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MMR Again
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Yet another study has disproved the link between MMR and autism. Is it time that we called scum like Jackie Fletcher from the Jabs campaign group exactly what they are, when the number of measles cases have jumped from 50 per year to over 1000?
I am absolutely convinced that a group like this that has wasted thousands of pounds campaigning on something that has been disproven again and again will accept no evidence that disagrees with their point of view. And meanwhile, innocent children are getting a dangerous disease as a result. Thoughts?
But Jackie Fletcher, from Jabs campaign group, said the conclusions were misleading.
"It is making a leap from having the actual data on the antibodies and saying MMR does not cause autism."
I am absolutely convinced that a group like this that has wasted thousands of pounds campaigning on something that has been disproven again and again will accept no evidence that disagrees with their point of view. And meanwhile, innocent children are getting a dangerous disease as a result. Thoughts?
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I feel desperately sorry for parents of kids with autism, but this isnt the right response and will only lead to other kids suffering needlessly.
But that wasn't who I was criticising, it was the organisations that have clearly put a huge amount of resources into getting the seperate jabs, and as such, will use fear tactics and outright lies to deny anything that would suggest that they're wrong. They, along with the gutter press, are the ones responsible for creating the situation where parents are too afraid to immunise their children. Maybe if the number of measles cases was given as much coverage as a disproven link between autism and MMR, then parents would be more likely to make the sensible decision.
Might work on some fence sitters (which a lot of parents are, in this position) not on the hard liners, they'd probably throw accusations of scaremongering. I've seen similar things happen in homebirthing/natural birthing communities where a preventable stillbirth occured at home, and it was put down as being a 'freak' incidence, yet they were willing to play up infant deaths in hospitals, despite the fact that most are down to prematurity or chromosomal abnormality, ignoring the fact that the keyword was 'preventable'. Anyhoo.
I do understand what you're saying though.
The three separate vaccines were given to Blair's child, which obviously goes to show that HE has issues with MMR.
I don't believe a lot of the research, to be quite honest, and Private Eye did an excellent special report on this the other year which explained that the matter is not as cut-and-dried as people think. The MMR jab doesn't cause autism but can trigger a reaction in certain people because of a pre-exisiting genetic complaint. This study (funded by the Government, natch) proves very little.
If the Government really gave that much of a toss about 'herd immunity' the vaccines would be offered separately. But they're not, which immediately makes me think that they have a hidden agenda regarding the MMR jab. After all, Thalidomide was repeatedly guaranteed in studies to be safe, and look what happened there.
I don't pretend to know enough to make an informed choice, but I know that I don't trust anyone who protests about something as much as the Government have about MMR. Allow separate vaccines and everyone will be happy.
And we wouldn't need a seperate MMR jab if it wasn't in the interest of certain parties to whip up a frenzy about a non-issue. Look at the real villains in this case, not the NHS who are trying to give us the best treatment for our money, which includes a 3 in 1 jab.
that's because they didn't do the tetragenic tests ie the pregnant animals
there's a lot of accurate information here: the main issue was the lack of testing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide
yeh it's wikipedia but there's a lot of good information on thalidomide
the MMR is better given in one dose because giving all 3 seperately would mean more 3x the GP visits which increases the chances of people missing their secondary jabs, and it's more expensive to do of course
Why should the government do single jabs and give into panic merchants, when the triple jab is perfectly fine, it doesn't cause autism, there's only been one study that shows the opposite and that is the hugely discredited (mainly in methods) one by andrew wakefield, peer reviewed studies exist for a reason, to make sure people do their studies correctly
Incidentally, if the fact that this study is government funded bothers you, then you should be more than slightly bothered by the fact that Andrew Wakefield was employed by the parents of children with autism. :chin:
Especially this one. There is a reason that peer review exists, and it is exactly to stop people making unfounded claims based on poor methodology and testing. 10 of the 13 authors of the study retracted their findings afterwards: Article
So who is more likely to be correct? The entire scientific community, including 10 of the 13 doctors involved in this study? Or the man who took £400k from the lawyers who were preparing a lawsuit against the makers of the MMR vaccine, specifically to make that claim, who has been charged with misconduct in carrying out the research, and who was willing to suggest a definite link between MMR and autism based on a tiny sample of 12 people. If you want to look at the scientific facts, then he's wrong, but if you're really interested in who you trust more, then maybe you should look at the circumstances surrounding this study and the intergrity of the man we're dealing with. That's not shooting the messenger, that's just giving an example of appauling science, where the scientist clearly has an agenda and so in no way can carry out an impartial study.
I love this example of brilliant scientific method, for example:
So parents looking for someone to blame for their child's autism are required to remember something from 8 years ago, and that passes as evidence? I guess that's what you get when you have medical doctors thinking that they're scientists.
I actually dont know who to trust on the issue. I certainly feel that theres an issue with pharmaceutical companies who make the vaccines funding research and shouting down/completely tearing apart anyone who raises an opinion, and tbh, that makes me want to trust the research less than ever.
I know of more than one person who has supposedly been vaccine damaged.
The whole host of strange ingredients etc in some of these vaccines make me think its extremely likely that some susceptible people would have a very strong reaction to having that directly in the blood stream at barely a year old, let alone the three or four major diseases in them.
Its not like with a child you can have a damaged child from something like this and then say "oh well, never mind, we can have another one"
Its not the same as refusing a blood transplant in an emergency because MMR isnt actually a lifesaving treatment, its just a vaccine
Although one of the things often overlook in this discussion is the damage Measles (in particular) can do. None of the diseases being vaccinated against are solely harmless childhood bugs and all have well recognised long term complications. One of the more significant ones being brain damage as a result of measles.
I don't know the numbers and I can't quote the source, but I do remember from somewhere generally reliable and it was at least a reasonably conducted analysis that there's a significantly higher risk of long term disability from complications of the 3 diseases than that which even the dubious reports claimed to be the risk of triggering autism. There is however a loop hole in this one, in that a small % of the population can get away with not being vaccinated if everyone else is.
You could compare not giving a blood transfusion to someone refusing to treat a child who caught measles, but not for a vaccine.
And most of the time MMR isn't, no one disputes that.
I'm not trying to compare it to blood transfusions for a moment, vaccination and treatment are two very very different situations.
When youre playing with something like your childs health, its hard to know what to do, and condemning parents because they dont just immediately choose what you might see as the obvious choice, when when youre actually in that position it doesnt feel that cut and dried at all and some people just rather than make a conscious choice to do something (possibly harmful) against a threat, choose to not do the thing which would be them actively putting their child at risk - taking them for an injection which could severely damage them (as they see it) against just a possibility of catching something that they probably havent seen anyone else catch ever (because of the vaccination programme of course)
Its not easy for parents, and a lot of people choose to not have the jabs, not because theyre stupid or uninformed. Often its on the contrary and theyve OVERLY researched the issue and scared themselves half to death
You can read whatever you want into the studies, there is one to back up every person's way of thinking.
I completely understand the worries of parents, there are vaccines for everything and it's scary putting all that into your baby's tiny body. I worry about it and I don't like it, but I'm not prepared to put my money where my mouth is and put them in danger of contracting the diseases. My children will have the MMR.
That said, I still find it very interesting - as previously mentioned - that Tony Blair waded in saying that the triple vaccine was safe but wouldnt reveal if Leo had it or the singles. Another case of Tony bLiar, "do as I say not as I do".
So yeah, I'm glad to see another report discrediting the autism link. It still amazes me that people became so worked up by ONE research paper, the mind boggles. This created a scare which lead to internet stories, and an array of personal anecdotes - NOT RELIABLE SOURCES. For example, I was talking to a mother in the doctor's waiting room a few months ago who said her dentist's friend's child displayed autistic symptoms after the MMR. So that obviously means the MMR is unsafe. Of course, we don't need to get into how deeply flawed Andrew Wakefield's initial experiment was. That's Dr Wakefield who was charged with gross medical misconduct, who was actually paid to conduct his research by solicitors acting on behalf of twelve families to discredit the MMR, who had actually filed Patent Applications for new vaccines before preparing the paper and who actually runs (ran?) a business in the US selling autism diagnosis kits. Disgusting. Charlatan.
Two years ago we (the UK) had the first death from measles in 20 years. We also now have the biggest rise in Measles in decades. These diseases are not minor. If I don't have my children vaccinated not only am I risk the health of my own children, I would be putting other people's children at risk. During my pregnancy I did not have immunity to rubella despite having been vaccinated (hey, that's another story) and had I come into contact with rubella I would essentially have had to terminate the pregnancy so dire are the consequences. If that had occurred as a result of contact with someone's unimmunised child I would've been utterly beside myself.
Ballerina - the MMR booster is given at the age where children may start to display autistic syndrome anyway. Because the child may have been given the MMR at this age, parents have read the stories and make the connection based upon the scare stories. That's my two cents anyway, I'm well aware that people will think the absolute opposite.
If measles, mumps and rubella are so important to society then the Government would be allowing the single vaccine- the public health benefits would outweigh the costs. Equally, if the MMR jab was so safe the Government wouldn't be perpetuating a 15-year witch hunt against those people who think that the MMR jab gave their children autism. They would let the facts speak for themselves without having to attack the character of the campaigners.
The simple fact of the matter is that I don't trust any Government-funded study into anything. My family live too close to Sellafield to trust the Government about anything. After all, the Government insists that the high rates of leukaemia in the villages around Sellafield have nothing at all to do with the dirty great nuclear power plant, and have issued scores of studies "proving" this.
That doesn't mean that I think Wakefield's study was accurate, although I do happen to believe Private Eye's reports which state that the MMR jab doesn't create or cause autism but can exacerbate a pre-existing genetic condition into becoming somethign more serious.
The arguments about public safety is all smoke and mirrors- if public safety was paramout the individual jabs would be available to all.
Fortunately, the nature of the scientific community means that anyone and everyone can do research into this. And despite that, not one study has come out in support of the Wakefield one. The Lancet that originally published the study has condemned it as false. 10 of the 13 scientists that carried out the survey have since disagreed with the conclusions that Wakefield came to. Are these all on the government payroll too? And what about the foreign studies into it? The only person in this whole affair that has any sort of agenda is Wakefield himself. But this is just incidental, because the facts do speak for themselves, and the entire scientific and medical community is in agreement on this.
However, if Kermit, you believe you have some scientific evidence that the MMR jab exacerbates pre-existing autistic tendancies, please point us towards a study that hasn't been disproven on many seperate occasions. Like I said before, do you think that the studies disproving the Wakefield study really misinterpreted it and thought he was claiming that it caused autism? And Private Eye actually ran that as if it was news? Surely that would've been evident to anyone who read the original study?
Well if it wasn't for people with money to be made scaring parents into thinking the jab was unsafe, then the benefits absolutely wouldn't outweight the costs, since there is no extra benefit of the single vaccines, and lots of extra cost. In fact some have suggested that 3 seperate jabs would mean more children missing one of them.
erm in japan, a good large scale study showed that the pre exisiting condition you're on about, if it's the same one you're on about, wasn't affected by the MMR more than measles individually
editing here: wrong about the pre genetic condition, the study just showed MMR didn't increase risk of autism as japan only used the combined vaccine for 4 years and the statistical jump in autism continued afterwards at the same, despite single jabs being used - this would suggest it's either being diagnosed better or something else is doing it, it also doesn't help that the definition of autism is changing all the time
and wakefield's compilation of the study was terrible - 10 of the 13 original contributers retracted their names after he drew his conclusions
quite simply the MMR has no link to autism whatsoever in all studies bar one which is very flawed, even in studies done to corraborate those finding after..... it's been a bandwadwagon horse for people who hate the pharmoceutical industry, who despite all their over medicalisation of problems and the fact they don't tend to publish their negative studies, or use relative studies as opposed to absolute studies, get backed up by independent research on the MMR when they'd make more money from seperate jabs
The HPV (cervical cancer "vaccine") for example is three doses.
The reason it is done like this is because it's more effective. One dose, one visit.
And Wakefield should be publically flogged, he has blood on his hands.
Er, you did:
For what its worth, I don't believe Wakefield's studies either, he was clearly working towards an agenda, having been paid by people suing the Government for harming their children.
I simply do not believe the Government when they say it is safe and the point-blank refusal to compromise with separate jabs makes me even more dubious of their motives. I've heard it too many times about too many things. Thalidomide, Sellafield, Porton Down, Gulf War Syndrome, the list is endless.
Of course, I may be being too cynical and it might be pure coincidence that leukaemia in childhood is about ten times more prevalent around Sellafield than it is in general society. The Government studies certainly claim that.
I'm sure everything must be safe because the Government says it is.
again, thalidomide was withdrawn as soon as it was shown that it had tetrogenic effects, becuase of an unexpected behaviour of it, in that even if you made the safe form of it (one of the miror images) that it splits into a approx 50:50 mix of the harmful one
and thalidomide has a use to this day in treating leprosy (in people where a tetrogenic(harmful to limb growth) drug won't affect them)
I resent the implication that I am simply towing a government line because I [like the gvt] see no merit to single jabs over the combined.
I've done a lot of research into MMR as a concerned parent, I want to make the best and most-informed choice on behalf of my children. I've said all I have to say on it now anyway, people make the best decsions possible with the information available. Anyway, I respect other people's opinions about MMR long as they can respect mine. That's all anyone can ask for.
When it boils down to it I don't believe either side. Wakefield had a vested interest and the Government protest about MMR far far too much to be trusted.
My gut feeling is that it probably is safe for most people, and that any risk is overstated, but from what I have read I think there is a risk. I probably would allow my children to have the MMR vaccine as the risk is better than getting measles, mumps or rubella; I'd be happier if the Government allowed the single jabs, though, because I do think there is something in it. Private Eye thinks so too.
thats exactly how i feel. Its just so hard to know the right thing to do.
Something that seems so cut and dried when youre talking about other peoples random kids, seems a much harder issue when its your own