I watched a TV show today about a little boy with autism and the doctors were prescribing various vitamins, anti depressants, and other drugs to try to counteract the symptoms. In the same segment the doctors agreed that autism could be a lasting side effect from the mercury in the vaccines that children get when they're babies.
If there is even a shred of evidence that there is mercury in our babies vaccines, why do Mothers allow their babies to be vaccinated? Can't Mom's boycott vaccines until our country agrees to leave the mercury out of vaccine medicine? If vaccines can be produced in Japan without mercury in them than why can't we? If a child swallows a thermometer he would get very sick or might even die from the mercury but it exists in the medicine we give our babies, medication that is supposed to protect them from childhood diseases. The rate of babies who have autism keeps going up at alarming rates.
Im sure it is probably much more complicated than that or something would have been done sooner to stop this epidemic.
I think that, yes, the whole
I think that, yes, the whole issue is far more complicated than generally meets the public eye - regardless of which side of the fence people find themselves on. To stop vaccinating without significant proof that this would reduce the number of cases of autism significantly could result in disastrous increases in some of the horrible diseases that the vaccines have been proven to help prevent. I also think there is a risk, if everyone continues to lose their heads over all of this, that parents may lose what remaining rights they have to decide a what age it may be prudent to vaccinate their individual children. Since the risk infant's face of contracting certain diseases varies with such factors as their exposure to daycare, whether or not their parents, siblings, and other relatives or all vaccinated, whether or not the parents use drugs or are engaged in sexually risky behaviors, etc. - I think the parents should retain some rights to weigh these risks against any risks associated with the vaccine itself (including whether or not they believe they believe that their child is at an elevated risk for developing autism).
Currently, there is no definitive proof (that stands up under scientific scrutiny) that shows that vaccines cause autism. There are a few indications that suggest this may be a possibility, but there are also other indications that suggest that vaccines do not autism. The problem is really that we do not have a good definition of what autism is and what makes one form of autism different from another form of autism. The belief now is that we are really lumping several different conditions, each with possibly very different causes, under one umbrella. As a result, the scientific community recommended that the focus of the research be shifted towards sorting out these differences and finding ways of diagnosing autism that were not solely based on observations of behavior. This move, I believe, was misconstrued by a faction that is so adamantly against the very possibility the vaccines can contribute to autism, that they continually assert that the research at proven that there was no connection instead of reporting that the heterogenity of autism was perhaps masking certain results. On the other side of the coin, parents have generally insisted, and some adamantly, that their own anecdotal observations constitute "proof" that vaccines do cause autism.
However, for example, if thimerisol (i.e. mercury) in vaccines caused autism - one would have expected the number of cases to drop dramatically when significant amounts of thimerisol were removed from childhood vaccines. However, instead the numbers went up. However, since the studies cannot sort the results by individual "strains" of autism, there may have been a reduction in one autism "strain" that was masked by a coincidental increase in another autism "strain" that has a completely different cause. Until we can accurately divide the strains this remains a margin for error.
It would really be tragic if we eliminated vaccines on only a "shred" of anecdotal evidence and the rates of autism continued to climb anyway and the rates of disease also went up. To me, the move to concentrate the research in sorting out the differences in the various ASDs on the spectrum first makes good scientific sense. Even if there is still a risk of triggering autism in some individuals through vaccinating, I would say the risk would be significantly smaller than the 1 in 150 cited for overall autism rates. One must balance the risk of the disease against this risk before making a decision. In addition, in places where vaccination rates have fallen off, outbreaks of diseases such as mumps and measles have been noted.
My personal position favours, at most, a delay in vaccinated young infants until their brains are more developed along with developing a better way of assessing the actual risks for a given infant based on their own inherent levels of immunity and the potential for an increase in a disease in different regions. To counterbalance some of the risks though, I would be inclined to recommend an increase in the vaccination of adults - a least within the infant's sphere of contact and at least for those diseases that adults are inclined to pass on to children. Since the government would most certain not be inclined to take individual circumstance into account, I would certainly hate to see it become illegal to delay vaccinating one's own children.