http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png In an era of profound medical advancements in drug therapies and technologies, the U.S. finds itself immersed in a controversy over the very basic issue of vaccines. An increasing number of parents have made a decision to not have their children vaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella. Their rationale for this choice comes not from science but rather anecdotal narratives about what has reportedly happened to many children after receiving the MMR, trivalent vaccine. There is a belief, unproven and untested, that autism is a risk of the MMR vaccine.
And the consequence of this fear was predictable.
By January 30th of this year, the CDC had reported that there were 102 cases of measles confirmed in 14 states, and in Arizona health care officials said they were tracking up to 1000 people who may have been exposed. The outbreak appears to have originated at Disneyland in California during the Christmas holidays, an international gathering place for families. The subsequent outrage directed at parents who choose not to fully vaccinate their children has led to demands that they be jailed, sued, or have their children barred from public schools. Vaccination, once considered almost a miraculous disease preventive, is now having its efficacy discussed as an issue in the coming presidential campaign.
How in the hell did this happen? And what can we do to end it?
There are untold thousands of parents in the U.S. and elsewhere that are completely convinced that their child developed autism after a reaction to the MMR trivalent vaccine. In fact, there is a kind of unofficial pathology that has emerged from these narratives. A child of 12-24 months is developing normally and possesses a vocabulary of several words; they are hitting their developmental milestones, and showing nascent cognitive skills. Weeks after the administration of an MMR vaccine, however, parents report that the child can no longer talk, is impaired socially, and often suffers from severe gastrointestinal symptoms. Ultimately, there is a diagnosis of autism.
While parents of the children who had these reactions and diagnoses are convinced of the causation, medical science has been considerably more circumspect. In fact, parents feel there has been a shortage of research regarding possible complications of the MMR vaccine.
The idea of vaccines causing autism is not simply the provenance of parents looking for answers to what happened to their children. The late Dr. Bernadine Healy, the first women to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told CBS News in a 2008 interview that we were obligated to find out the facts about vaccines and potential groups of children that are sensitive to exposures.
"This is the time," she said, "when we do have the opportunity to understand whether or not there are susceptible children, perhaps genetically, perhaps they have a metabolic issue, mitochondrial disorder, immunological issue, that makes them more susceptible to vaccines plural, or to one particular vaccine, or to a component of vaccine, like mercury. So we know, in these times, have to, I think, take another look at that hypothesis, not deny it. And I think we have the tools today that we didn't have ten years ago, that we didn't have twenty years ago, to try and tease that out and find out if indeed there is that susceptible group.
"Why is this important? A susceptible group does not mean that vaccines are not good. What a susceptible group will tell us is that maybe there is a group of individuals, or a group of children, that shouldn't have a particular vaccine or shouldn't have vaccine on the same schedule. I do not believe that if we identified a susceptibility group, if we identified a particular risk factor for vaccines, or if we found out that maybe they should be spread out a little longer, I do not believe the public would lose faith in vaccines."
And the consequence of this fear was predictable.
By January 30th of this year, the CDC had reported that there were 102 cases of measles confirmed in 14 states, and in Arizona health care officials said they were tracking up to 1000 people who may have been exposed. The outbreak appears to have originated at Disneyland in California during the Christmas holidays, an international gathering place for families. The subsequent outrage directed at parents who choose not to fully vaccinate their children has led to demands that they be jailed, sued, or have their children barred from public schools. Vaccination, once considered almost a miraculous disease preventive, is now having its efficacy discussed as an issue in the coming presidential campaign.
How in the hell did this happen? And what can we do to end it?
There are untold thousands of parents in the U.S. and elsewhere that are completely convinced that their child developed autism after a reaction to the MMR trivalent vaccine. In fact, there is a kind of unofficial pathology that has emerged from these narratives. A child of 12-24 months is developing normally and possesses a vocabulary of several words; they are hitting their developmental milestones, and showing nascent cognitive skills. Weeks after the administration of an MMR vaccine, however, parents report that the child can no longer talk, is impaired socially, and often suffers from severe gastrointestinal symptoms. Ultimately, there is a diagnosis of autism.
While parents of the children who had these reactions and diagnoses are convinced of the causation, medical science has been considerably more circumspect. In fact, parents feel there has been a shortage of research regarding possible complications of the MMR vaccine.
The idea of vaccines causing autism is not simply the provenance of parents looking for answers to what happened to their children. The late Dr. Bernadine Healy, the first women to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told CBS News in a 2008 interview that we were obligated to find out the facts about vaccines and potential groups of children that are sensitive to exposures.
"This is the time," she said, "when we do have the opportunity to understand whether or not there are susceptible children, perhaps genetically, perhaps they have a metabolic issue, mitochondrial disorder, immunological issue, that makes them more susceptible to vaccines plural, or to one particular vaccine, or to a component of vaccine, like mercury. So we know, in these times, have to, I think, take another look at that hypothesis, not deny it. And I think we have the tools today that we didn't have ten years ago, that we didn't have twenty years ago, to try and tease that out and find out if indeed there is that susceptible group.
"Why is this important? A susceptible group does not mean that vaccines are not good. What a susceptible group will tell us is that maybe there is a group of individuals, or a group of children, that shouldn't have a particular vaccine or shouldn't have vaccine on the same schedule. I do not believe that if we identified a susceptibility group, if we identified a particular risk factor for vaccines, or if we found out that maybe they should be spread out a little longer, I do not believe the public would lose faith in vaccines."
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