[Autism] Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism

There's no doubt in my mind you'll have heard the following:

“MMR and other vaccines causes Autism”

I just want to start off with saying that this is one topic I have very, very little patience for. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that vaccine-truthers are one group of people I have a real disdain for. Normally, these kind of conspiracy theories don’t do too much harm to society as a whole, but this one is damaging to every single one of us.

I’ve posted a couple of articles recently with Autism in the tags. I’ve then clicked on the autism tag to see what other people are writing about. Many are autistic individuals or the parents of children with autism sharing their experiences, and it’s so nice to read these posts. There are however, a growing number of vaccine-truthers creeping into the mix.

Let’s start off by talking about peer-reviewed research. According to Wikipedia;

“Scholarly peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work,research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field, before a paper describing this work is published in a journal, conference proceedings or as a book.”

Are we all in agreement with that definition? Now let’s look at the “research” that many vaccine-truthers cling to. The paper in question has the catchy title of “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children”. If any of them bothered to actually research this topic, they’d know that this paper has been retracted for some very good reasons.

This paper was published by a certain Andrew Wakefield and 12 of his colleagues in 1998, and suggested that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine may “predispose to behavioral regression and pervasive developmental disorder in children”. The main criticisms of this paper were that it had a ridiculously small sample size of just 12 children and was highly speculative. The paper received a high amount of publicity, and as a result of this, many parents refused to have their children immunised against these diseases for fear of giving their children Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or a plethora of other developmental disorders.

Almost immediately after this pathetic attempt at research was published, many studies were conducted and published, refuting the posited link between the MMR vaccination and autism. 20 years later, and this bogus research is still being peddled as the reason to not vaccinate children.

I’m gonna pause here, and would just like to make one thing clear. If you still believe this bullshit, go fuck yourself. Seriously.

Another thing that needs to be stated is that Autism is not an illness or disease that can be “cured”, but a lifelong neurological disorder. Although symptoms may not show until a few years of age, the underlying brain differences are there from the beginning. The exact cause of Autism is currently unknown, and may occur as a result of genetic predisposition, environmental or other as yet unknown factors. Most researchers agree that certain genes inherited from your parents could make an individual more likely to develop Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). There is strong evidence to suggest that cases of Autism runs in families. There have been no specific genes linked to ASD as of yet, and some researchers state that environmental triggers can cause an individual who is genetically vulnerable to ASD to develop the condition.

One thing is clear though, and that is that vaccines have no correlation with ASD. As a more recent paper suggests:

“The logic that the MMR vaccine may trigger autism was also questioned because a temporal link between the two is almost predestined: both events, by design (MMR vaccine) or definition (autism), occur in early childhood.”

Using the same flimsy logic, we could deduce that consuming breakfast as a child causes ASD, or maybe being put into a child safety seat can cause ASD, and so on. I mentioned earlier that I believe this particular conspiracy theory to be harmful to everyone, not just those with children or those diagnosed with ASD, but every single one of us on this planet. I’ll explain why.

Vaccines protect children from a wide range of serious illnesses and complications of vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccine preventable illnesses still affect a large number of children, and can result in extreme cases in limbs being amputated, brain damage or even death. Let me tell you, as someone with ASD, I would much rather have ASD than measles, mumps or rubella. Even if these vaccines did cause Autism or other developmental disorders, I’d rather that than death.

Outbreaks of preventable diseases still occur in the 21st century, because for some reason parents still want to believe that it’s the vaccines that cause autism, rather than maybe it’s something they themselves have locked away in their own genes. If you put your child at risk by refusing to vaccinate them, you are a terrible parent. That is my honest opinion on the subject. You are risking your child’s death, over some pathetic argument that was put to rest two decades ago.

I won’t continue as I’ll just be repeating myself, but for the love of mercy, do the right thing. By all means, do your own research, but pay attention to your sources. YouTube or Steemit are not academic sites, and people are all too happy to peddle bullshit if it gets them views or upvotes. If the person telling you not to vaccinate your child, also asks you to buy their merch, or buy their holistic bullshit medicine to cure your child, then run far, far away. Please.

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Sources:
The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136032/)
Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9500320)
Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses (https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/48/4/456/284219)
What is Autism? by The National Autistic Society (http://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asd.aspx)
Vaccine Information (http://www.vaccineinformation.org/)