Thinking up a piece of rhetoric in
today’s sphere of influence was not easy for me. Its not that there isn’t a lot
out there, it’s just that I really don’t care about or have many opinions at
all on most of the issues addressed. One large fraud has kept my interest up
for the last few years though, the false correlation between the MMR vaccine
and the cause of autism. After working extensively with children with autism and taking multiple classes on the subject, my life has taken a large direction toward working to help the quality of life for those with the disorder and in finding the cause of the disorder, so much more could be understood.
The outburst of media coverage,
irate parents, baffled medical professionals, and horrified vaccine
manufacturers emerged shortly after the 1998 study was conducted in England.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield conducted the study with 12 participants (far too few to
be accepted as a trend) and not long after the study was published, it was
refuted and disproven, bringing a wave of lawsuits. Parents world wide,
however, seemed unfazed by the retraction of the findings. The number of
individuals affected with Measles was by far higher in 2008 than since 1997,
with 90% of those individuals not vaccinated previously with the MMR vaccine.
Since the false study was presented as a scare, there has been zero evidence
connecting the vaccine to autism. (hyper correction) The timing is simply
correlative to when the MMR vaccine is given (2 years or so old) and when
autism is diagnosed.
There is a rather large increase in
numbers of autism diagnoses in the recent decade though, and it is unknown why
that is. I personally think that it has nothing to do with the environment, the
change in diet in recent years, or anything else put into a child’s body. I
think it all has to do with the increase of people coming forward with possible
cases and the broadening of diagnosis by practicing doctors. Autism was
relatively new a few decades ago and parents didn’t know what to look for, even
some doctors didn’t. The other thing that I think is connected, is the parental
ages at which the child is conceived.
There is a strong correlation to fathers who are over the age of 35 and
children being born with autism.
I love this post so much because you literally describe my thoughts on that subject entirely. Parents and anyone who is so misinformed that they believe that these vaccines, which are designed to PROTECT their children are actually harming their children, and this is causing so much misinformation and stupid decisions based off of it. My dad is a dentist and attends a lot of continuing education seminars on different medical field topics and about a year ago he went to a seminar given by one of the top doctors researching autism today. He presented his theory from his research that they believe it is the lack of a specific enzyme that people who do not have autism have that is responsible for filtering out heavy metals from our system. Without this enzyme, people are doomed because regardless of vaccinations or not, we all encounter heavy metals in our daily lives that our body has to filter out, otherwise they go to our brains and cause damage. I really like this blog post and I'm glad someone else out there doesn't believe all the bullshit surrounding the negativity of vaccinations.
ReplyDeleteLove your topic, Haley! As someone who works in a lab that deals with vaccines, it is particularly infuriating to me when people decide to not to get their children vaccinated when they haven't consulted scientific data or their physician's opinion. One of the reasons that I think this is such a controversial topic is that people are very quick to blame (and fear) things that they don't understand. I also think that the recent trend of needing to feel "natural" may have something to do with it, as well. The idea of being injected with a foreign material could definitely cause many people to question if it is really necessary, or even helpful at all, if someone can't directly see the consequences.
ReplyDeleteGlad to read about this on here, this issue is so important because the end result impacts those who absolutely have no recourse when their parents make horrible decisions
ReplyDeleteVery interesting topic and I agree with you 100%. First, parents seem to be upset with the fact that their children will not be able to have a normal life (which is understandable), but putting the blame on a vaccine or a doctor will not change much. Your post about the MMR vaccination can apply to all vaccines. Every year, health care providers face the same problem with people challenging the flu shot. My wife is a student nurse and was telling me about the topic of vaccination being discussed in her class and to my surprise even some of the health care workers (doctors and nurses)refuse to get vaccinated because they believe that getting the flu shot will make them sick.
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