5-Minute Time Out: Dr. Paul Offit, M.D.
The author of Autism’s False Prophets says vaccines don’t cause autism.
by Gwynne Watkins
March 2, 2009
It's a statistic that's quoted at parents constantly, almost casually: the rate of children diagnosed with autism in the United States corresponds directly to the increase in childhood vaccinations that's taken place over the past ten years. Here's the problem: it's not true. Not only is there is no statistical correlation between the rise of autism and an increase in vaccinations, but twelve separate studies have shown absolutely no difference in autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. This month's federal court ruling that vaccines do not cause autism has publicly confirmed what science has already shown: the autism-vaccination connection is a dead end.
So why are we still worried?
Dr. Paul Offit doesn't blame parents for looking into a connection. "It's a reasonable question, " he told Babble. "Your child was fine. They got a vaccine and now they're not fine. But that's a testable hypothesis . . . And those studies have been done." In his book Autism's False Prophets, the esteemed pediatrician gets to the root of the popular belief that vaccines (or ingredients in vaccines, such as the mercury-based preservative Thimerosal) cause autism. Starting with the initial study that sparked the debate (a study that has now, incidentally, been debunked), Offit breaks down the entire history of the controversy, reveals the real motives of the players, and explains how an inaccurate story snowballed through the media until it was essentially accepted as fact. As a scientist and doctor himself (he co-invented the rotavirus vaccine years after watching a child die of rotavirus in his practice), Offit offers an authoritative view on the science of autism and vaccines, and the book offers thoroughly research-backed explanations of parents' burning questions — i.e., why do some parents who use unproven alternative-medicine "cures" say their autistic children show improvement? And why was mercury used in vaccines in the first place?
Babble called Dr. Offit at his office at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to discuss the truth behind autism "cures," why internet research isn't really research, the grave risks of not vaccinating, and the reasons why the author — who is donating all the profits from his book to autism research — still receives death threats from angry parents. (Also check out an excerpt from the book here.) — Gwynne Watkins
Related Links
Vaccine Safety Datalink Project
- The Center for Disease Control's official system for monitoring vaccine safety.
(VAERS) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System - If your child has a problem that you believe to be vaccine-releated, this is where you should report it.
Autism Diva - The website of Camille Clark, a blogger with an autistic daughter who's dedicated to debunking myths about autism.
...continued on next page!
In the beginning of your book, you explore different theories of autism -- Bruno Bettelheim's, for example. I associate Bruno Bettelheim with The Uses of Enchantment and this sort of happy, fairy-tale psychology.
Me too. I majored in psychology in college and I thought he was a good guy.
His theory was that autism was caused by moms not loving their children enough. And that was a prevalent theory for quite a while. How do those early theories pave the way for what people still think about autism?
I think that Jenny McCarthy is in some ways an ironic remnant. What Bettelheim basically said was: your autistic child is damaged because of something you, the so-called "refrigerator mother," did. And what you need is to come to my school — the Orthogenic School in Chicago — and we'll "thaw them out." And so he created this notion that autism was fairly easily treatable. What McCarthy offers is what in some ways Bettelheim offered — a cure. She says, "Get off your ass as a mother and stop sitting around and whining about this and do something to help your child." Give them anti-fungal medicines, give them anti-viral medicines, give them gluten-free or casein-free diets, and your child will be better.
It's still holding the parent responsible for the child's condition.
Exactly! What I love about the so-called "neurodiversity movement" as represented by people like Kathleen Seidel is what they say is a "damaged" child is just a different child, and that you have to accept them for that difference, love them for that difference. I really like that.
Let's say, hypothetically, that we had proof that vaccines did cause autism. What would the evidence look like?
Here's a good example. In 1976, there was a fear that an outbreak of influenza in Fort Dix, NJ, presaged the next influenza pandemic. The country made forty million doses of influenza vaccine — the so-called "swine flu" vaccine — and distributed them. And the vaccine was then found to be a very rare cause of something called Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which is this ascending paralysis in which your legs become weak, your muscles and respiration become weak, you can require incubation and ventilation — it's a bad syndrome. It was very rare. It occurred in maybe one per 100,000 people who got that vaccine.
It occurred because of the vaccine?
Because of the vaccine. So of the forty million doses that were given, this vaccine caused Guillain-Barré Syndrome in maybe four hundred people. It was easily picked up in a retrospective analysis of people who did or did not get that vaccine. Which is to say the only way you can answer these questions is to do a big epidemiological study.
If you think that the MMR vaccine causes autism, then what you do is look at the hundreds of thousands of children who did get the vaccine or didn't get it and make sure they're alike in terms of their healthcare seeking behavior, their medical background, their socioeconomic background, so that you can isolate the effect of one variable. So when you do that, if there's a difference, you'll find a greater risk of autism. But there have been twelve studies now that haven't shown that, because it's not there to be found.
©2009 Gwynne Watkins and Babble
About the Author
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Gwynne Watkins was Babble's founding Senior Editor. She has written for a variety of web and print publications, and her theatrical work has been produced throughout the New York area. Her new family musical, Tea with Chachaji, will premiere in early 2010. |
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