I really don't knowwhat good making this
bigger will do for you.
I'm just gonna clone this without comment.
You leave a comment.
What does it all mean?
If you feel you may have a loathsome disease, or if you want to do everything you can to avoid contracting a loathsome disease, where ought you to seek competent medical advice and information?
Does that change if you're 14 or 15 or 16 or 17? The Mayo Clinic for Jim and Nancy Grepskiller, the railroad tracks behind the Wendy's for Todd and Scott and Amber and Tifani?
In the USA, where anything that can get you high is a felony, unless the city or town has a clean needle exchange staffed by nurses, physicians and public health professionals, needle addicts get their health information from other needle addicts.
A pharmacist I know has a sister who refuses to get her kids any immunizations.
I'm commenting, aren't I? Well, I'll stop now. Read the story, then check THIS out, and read the comments under it. Then you leave a comment, there or here or both.
================
News@UofT / News at University of Toronto
Toronto Ontario Canada
Wednesday 5 December 2005
YouTube
breeding ground
for anti-vaccination
views, say researchers
Study gives heads up to health-care professionals
by News Staff
As cold and flu season hits this year amid growing debate over the necessity of vaccinations, University of Toronto researchers have uncovered widespread misinformation in related videos on YouTube.
In the first-ever study of its kind, U of T researchers Kumanan Wilson and Jennifer Keelan analyzed 153 videos about vaccination and immunization on YouTube, a popular online video-sharing site. Researchers found that more than half of the videos portrayed childhood, HPV, flu and other vaccinations negatively or ambiguously. Of those videos, a staggering 45 per cent contained messages that contradict the 2006 Canadian Immunization Guide, which provides national guidelines for immunization practices.
“YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination,” said first author Keelan, a professor in U of T’s Department of Public Health Sciences. “Our study shows that a significant amount of immunization content on YouTube contradicts the nation’s reference standard. From a public health perspective, this is very concerning.”
The research team also found that videos skeptical of vaccinations – many of them highly provocative and powerful – received more views and better ratings by YouTube users than those videos that portray immunizations in a positive light.
“Health care professionals need to be aware that individuals critical of immunization are using YouTube to communicate their viewpoints and that patients may be obtaining information from these videos” sayid Wilson, senior author and a professor with U of T’s Department of Medicine. “YouTube users also need to be aware of this, so they can filter information from the site accordingly.”
“The findings also indicate that public health officials should consider how to effectively communicate their viewpoints through Internet video portals,” Wilson said.
The study was published in the Dec. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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21 comments:
You know, we spend a lot of our time fighting natural selection.
If people are stupid enough to get their medical advice from YouTube, even after having proper information provided to them, then I say let them.
It can only be good for the gene pool.
This sort of thing makes me angry sometimes. Yeah, there's the stupidity of most of the stuff on YouTube, but hey, that's entertainment for you. I take it as such.
The thing that bothers me most is the whole anti-vaccination attitude. I find it downright irresponsible when parents don't get their children vaccinated. I mean, come on, why wouldn't you want to do everything you could to protect your child (heck, I'd do anything to protect my UNBORN child).
People who don't follow the routine suggested vaccination schedule don't understand that they are also perpetuating diseases that should have been eradicated. And by doing so, potentially compromising those with lowered immune function. Sure, they might think, well, why do I need my child to get the measles shot if no one has it. But I tell ya, I'd be major pissed if someone GAVE my child (who was too young to receive a vaccination) measles. Vaccination programs only work if there is compliance.
Anyway...I'm sort of surprised that pharmacist-friend was against the vaccination stuff. (Or maybe it was sister of, daughter of, whatever...I don't have original post handy). Medical professionals should know better. Then again, I see many doctors puffin away outside on smoking breaks...so what do they know :)
My pharmacist is A-100 Percent up to snuff on all her Medical Stuff. But we were talking about immunizations, and she told me about her sister -- and you could see her hair stand on end. When they get together and talk about this stuff, things must get real tense.
Prince Georges County is one of the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC, and this month they're hauling parents into court and charging them with contributing to the truancy of their kids if they haven't gotten their kids immunized by the deadline to enroll them in public school. It's not an organized revolt against immunizations -- just busy parents who weren't getting around to responding to the school's requirement, so the county's using courts and cops as a "gentle reminder." Mostly the parents are getting their kids their shots.
The belief/suspicion/urban legend that mercury in some childhood vaccinations may be a factor in increased incidence of childhood autism -- well, I think it's valid for parents to worry about it, but it really terrifies me that the controversy is being played out on YouTube. (Did you read the comments under that video?)
So why is medical information and controversy showing up on YouTube? Well, I think it reflects Bad Educational Outreach on the part of the traditional health and public health agencies and authorities. And the traditional medical agencies should have taken the lead in researching the controversy and communicating their findings clearly to parents. Sorta seems to me that the professional medical community is doing its thing, business as usual, and not seeing that part of their responsibility is to explain what they know to parents.
So YouTube takes up the slack. It's interactive and responsive -- the YouTube generation looks on YouTube as a medium that listens and responds. They don't get that same sense from the traditional medical community.
Ah yes, I reread the post about pharmacist friend sister after I hit the "publish" button (apologies to pharmacist friend! Wish her sister wasn't such a dolt!)
No, didn't read the comments under video either. (Hehehe...I rarely do on YouTube, because most people make ignorant and/or stupid comments that make no rational sense, and to top it off, half of them don't know how to write without using some sort of profanity, or using innane abbreviations like RU KDin ME? I H8 dat shiz!)
I remember back registering for high school, we all had to make sure we were up to date on vaccinations before they'd let us through the door. I encountered one or two kids along the way that didn't get certain vaccinations either due to religious reasons or because they were allergic to them/some component of them. Fine. Parents had to sign disclaimer that pulled their darlings out of class for a period of time if a threatened outbreak were to occur. I remember a whole mess of us getting "caught" (sent notes by the school informing parents we needed these done) around my sophomore year of high school because I needed a tetanus and MMR booster. Yay! Then in college, we all hafta show immunity to measles/German variety/etc.
The link to autism thing. Mmm...can't think of anything that conclusively proves the association. It's like one of those things either parents want to try and blame themselves for [why their child has autism] or the onset of symptoms happened to coincide with a child's vaccination. But hey, I remember getting shots at like every pediatrician's visit I went to as a kid. Bred my love of visiting the doctor n all.
And lastly...this isn't really related, but since you mentioned autism, I just thought I'd get an opinion here. Have ya seen the commercials recently for the autism speaks people? Chance of a child being diagnosed with autism being like 1:166? Seems a bit high! So Mike went on to one of the websites that listed the signs n symptoms...turns out he fits most of them! Is my husband autistic? Am I??? Or am I your average ordinary super-geek who likes to arrange her toys in neat rows and has a tendency to stare through people instead of at them (sorry, caught myself staring THROUGH my doctor yesterday, rather than making eye contact...it's a weird phenomenon to catch yourself doing).
Okay...that's all for now :) (And not bashing on autism...I don't wish that on any parent or child...)
Wow, this gets more and more interesting.
You very accurately describe YouTube AND its typical comments. But that's why I wanted you to read the comments under this particular "bad immunizations" video. Because we easily wrote off YouTube as a forum for dummies ... but now that (accurate) write-off is coming back to bite us all in the ass.
I certainly don't *know* scientific beans about the mercury/autism controversy. But I know it's a public controversy. And worried parents (you don't need advanced scientific training to be a worried parent) are resolving their relationship to the controversy in a forum that "listens" to them.
Because far more scientific and professional forums weren't sufficiently listening to and reaching out to worried parents.
The way NIH and CDC originally handled AIDS in the very first years after it was identified is a pretty good parallel. NIH researchers are Nobel-class geniuses. But they slammed the doors to any input from actual AIDS patients or the at-risk communities. NIH researchers came from a tradition where the patient has utterly no role to play, except the most passive role, in research and experimentation.
That ended when 5,000 pissed-off AIDS activists invaded the NIH campus and staged the first public rude protest the NIH campus had ever experienced. From that moment on, AIDS/HIV patients became partners/consultants in NIH/CDC's further programs.
There's scientific knowledge, and the scientific community's processes for acquiring that knowledge; and then there's public controversy. One is as "real" as the other. Controversy is messier, more confusing, far less orderly.
But if controversy isn't attended to -- this is what you get. People making their health decisions (and the health decisions for their kids) based on the info they share with one another on YouTube.
Are you and Mike specifically referring to the subspecies of autism called Asperger's Syndrome? DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!
Well, actually, please feel free to get me started. I'll just pop a few Diazepams to calm myself down, and then I'll talk about Asperger's until the cows come home.
I doubt that she was talking about Asperger's Syndrome, but maybe.
The reason that Autism and immunizations seem tied together is that immunizations are done about the same time that Autism can be diagnosed. Tying those two together based on that is like saying that because I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, and my SQL server crashed at lunch, that peanut butter and jelly causes SQL crashes. If I took that to my boss, I'd get fired. I guess if that did happen, I could also claim that eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches causes a rise in unemployment. We could have an epidemic.
87 percent of all traffic fatalities had consumed pickles within the previous 48 hours.
94 percent of all heroin addicts began by using milk.
Gee, I hope some of the YouTube generation are getting re-directed to information about the mercury/autism controversy to Vleeptron. This has become a Very High-Class exchange of ideas.
You must have been up late when we were answering this post the other night :) We were up for a little while checkin out the whole mercury content in vaccinations and what not, just to get ourselves edumacated...or we're just nerdy like that.
So now that I've stopped projectile vomiting for the time being, I thought I'd share our findings...re: vaccinations, mercury, autism. :D
So it appears that the people who are all up in arms about vaccinations causing autism in their children because of mercury are a bit high. It's hard to make the association between mercury (or mercury containing compounds) and autism, much less determine where the mercury came from in the first place. According to the FDA website (appologies if you don't trust the FDA)...Thimerosal, the preservative that they used that contains that horrible mercury, has been pretty much phased out of most childhood vaccines...exception being flu shots. Okay...so even with that one, the concentration of mercury is like 0.005%...equivalent of 25 micrograms. Sweet.
Now, didn't people think that the MMR shot gave their kids autism? Why not the flu shot! That's the one with Thimerosal!
So then I think...what about all ya fishie eaters. I'm not personally a fan of any food that lived in the water and has never taken steps on dry land, but that's me. But some of them big fishies (swordfish n the giant tunas) appear to have a ton of mercury. Yikes! I'd be more worried about that givin my kid autism versus the itty bit in a vaccine.
The huge nerds we are, we were trying to figure out what the FDA/EPA/whatever standards are for Hg contamination in fish. Something like 1ppm? Most don't have that, but they say they try to keep it around 0.5ppm? So we tried calculating it out, and 1ppm of mercury is somethin like on the order of 1000 times more than you get from kidlet vaccines.
I think I'll stick to vaccinating my kidlings and just not eating fish/seafood :)
(Sorry, had to make that commentary, lest our internet research/late night mathematics sessions go to waste!)
You must have been up late when we were answering this post the other night :) We were up for a little while checkin out the whole mercury content in vaccinations and what not, just to get ourselves edumacated...or we're just nerdy like that.
So now that I've stopped projectile vomiting for the time being, I thought I'd share our findings...re: vaccinations, mercury, autism. :D
So it appears that the people who are all up in arms about vaccinations causing autism in their children because of mercury are a bit high. It's hard to make the association between mercury (or mercury containing compounds) and autism, much less determine where the mercury came from in the first place. According to the FDA website (appologies if you don't trust the FDA)...Thimerosal, the preservative that they used that contains that horrible mercury, has been pretty much phased out of most childhood vaccines...exception being flu shots. Okay...so even with that one, the concentration of mercury is like 0.005%...equivalent of 25 micrograms. Sweet.
Now, didn't people think that the MMR shot gave their kids autism? Why not the flu shot! That's the one with Thimerosal!
So then I think...what about all ya fishie eaters. I'm not personally a fan of any food that lived in the water and has never taken steps on dry land, but that's me. But some of them big fishies (swordfish n the giant tunas) appear to have a ton of mercury. Yikes! I'd be more worried about that givin my kid autism versus the itty bit in a vaccine.
The huge nerds we are, we were trying to figure out what the FDA/EPA/whatever standards are for Hg contamination in fish. Something like 1ppm? Most don't have that, but they say they try to keep it around 0.5ppm? So we tried calculating it out, and 1ppm of mercury is somethin like on the order of 1000 times more than you get from kidlet vaccines.
I think I'll stick to vaccinating my kidlings and just not eating fish/seafood :)
(Sorry, had to make that commentary, lest our internet research/late night mathematics sessions go to waste!)
This is a very hard one to get grasp and focus on. Because it's not about The Scientific Truth. It's about something far more subtle and something far more troubling. It's about where ordinary people in a democracy get their medical information from, and how much right and power they should be allowed to have to make their health choices based on the medical information they get from YouTube and Oprah.
A dentist I know spent decades trying to convince all the cities and towns to fluoridate their water. Amherst MA -- where the university and Amherst College is, one of the most overeducated towns on the planet -- repeatedly voted against fluoridating. The dentist's scientific evidence was always overruled by the lingering Cold War conspiracy rumor that fluoride was a secret Kommie Plot to turn citizens' brains into mush.
I am living proof that mercury is a benevolent, benign, harmless substance. When I was 12, I asked my crazy old 19th century dentist to sell me a big-ass jar of mercury, he did -- a bargain, $15 -- and I played with it, rolled it around in my hand, spilled beads of it all over my bedroom floor, for months until it just all vanished. The crazy old man never once mentioned that mercury had toxic properties. (But somehow I knew enough not to drink it.)
One thing all this reflects, in a rather troubling and sad way, is how much the public credibility of all government agencies has collapsed. People these days are as likely to believe an astrologer's advice as they are to listen to the Surgeon General.
But credibility is a two-way street. The FDA has not exactly done a great job in convincing the public that it does its chores entirely free of the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.
And the Bush administration has amassed a very troubling track record of political interference with what should have been entirely scientific matters.
Authentic democracy and freedom, unfortunately, implies the freedom to make wrong choices. Otherwise it wasn't real freedom.
And perhaps this YouTube health business also reflects declining standards in science education. Never mind what Amy the Rocket Scientist knows about mercury and immunizations. What does the average high school graduate know about science and medicine? Because the average high school graduate has babies and the power to make medical decisions about her/his babies.
Here's a little experiment. Ask 20 adults at random who Edward Jenner was. If 19 or 20 are totally clueless -- well, I think that really illuminates the current problem. EVERYBODY was SUPPOSED to have had that lesson and passed that test once upon a time.
Well you people are all very righteous and amusing. Youtube is a medium, not a single source. Youtube contains idiotic posts like the 'shots are stupid' one - if anyone decides against a vaccination based on that they're insane. However, Youtube also contains links to interviews with vaccine pioneers, scientists, and other medical experts that happen to disagree with the current vaccination regime. They give reasons and proof. There are documentaries available on Youtube that have been aired on television. Is it OK to get information from television? Or should I just blindly believe everything the government agencies tell me.
Every time there is a vaccination offered in my kids' school, I do hours of research. Each vaccination needs to be researched separately. The DPT shot comes in several forms. The school doesn't inform parents what the ingredients are, who the manufacturer is, or which form of the DPT shot is being offered. Another factor is the risk of the disease vs. the risk of side effects from the vaccination. Hepatitis A & B and Chicken Pox, among others, are things that if my child contracts, are unlikely to have any long-term effect. On the other hand, if my child gets a chicken pox vaccination, then doesn't get the lifelong immunity that comes with actually contracting Chicken Pox, then chances are that in the absence of numerous booster shots throughout their life, they could contract this disease as an adult when it is much more dangerous. Who is the irresponsible parent now?
Read a few studies, then you'll discover how precarious the case for many vaccinations really is.
Idiots.
The First Rule of Vleeptron:
No Anonymous Driveby Comments.
We need a link or an e-mail addie or a URL or something.
We're idiots. But you're the one who won't back up his/her opinions with a name or a website or a blog.
I usually delete Anonymous Driveby Comments pretty quickly.
Don't mind insults or dumb comments at all. Arguably your opinions are a new and different voice in what's become an interesting discussion.
But it's *cowardly* rude insults I mind.
Attack the messenger, not the message. Classic denial. Time makes more converts than reason.
What difference does it make who I am? I'm stating facts. Trying to get you guys to think for yourselves, find things out for yourselves.
However, I shouldn't have called you idiots since I once thought like you. My kids got all their early vaccinations. The research I've done since makes me wish they didn't, but I'm thankful I came to my senses in time to prevent the ones that are given from Grade 7 on.
My oldest daughter got a booster shot in Grade 11. The school was offering DPT shots. I did the research, and decided the Pertussis portion was risky and unnecessary, since Whooping Cough is usually not that serious and there were issues with the type of pertussis vaccination being offered (has to do with live culture vs dead culture), but I didn't have an argument against the Diptheria or the Tetanus. After discussing it with both my daughter and our doctor, I decided to get just the DT shot which was available through the Doctor's office. We only made this decision because my daughter was going to Egypt on a school trip. The doctor was very supportive.
When my younger daughter reached that age we did the research together and opted for getting a statement of conscientious objection. This was a hassle and required the signature of a notary public, but it was necessary to keep her from being expelled. For those who think this was irresponsible, I would point to studies that indicate the efficacy of these vaccinations has not been proven to last longer than a few years. If you don't believe this, ask yourself why, when you go to hospital emergency with any sort of a cut, they give you another Tetanus shot. The chances of my daughter being exposed to diptheria or tetanus in that time frame were, to me, less concerning than the chances of her experiencing a reaction to the vaccination.
I strongly urge all parents to do the research each time. Not just on the vaccine, but on the disease it's meant to prevent as well. Look at the facts, not the opinions. Read the studies, not the pharmaceutical companies fact sheets. If someone wants to inject your child, at least do yourself the service of finding out the ingredients of the injection. That is responsible.
I will leave my email address this time, because even though it shouldn't matter, I don't want my anonymous status to influence what you think of my words. I'm not registered, I don't have a web site, but my email address is woga12@yahoo.ca for those who wish to blast me.
Well THANKS! How very Brave and Civilized of you!
Now listen very carefully and re-read this whole thread very closely, you rude dumb fuck.
The original post, and most of the comment thread that followed it, WAS NOT ABOUT the medical or scientific efficacy of IMMUNIZATIONS.
It was about a very interesting quantifiable survey about medical information that appears on YouTube. It was a study by public health researchers about the use of YouTube as a medium for medical and health information. And it seems to have been the very first time medical researchers studied this very interesting question about where the Internet Generation gets its health info from.
You're the only commenter so far who's freaking out and thinking it's about whether immunizations are Good or Evil.
And yes, meanwhile, the comment discussion is getting into some very interesting questions about the childhood immunization controversy.
But you're the only one who seems entirely to have missed the point, and thinks this is some kind of Vicious Attack on YouTube or the anti-immunization community.
I'm sincerely appreciative that you're not an Anonymous Driveby Commenter anymore. Vleeptron gets into a lot of hot-button controversies, mostly political, and if people are going to scream at each other, I sincerely think none of them should wear a ski mask while cursing and screaming.
But it sure hasn't made you much smarter. Braver, yes. But not much smarter. Well, sincere thanks for taking off your ski mask.
See? I told you that on Vleeptron, we don't care how nasty, rude and stupid you are -- as long as you use your name. Drop by anytime!
Ouch my ears...
I look away for a day or so and come back to a bunch of name calling...ouch...
I certainly agree it is the responsibility of parents to research vaccinations their child may be receiving, and question question question. Physicians are used to it. I'm sure many appreciate that parents do take the time to research these things.
I also agree on certain perhaps not necessitating certain vaccinations. I went along just fine until I got my Hep B vaccination in high school...I don't think my husband has one, and we're both just great. I never got Hep A vaccination either. Chicken pox...well, I could have done without having contracted that, and I was a raging asthmatic as a kid and was put under pretty close watch for alot of things.
Of course, back to the YouTube thing. The specific link that Bob posted is totally laughable! I have no idea why that video is entertaining in any way, but hey, people seem to think that "2 girls 1 cup" is entertaining. I was growing a bit angry with the mother in that video because, really, what was the point of it? Kids hate shots? Well duh! Ask any kid under the age of 5 what they think of going to the doctor, and I'm sure most of them will say "SHOTS!" and run for cover.
The sad thing is that people are swayed by the medium that is YouTube. There are people who are swayed by the television and by spam emails that they receive. I try not to be so cynical sometimes, but a large proportion of people ARE idiots (present company in this debate excluded). They are gullible.
Ask Mike sometime about the forwarded emails he gets from his mother all of the time. She believes many things people tell her, even if it's total bunk! I'm ashamed to admit that I've screwed with her brain before (she'll kill me if she ever finds out!) just to see how far her gullibility will go. As a result, she belongs to the crowd who will send money to someone they see on TV without checking to make sure they are legit, will treat serious cysts/infections with weeds growing in her yard (because someone, not a medical professional in anyway, told her to), and also never bothers to check her credit card statements, she just pays the bill.
Sorry whoever Mr/Ms Anonymous was...I respect everyone's opinions regardless of whether I agree with them or not...and I do respect yours. Please do respect my opinion too (sorry...hormonal woman comin thru!)
I'm glad that some respects this tool's opinion. I don't. All I see is some semi-anonymous coward (thank god that he's got an email address) standing behind his podium telling us how once upon a time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth (or maybe it was Reagan? Eh, same thing), he thought like we do.
He presents his justifications about his hours of research (or 5 minutes, depending on your level of literacy), and misses half the point. For example, his argument against getting the Pertussis vaccine. Logic like this, where a couple anecdotal reports overrode several published studies that failed to show even a causal relationship between administration of the DTP vaccine and permanent brain injury. So, he decided that it was "risky and unnecessary" based off of nothing concrete. I suppose if he'd have done his research that he'd have known that.
It's true that his little girl was unlikely to get Pertussis, and even if she did, there probably wouldn't have been any long term issues. That being said, I'm sure the parents of the infant that his daughter accidentally infected would be very appreciative of the reasoning behind his decision as they buried their dead baby.
Vaccines aren't just for the people being vaccinated. They're for the people around them too.
In closing, I challenge this ignorant fuck to find one study (you do have enough fingers to count that high) that conclusively and verifiable ties Pertussis to any kind of permanent brain injury. Keep in mind Mr. or Mrs. Woga12, this has to be verifiable (meaning peer reviewed, and not from FranksMedicalSite.com). I'm betting that you can't. If I'm such an idiot, this should be easy for you to do.
Don't be frightened. The guy in the ski mask dropped in while I've been having a pretty horrible week, and it was horrible because a real Foole was making my life miserable. I don't suffer Fooles very graciously. I know you won't believe this, but sometimes I even use vulgar language.
I've mentioned before that the strangest thing about Vleeptron is that I can never predict which topics will generate a lot of spontaneous interest, and which topics that *I* thought were absolutely fascinating will just sort of fall on the floor and die in total silence. ("Shaving" -- the faux postage stamp of how guys shave their faces -- turned out to be one of the All-Time Most Thrilling Topics Vleeptron has ever tackled. 300 times the thrills of Bush or the Iraq War.)
I'm really supermegapleased that all youse guys are finding this goofy little story about YouTube and immunizations so interesting.
YouTube itself at first glance begs to be dismissed out of hand as a trivial cyber parking lot of frat guys filming themselves competitively projectile vomiting. But I think it deserves a second glance, both for bad and for good reasons. I was particularly startled a few months ago when Jim Carry chose YouTube to talk about Myanmar's human rights woes at a time -- before the big anti-junta protests -- when the West practically had never heard of Myanmar. It was a brilliant move. Carry specifically chose a medium that, for all its faults, is the medium gazillions of people love to watch.
While I realize that this posting and it's comments are almost a month old, and more than likely, no one is going to read this particular comment, I think that it's worth noting this recent article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/01/07/autism.cases.ap/
Just my 2 cents.
This stuff don't get stale ... especially if it's got mercury preservative in it.
Yeah, I just stumbled on this Associated Press article and was gonna post it. I'm an hour late and $0.25 short, I gotta stop napping.
I really like the idea of Public Health as a really cool and nifty career -- seems likes lots of opportunities for Sherlock Holmes kind of questions and very original ways to try to answer them. Sounds like I wouldn't be too bored.
(When Holmes would get bored, he'd mainline cocaine.)
=======
Tuesday 8 January 2008
Study Finds Vaccine Preservative Is Not Linked to Risks of Autism
by The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Autism cases in California continued to climb even after a mercury-based vaccine preservative that some people blame for the neurological disorder was removed from routine childhood shots, a study has found.
Researchers from the State Public Health Department found that the autism rate in children rose continuously in the study period from 1995 to 2007. The preservative, thimerosal, has not been used in childhood vaccines since 2001, except for some flu shots.
Doctors said that the latest study added to the evidence against a link between thimerosal exposure and the risk of autism and that it should reassure parents that vaccinations do not cause autism. If there was a risk, the doctors said, autism rates should have dropped from 2004 to 2007.
Dr. Daniel Geschwind, a neurologist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the focus should be on exploring possible causes of autism, including genetic links.
“Something else must be at play,” said Dr. Geschwind, who had no connection with the study. “And we need to know what that is if we’re really serious about preventing autism.”
The results of the study are in the January issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry. The study did not explore why autism cases increased.
Officials say one in 150 American children have autism, higher than other estimates. Researchers say it is unclear whether the increase stems from changes in classifying autism or whether the increase is actual.
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Thanks for sharing this post! I think you should write more on this topic.
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