

[ophymirage]

BBC = only responsible/well-thought-out journalism any more. it's gotten to the point where I can't even trust NPR..

[edge_of_within]

I've read numerous stories about the Mercury content in vaccines (present for preservation, apparently) being the cause - does the story mention that? have you ever heard that? opinions?

Shenanigans!

[purchasemonkey]

As in, "I call Shenanigans, Officer Barbrady!" Those stories are bullshit. There have been attempts to link thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, to autism. Problems are that the levels of mercury in question are incredibly small and that the government, out of concern for any possible link, made companies stop using it before 2000 (with no evidence of actual harm, by the way--just out of caution). Autism is still going up.

Studies have been performed. The one scientist who concluded that thimerosal was responsible has since been discredited roundly. Of all places, wikipedia has a good place to start reading about it: hereBasically, a lot of people will tell you things like "Organic food is healthier for you because pesticides are a health risk and organic food has more vitamins" (both sub-claims are bullshit, although the first sounds good until you realize that organic food and non-organic food don't have appreciably different levels of pesticides in most cases and that the levels present in non-organic food have not been