Strollerderby

Plenty of research shows that diabetes - Type 1, Type 2, pre-diabetes, and GD - is primarily caused by genetics (I'm using "primarily" carefully here, to indicate that there are other causes, but the genes appear to drive it.  Doesn't stop most folks from believing you can make yourself diabetic through poor diet or gaining weight. And then telling us diabetic folks, constantly, about how we're terrible, bad, immoral and lazy people who have caused our own problem.   I hate how disease still has all these moral connotations to it.

I am not at all surprised about the death threats. Based on a lot of data, I believe vaccines do not cause autism. When I get into conversations with anti-vax people, they will often get very emotional and start insulting me. (I believe this is because they cannot come up with a valid reason for what they believe.) The simple fact is that all of the data points to the benefits of vaccines greatly outweighing the risks. (btw, nothing is 100% safe. But the data on vaccines is so overwhelming, compared to most other medications on the market. Even Tylenol has some side effects.)

You say there has not been enough time to study vaccines, but in fact there really is a lot of data out there. The only "data" against the MMR vaccine was by Dr. Wakefield, who studies only 12 patients, and was later to have found to be bribed by lawyers who wanted to sue someone on behalf of their autistic clients. Later, 10 out of 12 other authors of his initial paper wrote another paper saying the original conclusion by Dr. Wakefield was wrong. (I am constantly amazed by the people who say there is not enough data saying vaccines are safe, and then hang on to dear life to these 12 points of data that have been greatly disputed.

Also, you talk about a conspiracy theory. The fact is that drug companies make very little money from vaccines. There are a few exceptions, but the great majority have a very low profit margin. Compare that to other drugs that have high profit margins and people take every day, compared to a few shots over an entire lifetime.

The fact is that we have been spending way too much money and time proving over and over that vaccines are beneficial. Thank goodness for this new study by the NIH that will look at other environmental factors. (I am not saying that this is necessarily the cause, but at least we need to look at this.)

I understand the hesitation to inject your beautiful baby with lots of needles, and I understand why they think these vaccines cause autism (the time correlation), but there is no evidence. Instead of name calling, they should push for more research and try and do what they can to help their child now, not outlaw vaccines.

I can understand it and i try my best, but everytime I see someone protesting mandatory vaccinations I want to shake them. Hard.

The only conspiracy here is the one to save lives. In the 20th century alone, it is estimated that smallpox killed 300-500 million people. But after successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the World Health Organization certified the eradication of smallpox in December 1979. The only way to stop the march of deadly viral diseases is through vaccination. So, even if the vaccine "causes" autism - would it even be prudent to sacrifice the well-being of a few for the future of humanity as whole?  There are 197,000 mothers and fathers who lost children to the measles in 1997 - I bet a lot of them wish that they had the choice to vaccinate.          

I'm not sure what this blogger's intention was, but I read the original NYTimes piece and didn't think Dr. Offit came off as smarmy at all. (Then again perhaps I am a bit biased as I am a nurse/midwifery-student- and very pro-vaccine)

I would also just like to point out that the vaccine that Dr. Offit developed was against Rotavirus (the Rotateq vaccine) which is a leading cause of diarrheal illness in small children. We live in America Mr. Singer, where it is easy to forget that these things are very real and very fatal. As a westerner you may feel that "polio is a bigger disease" (maybe b.c. it affected more American children?), but diarrhea, as unglamorous and disgusting as it sounds, is actually the number one killer of children in the developing world.

Do your research first before you go insulting someone who is, in fact, saving millions of lives each year.

Autism's False Prophets is really good.  In fact, I recommend it to bloggers like Brett Singer who rarely take the time to understand a topic before posting about it.

Elendy, I totally agree. When I first read the post, I didn't see anything smarmy in Dr. Offit's comments, but I thought I might have been missing something. Now I read the article, and I really don't understand what Brett was saying.

You are not biased. Because of your background, you understand the benefits of vaccines and understand that they greatly outweigh any kind of potential (or perceived) risk. I have to say I find Babble to be biased. Based on no evidence, they tend to lean toward the anti-vax crowd. Even in stories where vaccines are supposed to be shown positively, there is some comment like "there is so much bad news about vaccines, let's be fair and show the other side". (There is another post today that does the same thing, and I made a similar comment there.)

Brett, I think in Salk's time there would be no need to write such a book. Today, there is absolutely a need. You have to understand how frustrating it is for scientists/medical professionals to see sensationalistic stories by the anti-vax crowd. What is so wrong with writing a book based on actual data (gasp!) to refute these claims. People are angry because they have no real data to rebut Dr. Offit, so they have to insult him instead. And someone calling him a terrorist is laughable. Sometimes, you have to laugh to not go crazy.

There has never been a time when doctors said smoking was healthy.  The medical community has agreed for decades that smoking anything is bad for your lungs. Show me proof that doctors used to say smoking was "healthy".  Maybe harmless but never promoted as a healthy habit.

I'm with Brett--Dr. Offit is a lousy spokesperson for pretty much anything, especially considering where he gets his money (rotovirus vaccine). I'm moderately pro-vax (yes to catastrophic childhood infections, no to chicken pox or hepB) and even I can't stand the schmuck.

Ok KM, let me tell you about my grandmother.  The fever she had in relation to her chicken pox left her completely blind. I'm sure that there is a lot of evidence that worse things can happen than that.

We are very spoiled here in America...we don't see our children being maimed or disfigured or dying every day from things our vaccinations have protected us against.  But if the anti-vax people want to go back a few centuries by all means go ahead.  But keep your fingers crossed and pray every night that your child doesn't get infected.  And respect the rest of us who are pro-vax.

Mamallama, I do agree. Unfortunately, as the anti-vax movement grows, we will most likely be seeing these diseases more and more in the US. The tragic irony in this is that this will finally get people to see how valuable vaccines are.

I always wonder about people who decide to give their kids certain vaccines but not others. Where do you draw the line? I remember talking to a woman once you said she wouldn't give her kids any vaccinations except the one for meningitis, because she herself had meningitis as a child and remembered how awful and painful it was. Does a person really have to experience the disease themselves, or see it first hand to believe it is real?

gpgirl - that's an interesting question. We were on board with the regular immunization schedule for our daughter - except for one. I opted not to give her the chicken pox vaccine, at least until she starts school, in part because I had it myself and although I had it very badly - in my mouth and between my toes, etc - it wasn't that bad, over all, and the immunity is stronger if you contract it than if you use the vaccine. Plus, after talking to my daughter's pediatrician, she said the main benefit of the chicken pox vaccine, really, aside from saving your kid from the discomfort of it, of course, is that it saves parents time off from work in dealing with a sick kid. *shrug*

Oh, and on the doctors promoting smoking as healthy - it's not as though they actually used to prescribe smoking or anything like that. The marketing whizzes of the postwar era, when mass consumption came of age in America, recruited doctors to be in their ads or take their polls so they could use the info for marketing purposes, which they were happy to do because they were paid - or at least received free cigarettes. Comparing the marketing genius of the 1950s with the promotion of vaccines is totally apples and oranges - and a good example of how, as one pp wrote, this site tends to "lean" anti-vax, and in a flippant and ridiculous way.

karmamama, I was going to point out the same thing about cigarette marketing. It is not like they had tons and tons of data showing that cigarettes were healthy. It was purely marketing. Vaccines do have tons and tons of data.

If you are going to compare anything to how cigarettes were marketed, you should compare the anti-vax movement. Lots of stories, sites like Babble promoting their agenda, with no real hard data. The real conspiracy is with the anti-vax movement. With no evidence, they are able to push their agenda. I am repeating myself (I said the same thing in another post), but I am sure there are people who still believe the earth is flat, so why don't they get as much publicity as the anti-vax crowd?

Karmamama,

I hope you reconsider vaccinating your child for chicken pox.  Besides the scarring, etc there can be devastating side effects (as noted earlier, my grandmother lost her sight).  

And my second point is that I actually suffered through chicken pox twice.  If you don't get a really strong case the first time, you are still vulnerable.  And the second time around really sucked!

The one thing I don't see being said is that the American public's confidence in the medical profession has been shaken and I would submit that this lack of confidence and even distrust is warranted. This, in and of itself makes it reasonable to question pharmaceutical's role in diseases just like autism.

Our blogger tries to draw a parallel with how big oil influences decisions by auto manufacturers that aren't necessarily in the public's best interest (or even sensible to their own) and it's a fair one in this respect- ultimately large pharma-corps are in the business of making money. Many of you will no doubt decry what I'm saying because, after all, as a nurse you care for children and so you bristle at the notion that health care in this country is big business, but of course, it is.

The other truth is that even if the intentions are above reproach, to assume that children ingesting drugs couldn't possibly have long term or significant side effects is absurd- of course it can and does.

By the way, that may not mean that the drug has no value or shouldn't be used and I find the suggestion that looking for connections between drug-use and disease equates to being heartless about children dying of diarrhea is in the very least unfair. The fact is, that for one to assume that there is no connection is even more foolish then ASSUMING that there is. Whether there is or isn't I don't know, but I do know that ultimately only INDEPENDENT findings can truly be trusted and Dr. Offit's are not that. He is by definition biased. That doesn't make him necessarily wrong but it does make his credibility questionable.