Number of early childhood vaccines not linked to autism

[Nev]

All good,

So vaccination is not 100% effective, it reduces the chances of getting the whatever by about 90%, (PS all these % are rounded to explain the concepts, if you want i will go look up the actual, but these illustrate the point)

What happens in populations though is when enough people are vaccinated something called herd immunity occurs, so many people, have such a low chance of catching it, that it dies out and the disease disappears, this is what happens to polio and a whole bunch of other things in first world countries, someone can go overseas and still get it. 90% chance that they wont but 10% chance they will (If they are vaccinated), and bring it back, If herd immunity exists it dies out pretty fast and nobody (or few people) catch it and pass it on.

If there is someone who is not immunized they have a large chance of catching it, and infecting others who dont have the vaccination, this creates more opportunities for the kid who is only 90% covered to get infected.

If enough people dont get immunized heard immunity stops working as there are enough people who can pass the disease around for it to make a home in the country, the USA is having record outbreaks of measles at the moment and getting worse every year due to the number of un-vaccinated kids, herd immunity is failing, have a look at the link earlier in the post for the type of diseases that will be coming back when this happens, and that is just some of them.

So the short version, if all the kids in a school are vaccinated there will be less opportunity for the kid to catch something as he/she is not associating with kids who have a 90%? chance of catching everything that comes along.

A lot of people say that the kid will be just fine getting these diseases, i had it when i was young with no problems, well prior to 1980 2.6 million children died each year from measles, they just not around to tell everyone that it is actually pretty bad.... then start looking at the really bad stuff, polio etc, all due to come back with this wave of non immunization.

As a separate issue, you would expect your kid to be well off enough to travel in their life, and when they go to asia on a family holiday they will be exposed to all sorts of diseases, and if they haven't been immunized they could be in trouble, i got my immunization all updated 2 years back, well worth it (Make a turn at a travel clinic).

Happy to chat on this so feel free to ask any questions you have

EDIT: Need to read stuff more carefully before i post, having to do a lot of fixing

Edited November 20, 2014 by Nev

[McCabes]

Food for thought, thanks Nev.

I am still on the fence - my kids reacted to the vaccines... so I don't know what to do, really. Either way, whatever I do, I'm putting them at risk.

[Nev]

Not great, Have you tried talking to a Doctor here about the reaction your kid had?

[McCabes]

Yes, they basically told me I must be mistaken and I must be messing with the injection site (the one that took 18months to heal) - which I never, ever touched. Then they switched to claiming my daughter was messing with it - something I had never seen her do, and I'd been checking for it.

So then I stopped trying to talk to them about it.

I'm still in SA though... not "there".

I will say on the subsequent visit he was more open to discussing delayed vaccination and just emphasised 3 he felt could not be missed. I think my middle daughter has had 2 of the 3, she had the prevenar as they did a campaign through the nursery schools.

Just the DTP left I think. And then my youngest needs those 3, but she has had a bad year full of allergies, sinus, throat and ear infections so every time I think maybe we should do the first then we have a snotty child again as if on cue. And I know they say it's fine to have it anyway, but from past experience I would rather only take mine if they are 100%. She's on the tail end of a cold now so hopefully we can have a break and do at least 1 before the end of the year.

I think I'll start with the 3 and see how we go. I'm going to space them so it's easier to check for reactions.

[Fish]

Ok... bear with me, because I honestly don't understand this (not trying to be difficult, looking for answers!)

Child A is fully vaccinated. They are now "protected" against specific diseases.

Child B is not vaccinated at all. They are not "protected".

What I don't understand is this: How does Child B put Child A at risk? Child A is protected against these diseases, n'est-ce pas? So surely the only child in danger of contracting these diseases is Child B? [yes, I am oversimplifying, I am only considering two groups of people in my quest to understand this single point - I have intentionally left out populations who have not yet, or cannot ever have, the vaccines]

To me if you vaccinate and you hear there's a measles outbreak at your child's school, you should be going "whew, well, at least little Timmy is covered!", you shouldn't be going "those dratted non-vaccinated kids are so dangerous, they're going to make my kid sick!"

Can someone shed some light, please?

The other thing is that some in the community cannot be vaccinated for some reason. For example children who are too young still. All of those children and babies are put at greater risk.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Fish

[Nev]

Something i have found here is Auz is the doctors are a lot more understanding and dont just believe you have no idea because you are not a doctor, South Africans are pretty arrogant and it is great when you go to a professional here and don't get that.

I will put 50c down on the table that if you go to a doc here they will take you seriously and give you good advice.

Hint and Tip: Don't go to a bulk billed doctor in Auz, they have to turn over a lot of patients to pay the bills so you will be treated like a sheep, you want to have to pay in extra over and above the medicare amount as then you will end up with a doctor who works for you not the medicare system, big difference. - we pay in $35 over the medicare amount that he claims at our doc.

(Bulk billing in Auz means the doctor only charges the medicare rebate amount and claims on your behalf, so you dont pay a cent to see the doc, from our experience you will find these cheap doctors to be in a heck of a hurry as they need to generate numbers to pay the bills, long waiting times in the waiting room (i was not a happy camper after nearly 2 hours) as they overlap book and try to have short appointments to catch up, and they work for medicare not for you.

If anyone wants a fantastic doctor near Heidelberg let me know the chap we have now is reeeealy great.

[Eyebrow]

http://omicsgroup.org/journals/infant-exposure-to-excessive-vitamin-d-a-risk-factor-for-autism-2165-7890.1000125.pdf

[Nev]

Thanks for this Eyebrow, it was a really interesting read, and i will be watching the additional vitamin D our kid gets very closely, but there is no evidence displayed in this article, only coincidence,

Still worth the read though as every one of these articles regardless of if we believe them to be correct or not improves our knowledge a bit, so always worth the read.

Couple of notes of bits of his argument that bugged me:

His talking about the first cases back in the 1940’s were based on him assuming that the parents would have been well off and then could have given the kids supplements, the writer has no idea what the first kids were fed

"acts suggests that many cases of autism first became apparent soon after vitamin D was added to milk products"

"the parents of his patients were generally highly educated and successful members of the middle class. It seems that these are just the type of upwardly mobile forward thinking people who would be tempted to purchase new and slightly more expensive products for the sake of their children’s health: namely vitamin D fortified milk products"

The examples he gives of Amish and Cuban kids having a loser incidence due to lower amounts of vitamin D, can also be attributed to lousy healthcare, i would expect a lot of kids not to be picked up (So they may have just as high an incidence) and he doesn’t give any non-circumstantial evidence, as an example we could easily blame cell phones and use the same logic.

I do like their argument that the females have a higher tolerance for vitamin D and that could explain their lower incidence of Autism, this is still circumstantial though.

He cites a study that directly contradicts him but offers only that there is a suggestion that it may be linked to a certain age with no backup for what he thinks the other study is wrong, then ends with a maybe

"So vitamin D consumption in babies and toddlers who eventually are diagnosed with autism may be high even though Hyman, et al. found low vitamin D consumption relative to DRI in those who have an autism diagnosis"

He then cites studies who have found that kids in higher latitudes that would get less sunlight have a higher rate of autism (And gives references), and uses Alaska having lower incidence to contradict them, but once again, i think lousy healthcare in Alaska and greater tolerance may have an issue here, you cannot compare first world’s with rural or third world.

The only line that really concerned me though was the one where he says:

"because of the higher rates of formula feeding among those who develop autism"

And then he doesn't give a reference for where he got this information........

His mention of endothelial damage being marked by vitamin D changes and that also often being present in Autism is really interesting, the word often bugs me and it is circumstantial but interesting

His conclusion basically says because Vitamin D is bad and has negative effects in large doses some of which may also be seen in autism and the amount of added vitamin D in babies diets has gone up therefore they must be linked, unfortunately this is all circumstantial evidence, he doesn't back it up with any studies and i would assume that this kind of data would be available, something simple like the % of Autistic kids on formula or that were given the vitamin D supplement that he talks about.

I know more about Vitamin D now though and i hope someone follows up on his reasoning as it does sound like it is worth following up on

[Mel-B]

Interesting.

On a side note and maybe off topic as it doesn't apply to infants: low levels of Vit D is a predictor of low testosterone levels in men. I have been reading about vit D supplementing in men specifically for some time now. The benefits are astounding! One would assume you get enough sun and thus vit D living in South Africa, but apparently not. I thought it was worth a mention

[McCabes]

And then there's this:

New research presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics Experience National Conference & Exhibition found that low vitamin D levels are prevalent in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/vitamin-d-news/vitamin-d-deficiency-may-be-related-to-adhd-in-children-says-new-study/

.....

Nev you poked some good holes in that theory re vit D and Autism - as you say, I would have liked to have seem more citations to studies to back up his theories and suppositions. Difficult to give the theory much credit without it...

[Nev]

Yea, he does make some interesting points though, so i will keep my eyes open for any new research into Vit D