Autism and vaccination -- who can we trust?

[Connonym]

"ANDREW WAKEFIELD, the former surgeon whose campaign linking the MMR vaccine with autism caused a collapse in immunisation rates, was paid more than £400,000 by lawyers trying to prove that the vaccine was unsafe.

The payments, unearthed by The Sunday Times, were part of £3.4m distributed from the legal aid fund to doctors and scientists who had been recruited to support a now failed lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers. "

From the London Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524335,00.html

I hate big pharma but I do have a lot of faith in science and the value of vaccination. I don't know all the science involved with the controversy about the MMR vaccination and it's association with increase in autism but I had my children vaccinated because I felt that the benefit of preventing my children dying of a preventible disease was worth the risk.

I think the world has become so complicated that it's virtually impossible to make all our decisions without input from "experts" but how do we know who to trust? Can we trust anyone? Daily I feel my trust in humanity is further crumbling. I used to be such an idealist but now I'm frustrated and discouraged. For all I know this could all be a conspiracy by pharma to make us all feel we need Prozac (and I'm only half kidding).

The idea of living in isolation in a cave is becoming more and more appealing.

[seabeyond]

1. there were a couple vaccinations i dont htink we need that govt told me we needed

i dont like that. i also didnt trust the vaccinations for my own reason. also have thoughts on a child getting four in one sittting. but then this came to me a couple years into my youngests vaccinations days and didnt have info to ocunter. did stop the last shots from five to four. got the fifth a later time.

i dont trust the vaccinations vs autism. saw a change in oldest when he got his two year old shot that was incredibly like autism. i dont think it misses with all children just those that already lean in that direction

but beyond the vaccination debate, i agree with what you are suggesting in trust. i cannot trust the dentists or doctors. they seem to easily go to prescribe from what i have experienced, too easily and i wonder

i was at 200 in cholestrol and prescribed zocor. i started taking and after a couple months and experiencing stuff, du had an article on these drugs and side effect. i went off, the symptoms stopped. went back on and they came back. then i just got off

this is at 200

talking to a friend at 340 he says doctor hasnt prescribed drug, going for his behavior to lower. saying dont want to put on drug because effects 50%. bad side effects. i never heard this. his is way beyond mine. and a decade ago 240 was the line to be concerned with cholestral.

so here i age, concerned about the info we receive and doctors part, and i dont trust.

i dont like it

and i am concerned

[LeighAnn]

3. I dislike the chicken pox vaccine

Grown-ups generally don't go for their boosters. I foresee an epidemic of deadly adult chicken pox in 20 years in people who were vaccinated as children and never got the real disease (which is, of course, it's own innoculation).

[seabeyond]

7. chicken pox was one. i was really opposed to that one

hands down i would have preferred the children get it and go thru it than trusting the vaccination to go thru adulthood when the illness is much worse. i do not trust it at all

i had gotten rubella vaccination. when i had my youngest at 36 i was told that it was no longer effective and my unusual blood type would cause me problems if i ever got the disease and then needed blood at some time. they would not be able to find blood for me, so i got the shot again

hyp c is another one.

[back2basics909]

2. Trust the process...

Science is a process, just let the process work. If a study comes out making an assertion, that’s the start of the process, not the end. Everybody jumped on this study before any independent testing was done. If they had waited, the mythology around MMR would not have existed.

It is the public and the media’s fault this went so far. I don’t even blame Wakefield. It’s the parents who wanted to believe, wanted easy answers or even money from the vaccine companies that gave this story legs. Let the process work and you do not need to trust a single report or study. Let other in the scientific community fact check. Let the wheels turn and you can trust science to get it right.

[Recursion]

4. I think the good and bad sides of vaccinations are overblown

They have a real role in public health, but they aren't as important as sanitation and hygiene. They can have some side effects but they aren't causing the autoimmune breakdowns some people are experiencing and blaming on them. They're only such a big issue because there is so much money at stake. There's almost no money to be had in public sanitation, but that saves countless more lives than vaccines. It's a question of resource allocation: I personally think that if we devoted a large chunk of vaccine R&D money into pollution cleanup and nutrition programs we would probably be making a better use of the money. That said, modern vaccines *as far as we know now* are pretty safe.

[sharp_stick]

5. Trust the science IMHO

Many many studies have been done and shown that there is no link between autism and vaccination. I have looked and I'm aware on no peer reviewed studies that have shown the opposite view.

[Recursion]

6. Trust independently-funded science

in the field of medicine, there is almost none of that.

[Windy]

8. With the influx of illegals in this country you'd be nuts not to vaccinate

There have been increases in epidemics of whooping cough, measles, etc and in Minnesota there was an outbreak of polio in the Amish community.

I'm not trying to knock illegal aliens, but the fact is, vaccinations aren't given and/or compliance is not enforced in those countries.

Vaccine irradicate disease. That is the science. The link between autism and vaccinations hasn't been proven, and despite that, thymerisol, the alleged offending additive has been removed from vaccines.

While it may be a personal decision, you risk the health of your children by not ensuring that they are vaccinated. All it takes is to put them into a shopping cart that has been used by another child that carries the virus...

[Connonym]

11. it's not just illegals

Lot's of "regular Americans" are not vaccinating. Pretty much they're risking their children's lives on the hope that everyone else vaccinates. Even chicken pox kills kids every year.

[aikoaiko]

9. You can't trust any one person or researcher.

But you generally can trust the big picture when it comes to purported or reconized experts. Last I looked, the biggest studies were saying no link between vaccinations and autism. There was some evidence about mercury, but then the drug companies removed the mercury so its a non issue.

[Connonym]

10. nonissue except that all the vaccines with mercury

were very "generously" donated for use in third world countries. As long as it's NIMBY. :sigh: