Editor’s note: I have received a lot of negative comments regarding this post. I anticipated that and is one of the reasons I hesitated to post it. I wanted to share an honest opinion one family has with the issues at hand. I am not making any sort of claim that vaccinations cause autism. I am not qualified to make such a claim. I am not pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine. I am somewhere in the middle. Judge as you will. As parents, we love our children and to the best we can to protect them from harm. These are my thoughts.
I have largely avoided the media and commenting on the recent measles epidemic, as I am a hypocrite when it comes to vaccinations. I have seen friends take strong stances on either side, and people are losing friends on Facebook over the issue. I am not a doctor, but I will be open and honest with you on my thoughts.
Measles is an illness not known in my childhood but common in my parents’ and grandparents’ youth. Why? Vaccinations.
When I became pregnant, one of the first tests run by my parallel care provider was to see if my childhood vaccination for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) had worn off. It had. Since I was pregnant, I could not be vaccinated. I was informed by my midwives that this was the time when those illnesses were most dangerous…they most negatively affect the unborn fetus.
Many parents choose not to or partially vaccinate. I am one of those parents. I have my fears and reasons. I can find support on both sides. It is because of the large success of vaccinations in positively affecting public health that I am even able to make such a personal decision. I get that.
I have always wondered why the fact MMR vaccine wears off at child-bearing age is not more common knowledge. Many pregnancies are not planned, but mine were. Had I this knowledge, I may have vaccinated myself. Then again, I may have not.
Yes, I am a hypocrite. When I was pregnant, I had a rubella scare. I was working as a preschool teacher, and a child was diagnosed by a retired nurse grandmother as having rubella. I chewed the parent out on the phone, as many are doing now about non-vaccinating folks (this child was vaccinated), and told her she had to go to the doctor. It was a public health issue. He did not have rubella. Ironically, my child was born with a congenital heart defect that may caused by rubella even though it wasn’t so.
This fall a friend’s puppy came down with parvo. We also had puppies, and I was pissed he had not vaccinated his puppy and thus put our puppies at risk. I know it sounds very hypocritical from a partially vaccinating mother. It helped me understand how passionate and angry vaccinating parents can feel toward those that don’t, especially when babies too young to vaccinate are potentially exposed. This is happening now with the measles.
That being said, the current media reaction to the measles outbreak is askew. Just like with whooping cough, there are some vaccinated individuals that are contracted the illness. It’s been reported for several years that the MMR vaccine is not fully effective. Vaccine failure can happen. Statistically it is much rarer than success, but if anyone thinks vaccines are full proof, they are not being entirely realistic. They certainly offer more protection than not vaccinating.
In 2015, there have been 121 cases of measles in the US. Last year, there were 644 cases. One out of 1000 people that contract the illness die. Now let’s compare that statistic to autism.
That’s right, the most reasonable response I have read to the measles outbreak compares it to the astonishing rising numbers of autism. As we reported before, given current trends by 2025, one in two children will be autistic. For 2014, the CDC reports 1 in 68 children has been identified with autism. This is much more concerning than 121 cases of measles. Sure there is no vaccine for autism, but what is going on?
TO BE CLEAR, I AM NOT MAKING ANY ASSOCIATIONS HERE BETWEEN THE ACTUAL MMR VACCINE AND THE RISE IN AUTISM. I AM COMPARING STATISTICS.
Now for a real doctor to weigh in on the subject. According to AIM Integrative Medicine:
Dear Parent,
As a board certified pediatrician, I took the same oath as all physicians, “to do no harm.”
The latest media presentation of the measles outbreak at Disneyland as a result of unvaccinated children is very upsetting to me. We are being fed information that is essentially inaccurate by media journalists – none of whom have medical degrees – which may actually be promoting medical harm to our children.
The latest reports blaming a failure of the measles vaccine on the unvaccinated population are not accurate, and in some reports, not true at all. In fact, over the past 30 years, there have been similar numbers of measles cases reported in various areas of the United States. Studies published in leading medical journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Epidemiology, American Journal of Public Health and others around the world have confirmed small numbers, 75-140 cases of measles annually. So why then is the latest statistic of over 90 cases of measles spread over 14 states, representing tens of millions of people being billed as an epidemic?
The media would have us believe that this is a result of the fringe population of anti-vaxers who refuse to have their children vaccinated according the guidelines of the current vaccine schedule. Medical reporting has brought to light the glaring ineffectiveness of the measles vaccines in fulfilling their widely claimed promise of preventing outbreaks in highly vaccine compliant populations. In fact, measles outbreaks have occurred in populations that have been vaccinated on the average of 77%- 99%, not the so-called anti-vaxers.
Last year 1 in every 500,000 Americans came down with the measles. Nearly all recovered in a few days without serious consequences.At the same time 1 in 68 American children were diagnosed with autism or for every case of measles there were 7000 cases of autism. I ask myself which is the real epidemic here?
Frank Bruni in an editorial in the New York Times on February 1, 2015 states that this measles outbreak is a result of “wealthy, educated people who deliberately didn’t vaccinate their children.” He refers to measles as “the scourge once essentially eliminated in this country is back” when, in fact, it never left! He refers to all links between autism and MMR vaccines as having been discredited yet he obviously has not read all the studies from the U.S. and around the world proving his information false. As a recent example, I would ask him to justify the 340% increase in autism in African-American boys in Chicago – a report that was supposedly squelched by the CDC . While he reports that the incidence of measles has increased over the past 10 years, no patients have died.
Scare tactics were used to terrorize those who attended this year’s SuperBowl in Phoenix because of one woman who sat in a clinic without being properly isolated or that every one of the thousands of people passing through Penn Station are at risk because of one man who rode an Amtrak train. It appears that the saturation of the media amplifies the hypotheses to a point that seems misleadingly worthy of consideration. In other words, if enough people say things enough times there must be some truth to it. Does that justify USA Today publishing an article claiming that non-vaccinated parents should be jailed or sued or have their children removed from the home if they chose not to vaccinate their children against the measles? Does that justify the immediate vaccination of every child and adult in this country regardless of their immune status or overall medical health? Will the local pharmacies be hooking pedestrians into their stores for MMR vaccines as they have been doing for the less than effective flu vaccines?
As I write this piece, the director of the CDC states that the overall vaccination rate in this country is 92% !! Yet he is very concerned of a large outbreak because of the trend in not vaccinating certain children. Does this make sense?
I wish these journalists, vaccinologists and infectious disease specialists spent a week in my office. I wish they would actually listen to the testimonials given to me by parents of autistic children who were obviously affected by these vaccines adversely. I wish they would tell parents that the risk of dying from the measles in the United States is around zero. I wish they would admit that they are being told by pharmaceutical companies not to report certain statistics or to cover up factual scientific information. I wish they could be free to report honestly about vaccines rather than being dependent upon drug advertising and internet information.
This is an emotional debate for sure. If we discount emotion and fear, we would realize that a child may have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning, accidental drowning or possibly from adverse side effects of the MMR vaccination itself than from acquiring live measles infection. I wish that my pediatric colleagues would offer parents factual pros and cons of vaccines in general so that a parent can make an informed decision and then give consent to vaccinate rather than being told that if their child isn’t vaccinated they will be thrown out of school and they are guilty of child abuse!
I am not advocating that vaccines be discontinued. I am advocating that doctors and patients become aware of the ingredients of these vaccines, what they can potentially do to affect an adverse outcome in an immunologically compromised child. Adverse reactions to MMR and other vaccines have been reported in numerous clinical trials and studies. I am advocating that medical practitioners and researchers, not journalists, address the real medical epidemics of autism, asthma, GI disease and autoimmune diseases facing our society and people around the world. Stop hyping the safety of MMR vaccines which may actually be more dangerous than live measles and may be ineffective in preventing the illness which they are so anxious to report as a dangerous epidemic itself.
Let’s stop believing that the mainstream media is telling us the truth when all they are doing is shutting down any intelligent and open discussion about vaccine safety and how to improve it.
Sincerely,
Dr. Michael Elice, M.D.
Publicly, we are easily scared and swayed by the news. I am concerned that legislation, like that now facing my home state of California to end philosophical objections to vaccinations, misses the point. Instead of becoming paranoid and blaming families that have made alternative health choices for the recent “outbreak” of measles, we should truly exam what the hell is happening with autism! Autism is a lifelong factor. Most children recover from the measles. Autism is for life. Progress can be made. But we really should be concerned with the toxins in our environment and what they are doing to us.
I don’t want my kids to get the measles.
Maybe comparing the measles infection with the rate of autism is a like comparing apples and oranges. One is an infectious disease with a vaccination, the other is still unexplainable as to cause and does not go away.
The point of sharing my own quandaries is not to say I am right or wrong. As parents we do our very best. As humans we do our very best.
The point is the media has given so much attention to the measles compared to autism. We have to ask ourselves why. What is the political motivation?
It is sad that you can reason that there is fearmongering on one side of an issue, but not see it on the other side. You recognize your hypocrisy, and that’s great, but it is entitlement like yours that puts other children at risk. Autism is on the rise, but the MMR vaccine isn’t. There is a higher correlation between plastic exposure, working mothers, and airplanes, than there is between MMR and autism. To write an entire article (using one of the few pictures of a black child that has ever been featured on this site, but of course he’s sick and “scary”) equating the measles outbreak (largely preventable) to the rise in autism (not yet understood, but yet completely unrelated) is lazy at best, and inciting at worst.
And let’s not even consider that part of the reason autism is on the “rise” is that more behaviors are being included as part of the spectrum. Several of my highly intelligent (literally, Mensa-level) friends were not diagnosed until they were adults because high-functioning autism wasn’t believed to exist when we were kids in the 70s and 80s (even though we were all vaccinated).
Please do not use your platform to justify pure lack of scientifically-sound reasoning. Actually, I suppose you can do what you’d like, but I won’t continue to read it. You’ve just lost credibility with this reader.
I do not where you get that from the photo. Geez! It was one of the only creative commons licensed photos of the measles I could find and has nothing to do with race. In addition, nowhere in the article do I connect Autism with the MMR vaccine. I am only comparing the two statistically.
You are absolutely equating autism and MMR simply by writing this post. And you are contributing to the fear-mongering in doing so.
For the record,I am a bleeding heart liberal who believes in organic food, environmentalism, and a healthy distrust for big corporations, including Big Pharma.
I vaccinate my child. Period. Because Science. Because History. Because PRIVILEGE to live in a first world country where I don’t have to walk for days and stand in line hoping by the time my turn comes there will still be a shot available for my child so I don’t have to watch my eighth one in a row die a miserable death in my arms. Because I have been the pregnant woman more at risk because I couldn’t get a shot. Because I have been the mother of an infant during a whooping cough outbreak, worried about the very real possibility of watching my newborn struggle for breath and life because he was too young to be immunized and we lived in an affluent pocket of anti-vaxxers. Because I have been the daughter of a mother undergoing cancer treatments, whose immune system was so compromised that an exposure to something like the measles could have been deadly.
Because to live in a community as a responsible member of society means we need to consider more than just ourselves. We need to care for each other. Because HERD IMMUNITY.
You are correct in one thing: you are a complete hypocrite. You depend upon the rest of us to vaccinate and provide the herd immunity that keeps your family statistically likely to never have to experience what can be a deadly or life-altering, highly communicable disease. No, vaccines are not perfect. To use that information as a reason to NOT vaccinate is some of the shoddiest “science” one can conjure. It is precisely BECA– USE they are not perfect that herd immunity is all the more important. Your “personal” choice to not vaccinate is not personal. It puts everyone in your community (and beyond) at risk. You are making choices for them, too.
Or, as the head of the Mayo Clinic vaccine research department says, “People get to choose, but there are consequences to those choices. Yes, parents are allowed currently to make that choice not to vaccinate, but with a disease this transmissible, and the complications that can occur, you’re also choosing for other people because your child is going to expose somebody, perhaps before you even know your child is sick. And what’s going to happen to those people? Like any rational society, we depend on the idea that people will make good decisions and have good will. But I’ve spent my career talking about this stuff, and I’ve found actually THE most contagious disease is fear. But to be afraid is to be ignorant in a case like this.”http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/02/05/on-measles-and-the-mmr-vaccine-a-conversation-with-vaccine-researcher-gregory-poland/
Congratulations on fanning the flames of fear. And shame on you for trotting out the tired, old (disproven) , scientifically-barren argument between autism and vaccines in order to do so. You’ve lost this reader, as well.
We disagree. At no time did I state my kids were unvaccinated. I said they are partially vaccinated. We selected specific ones through careful consultation with our doctors.
You are connecting autism and MMR simply by arguing the two side by side in the same article, and you are contributing to the fear-mongering and the misinformation in doing so. The two subjects are entirely separate and study after study has shown no link between the two.
For the record,I am a bleeding heart liberal who believes in organic food, environmentalism, and has a healthy distrust for big corporations, including Big Pharma.
I vaccinate my child. Period. Because Science. Because History. Because PRIVILEGE to live in a first world country where I don’t have to lose child upon child, walk for days, and stand in line hoping by the time my turn comes there will still be a shot available for my child so I don’t have to watch my eighth one in a row die a miserable death in my arms. Because I have been the pregnant woman more at risk because I couldn’t get a shot. Because I have been the mother of an infant during a whooping cough outbreak, worried about the very real possibility of watching my newborn struggle for breath and life because he was too young to be immunized and we lived in an affluent pocket of anti-vaxxers. Because I have been the daughter of a mother undergoing cancer treatments, whose immune system was so compromised that an exposure to something like measles could have been deadly.
Because to live in a community as a responsible member of society means we need to consider more than just ourselves. We need to care for each other. Because HERD IMMUNITY.
And yes, you are a hypocrite. You depend on the rest of us to provide you with the herd immunity that allows you to make the choice not to vaccinate. Your “personal choice” affects everyone around you. The pure hubris associated with that choice is unfathomable.
As the head of the Mayo Clinic’s vaccine research department says,
“People get to choose, but there are consequences to those choices. Yes, parents are allowed currently to make that choice not to vaccinate, but with a disease this transmissible, and the complications that can occur, you’re also choosing for other people because your child is going to expose somebody, perhaps before you even know your child is sick. And what’s going to happen to those people? Like any rational society, we depend on the idea that people will make good decisions and have good will. But I’ve spent my career talking about this stuff, and I’ve found actually THE most contagious disease is fear. But to be afraid is to be ignorant in a case like this.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/02/05/on-measles-and-the-mmr-vaccine-a-conversation-with-vaccine-researcher-gregory-poland/
Congratulations on fanning the flames of fear. And shame on you for clouding the issue with a misleading, scientifically barren post trading on the tired argument of autism vs vaccines. You’ve lost this reader, as well.
May you be filled with loving kindness, may you be well, may you be peaceful and ease, may you be truly happy
Yeah, I have to agree with the previous commenter for the most part, and I feel that the photo is misleading and inappropriate. Viewing the headline “Shouldn’t we be more concerned about autism than the measles” next to a thin, dying child in a different country is rather insensitive.
That is fair. I will change the photo.
I thought the photo showed how severe the measles can be and how bad it can be in countries with low vaccinations rates.
You are equating autism and MMR simply by writing this post. And you are contributing to the fear-mongering in doing so.
For the record,I am a bleeding heart liberal who believes in organic food, environmentalism, and a healthy distrust for big corporations, including Big Pharma.
I vaccinate my child. Period. Because Science. Because History. Because PRIVILEGE to live in a first world country where I don’t have to walk for days and stand in line hoping by the time my turn comes there will still be a shot available for my child so I don’t have to watch my eighth one in a row die a miserable death in my arms. Because I have been the pregnant woman more at risk because I couldn’t get a shot. Because I have been the mother of an infant during a whooping cough outbreak, worried about the very real possibility of watching my newborn struggle for breath and life because he was too young to be immunized and we lived in an affluent pocket of anti-vaxxers. Because I have been the daughter of a mother undergoing cancer treatments, whose immune system was so compromised that an exposure to something like the measles could have been deadly.
Because to live in a community as a responsible member of society means we need to consider more than just ourselves. We need to care for each other. Because HERD IMMUNITY.
You are correct in one thing: you are a complete hypocrite. You depend upon the rest of us to vaccinate and provide the herd immunity that keeps your family statistically likely to never have to experience what can be a deadly or life-altering, highly communicable disease. No, vaccines are not perfect. To use that information as a reason to NOT vaccinate is some of the shoddiest “science” one can conjure. It is precisely BECA– USE they are not perfect that herd immunity is all the more important. Your “personal” choice to not vaccinate is not personal. It puts everyone in your community (and beyond) at risk. You are making choices for them, too.
Or, as the head of the Mayo Clinic vaccine research department says, “People get to choose, but there are consequences to those choices. Yes, parents are allowed currently to make that choice not to vaccinate, but with a disease this transmissible, and the complications that can occur, you’re also choosing for other people because your child is going to expose somebody, perhaps before you even know your child is sick. And what’s going to happen to those people? Like any rational society, we depend on the idea that people will make good decisions and have good will. But I’ve spent my career talking about this stuff, and I’ve found actually THE most contagious disease is fear. But to be afraid is to be ignorant in a case like this.”http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/02/05/on-measles-and-the-mmr-vaccine-a-conversation-with-vaccine-researcher-gregory-poland/
Congratulations on fanning the flames of fear. And shame on you for trotting out the tired, old (disproven) , scientifically-barren argument between autism and vaccines in order to do so. You’ve lost this reader, as well.
Again, nowhere in this article is there any sort of causal link stated between autism and vaccinations written in my words (commenters yes).
“Shouldn’t we be more concerned about autism than the measles?”
What an absurd statement. They are not related. Vaccines don’t cause autism. There is no relationship between the two.
Do people seriously still write about this and not even realize it was all started by one study where the date was FAKED and the conclusion was a BOLD FACED LIE? It has been discredited so many times over since then.
And the only increase in autism is explained through diagnostic criteria. these days even seemingly normal and non-disabled people are being labeled as autistic because the criteria are so damn broad.
These two issues are not even remotely related.
You must not have read the article. At no time did I say that vaccines cause autism. I was comparing statistics.
The doctor who came up with this correlation lost his license as it was found a falsehood. A measles outbreak is dangerous. That CAN cause mental retardation and kill children. And it is highly contagious.
This article is not about a correlation about vaccinations and autism. It is about media attention on 121 measles cases versus the astounding rise in autism.
Hi Jennifer, I don’t normally comment on blogs, and I’d never come across this site before today, but I had to comment on this post. I see that in the comments you keep saying that you don’t want to really compare the two things, you simply want to compare statistics – but to what end?
The last paragraph reads “The point is the media has given so much attention to the measles compared to autism. We have to ask ourselves why. What is the political motivation?”
What are you basing that on? The media has given a lot of attention to autism in the past several years – to the rise in diagnosis, to possible causes, to ongoing research, etc.
I know these aren’t proxies for media stories about autism, but with some quick searches I found that:
– The number of hits on “measles” on Google is 26.2 million as of today; number for “autism” is 74.8 million
– Google Trends shows a substantially higher number of searches for “autism” compared to “measles” for the last 10 years, with the exception of the start of 2015
– Google Ngram shows a decline in the number of books about measles from about 1920-2008 (the latest year for which data are available) and a sharp increase in the number on autism from 1940-2008.
[I didn’t include links to those graphs but you can easily Google them for yourself!]
The fact that the media gave measles a lot of attention in the last 2 months is hardly surprising – there was an outbreak. To suggest that it’s politically motivated is to ignore the much more likely fact that’s it’s motivated by media providers who want people to read their stories on the breaking news, which are interesting.
You could also ask “Shouldn’t we be more concerned about the flu than ebola? For every American hospitalized with ebola last year, 20,000 were hospitalized with flu.” [Based on data from the CDC.]
I know this is flip. It sounds ridiculous. The two things are not related and they are also not mutually exclusive.
Considering all of this (and again I know these are perhaps not the most compelling stats I could show you, they’re just the quickest I could find), how could this post be anything other than intentionally provoking?
I’m not trying to be confrontational, I’m just genuinely confused about the point you’re trying to make!
~Erin