1. Comment #243739 by Apathy personified on September 7, 2008 at 8:19 am

Out of pure curiousity,
Has the incidence level of autism varied with the reduction in the number of MMR jabs given?

That seems like a crucial fact, but it doesn't seem to be mentioned.

public health policy must be guided by science instead of celebrity - or even personal experience.

Well, that would be nice.

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2. Comment #243755 by jt512 on September 7, 2008 at 9:16 am

Apathy personified wrote:

Out of pure curiousity,
Has the incidence level of autism varied with the reduction in the number of MMR jabs given?

That seems like a crucial fact, but it doesn't seem to be mentioned.

It seems to me, that you have just fallen for the same logical fallacy discussed in the article.

Other Comments by jt512

3. Comment #243758 by Apathy personified on September 7, 2008 at 9:24 am

jt512,

It seems to me, that you have just fallen for the same logical fallacy discussed in the article.

How?
In no way have i said i agree with the morons who think that the MMR jab causes autism - you can now apologise for trying to put words into my mouth.

I was merely asking why nobody mentions the incident rate of autism since the number of people taking the jab has decreased - i have no idea what that answer is, that's why i asked the question, i think it would be interesting to know.

If there is no change (which is what my money is on), then it kinda destroys their whole argument about MMR causing autism - so why is this not mentioned (well, i certainly haven't seen it mentioned - though that could be down to a lack of exposure to relevant materials on my part) as part of the proof that the vaccine is safe in this respect?

Edit: Added comment for clarity.

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4. Comment #243760 by chewedbarber on September 7, 2008 at 9:29 am

Doctors tell their patients autism is triggered by vaccines, why wouldn't people believe their doctor?

Are pediatricians being influenced by Jenny McCarthy?

It seems almost silly to blame this one on the celebs. :P

This issue shows why public health policy must be guided by science instead of celebrity â€" or even personal experience.

And also not by a number of doctors.

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5. Comment #243763 by entheogensmurf on September 7, 2008 at 9:37 am

"But why do many people continue to believe that there is a link despite overwhelming evidence? The answer is something that has more credibility than the best scientific study: personal experience."

While I agree, this next babble is directed in other areas where people cast away research/evidence at times (in my opinion of course) or at least slow to accept the information:
At least here in the USA, we have been lied to enough that it can be difficult for many to trust in the evidence coming from research. The "cooking of stats," half truths, research funded to get specific results regardless of what is actually found, and other niceties.
When I look at an article that provides research results... what do I do? I try and hunt down the actual source and attempt, in my laypersons mind, to see if what is being reported appears accurate. This is more to see if the article reporting the research didn't parse through their own agenda.

Then, I attempt to find other sources that provide at least some validity and credibility to the org/group that conducted the research.

I recall the tobacco companies funding research that later was found to be a tad biased/skewed :)

If you ever read up on a huge foul up by Ricaurte (he blames the company that sent him the supplies), where his research revealed that MDMA caused "dopaminergic depletion and can lead to Parkinson's disease." Later, retracting as a result that it was meth and not MDMA ;)

As I said above though, I agree with the conclusion of "personal experience." It's hard to shake for some if not many.
I imagine exposure and acceptance to the concepts of critical thinking would help immensely.

I shall also present a personal experience of my own, where I saw at first hand how powerful "personal experience" can be to a mind:
Around the age of 12 or so, a buddy of mine, who had almost no exposure to non-white (I refer only to the color of skin, as I'm 1/3 Native American but appear "white") humans.
His first up close experience was... dun dun dun dunnn...
Being chased down by a group of very dark skinned kids who beat the crap out of him for being "a cracker" or something silly.

He started to rant about nigger this and nigger that (previously he wasn't really hateful towards anyone)... That they are animals, etc... and actually carried a near instant hatred of black skinned chaps.

I tried to reason with him (in my 12 year old way) that it's beyond sick and wrong to judge a "race" by the actions of some. Even presenting the times white kids in a group had picked on us...

In fact, over the years, we of course had good and bad experiences with every variance of skin color/race.

We of course (sadly), were exposed to adults who were openly racist (at least around white skinned people) towards blacks -- perhaps reinforcing his bigotry. Odd enough, his parents were the epitome of hippies (free spirited, equality minded, blah blah); yet this didn't sway him either when they attempted to explain that hating a race by the actions of a few or even many is wrong/faulty reasoning.

Yet, it persisted in his mind to be hateful to blacks by default -- simply by that initial experience. I don't know if he's still that way now as we parted ways long ago.

Anyways, it's nice to see the new research. Researchers are sexy, provided they are honest.

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6. Comment #243764 by John Desclin on September 7, 2008 at 9:38 am

on july 25, 2008, I already posted - on another thread ("How anecdotal evidence...") two links pointing to hilarious examples of this fallacy by distinguished professors.( post # 218163).
It seems that people don't learn...

Other Comments by John Desclin

7. Comment #243765 by Lucas on September 7, 2008 at 9:43 am

Apathy, your question implied an assumption of causation, because even if the answer was 'yes', it would still only be a correlative factor that needs to be tested. jt512's comment was rightly made, even if it did not exactly give you the benefit of the doubt. Relax. We needn't be so quick to anger or offense.

Other Comments by Lucas

8. Comment #243767 by mordacious1 on September 7, 2008 at 9:44 am

The link between autism and thimerosal/mmr vaccines has been studied intensively. Thimerosal was the easiest to dismiss, just remove it and see what happens. Diagnosed cases have actually increased as thimerosal use has decreased. MMR vaccines were more difficult to rule out. The idea here is that some children have GI problems that make them predisposed to having bad reactions when given the MMR all at once, instead of separately. This was supposed to affect 25% of autistic children. When studied, there was no increase with kids who got MMR or M , M, and R.

It appears to be coincidental that the vaccines are given at the time that MOST people recognize the signs of autism. The solution might be to train OB staff and pediatricians to recognize early signs of autism. This also helps decrease the affects that autism has on the child (early intervention).

[edited to add pediatricians]

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9. Comment #243768 by SteveN on September 7, 2008 at 9:45 am

For many years, the anti-vaxxers claimed that it was the presence of the organomercury-based preservative thiomersal in the vaccine that was causing autism. Despite there being no credible evidence that this was true, the CDC recommended the removal of thiomersal at the turn of the century 'to be on the safe side', which was perversely taken as proof by the anti-vaxxers that they were correct. Since then, the rates of diagnosed autism have continued to rise, a fact they conveniently fail to mention. Like the article suggests, logic is not their strong point.

Edit: I see that Mordacious1 beat me to it by one minute!

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10. Comment #243771 by Apathy personified on September 7, 2008 at 9:55 am

Lucas,
Ok - So instead of 'crucial fact' i should have put 'interesting statistic that should be investigated'?

Fair enough.

jt512,
I apologise if my reply was out of line and too aggressive.

Other Comments by Apathy personified

11. Comment #243775 by jt512 on September 7, 2008 at 10:07 am

"Apathy personified" wrote:

[I wrote:]

It seems to me, that you have just fallen for the same logical fallacy discussed in the article.

How? In no way have i said i agree with the morons who think that the MMR jab causes autism.... I was merely asking why nobody mentions the incident rate of autism since the number of people taking the jab has decreased... i think it would be interesting to know.

It might be "interesting," but originally you called it a "crucial fact." In fact, it is not crucial because, as the article explains, "[T]wo events that appear to be causally related may not be; there are other possibilities. The appearance of causation may simply be coincidence.... Only carefully controlled scientific studies can conclusively tell the difference."

That is the crucial fact, and a major point of the article. It would require carefully controlled studies to determine the relevance of any observed relation (or lack of relation) between the incidence of autism and the incidence of MMR injection, so what would be the point in reporting it?

On the other hand, epidemiologists have already conducted carefully controlled studies that have shown that the vaccine does not cause autism. But you are suggesting that weak correlational evidence be presented to support a conclusion arrived at by strong, controlled studies. That contradicts a major point that the article is trying to convey.

Jay

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12. Comment #243778 by WilliamP on September 7, 2008 at 10:32 am

The misunderstanding is made worse by high-profile, non-scientific claims by activists linking vaccines to autism (model and actress Jenny McCarthy, for example, appeared on "Larry King Live" earlier this year accusing medical doctors of ignorance of the facts and hiding evidence).

It's really sad when people will listen to someone who argues from the perspective of personal experience and the authority that comes with being famous for taking off her bra on camera.

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13. Comment #243782 by Bonzai on September 7, 2008 at 10:45 am

jt512

Actually Ap's idea involve varying MMR jabs and see whether it has an effect on incidents of autism. If there is, it would be a strong evidence to suggest that there might be causal relationship provided others possible factors are properly controlled for. This is not the same as just looking at correlation because you can decide independently the jabs being administered. This is crucial.

This is how causality is established in laboratory experiments (with proper control).

But controlled experiments are often not feasible in epidemiological studies so instead they massage the data to account for interactions and confounding. One way to establish causality statistcally is indeed to look at different levels of correlations and take into account things such as temporal ordering of events, methods based on this idea include exploratory path analysis and SEM (structural equation modeling) Now all these are open to criticism because if controlled experiment cannot be done and a theory is absent there is no fool proof way to establish causality. But Ap has the right idea.

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14. Comment #243783 by Apathy personified on September 7, 2008 at 10:47 am

jt512,

But you are suggesting that weak correlational evidence be presented to support a conclusion arrived at by strong, controlled studies

I never said, or implied that - so i don't know why i'm responding at all, as i'm discussing things i've never said.

An article mentions a debate about whether there's a correlation between two things; one of them has changed, i ask if the other one has also changed (although in this case i expect it hasn't) - that's all it was, just a simple question.

Contrary to what you are implying about me, i'm not trying to undermine the scientific endeavour of the researchers who've provided us with the strong controlled studies by saying,
'Hey, pay attention to this weakly correlated evidence over here and ignore everything else!'

Edit:
Thanks Bonzai. Although, to be honest, i wasn't even going that far (but thanks for crediting me with a good idea though :)) - i was just curious as to whether there has been any change in the incidence of autism in the last few years since the proportion of kids getting the MMR jab has decreased since this 'scare' was brought up. I didn't mean to imply (i don't think i did) that any change would be necessarily linked to the MMR jab.

Other Comments by Apathy personified

15. Comment #243787 by mordacious1 on September 7, 2008 at 11:04 am

Re: Jenny McCarthy

Yes, I always get my scientific information from former Playboy Playmates of the Year (NOT!).

Other Comments by mordacious1

16. Comment #243788 by WilliamP on September 7, 2008 at 11:10 am

About this debate going on here on causation, I think correlation is important here, as Apathy has pointed out. I don't know what it means to say that scientists have proved that there is no link between vaccines and autism, if they have no evidence that there is no correlation.

Correlation, as the article discuses, is not a sufficient condition for causation. When A correlates with B, then that's not enough to say that A causes B or vice versa.

Causation is, however, a necessary condition for causation. When you have causation between A and B, then the two must correlate. When A and B do not correlate, assuming all other things are equal (as in a scientific experiement), then that is sufficient to say that there is no causation.

I suspect that the studies conducted found such a lack of correlation between vaccinations and autism. I imagine that is what was meant by saying that the studies have shown that there is no causation.

Other Comments by WilliamP

17. Comment #243792 by jt512 on September 7, 2008 at 11:18 am

Bonzai,

You have grossly misread AP's post. He was not suggesting that controlled experiments be run, but rather, that the observed incidence of autism be compared with the observed incidence of MMR vaccination. That is not only correlational data, it is worse: it is correlation between summary statistics, which compounds the temporal fallacy with the ecologic fallacy (that correlation between summary statistics is due to correlation at the individual level).

Other Comments by jt512

18. Comment #243794 by bugaboo on September 7, 2008 at 11:26 am

Can children (or for that matter adults) who were not vaccinated at the usual age be vaccinated now?
(i dont see any reason why they shouldnt)

I ask this question since a lot of parents refused vaccination at the time of the controversy and may now wish they had went ahead.

It seems to me that there should be another campaign to have these older children vaccinated in light of the inreased risk of infection together with the debunking of the original scare.

Other Comments by bugaboo

19. Comment #243795 by markg on September 7, 2008 at 11:26 am

According to this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/washington/05vaccine.html?partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
a record number of children were vaccinated last year. So apparently not so many parents are anti-vaccine as it may seem... at least here in the U.S.

Other Comments by markg

20. Comment #243797 by RainDear on September 7, 2008 at 11:28 am

I would love Jenny McCarthy to go on Larry King and accept some responsibility on the consequent cases of measles, mumps and rubella, as well as the meningitis, sterility and fetal injuries a number of these cases lead to.

Other Comments by RainDear

21. Comment #243800 by Philrt on September 7, 2008 at 11:50 am

There is another reason beyond personal experience that causes this reaction. It is fear.

As the father of a child classified Autistic at 21 months I can tell you first hand the fear factor. It wasn't long ago that there was a doctor pushing the theory that autistic children were the result of 'refrigerator' parents. The fear that you may have a child that will never relate to you emotionally and that you may even be blamed for it makes the opportunity to blame the medical establishment very sexy. Now that I've had time to investigate more of the data, I have been working on the difficult task of getting my wife to allow my daughter to receive vaccines. She is still engulfed in the fear. I may soon just have to have it done, without her consent. That may set off a real firestorm.

On the positive side (if anyone is interested) my daughter has been doing well. Probably may never know what did it or if she just outgrew it because of the scatter-shot approach we took. But when your child is drowning one rarely stops to take a survey of experts on best how to save them.

Other Comments by Philrt

22. Comment #243801 by jt512 on September 7, 2008 at 11:50 am

AP wrote:

An article mentions a debate about whether there's a correlation between two things; one of them has changed, i ask if the other one has also changed (although in this case i expect it hasn't) - that's all it was, just a simple question.

No, the article does not mention a debate about whether there is a correlation between vaccination and autism. It says that correlation does not prove causation; that well-controlled studies have shown that vaccination does not cause MMR.

You then ask why the author did not present statistics on whether there has been a change in the incidence of autism following a decrease in the incidence of vaccination. I think that my second sentence in the preceding paragraph answers that question. Do you see that such a statistic would be exactly the type of datum that the article is arguing against? Presenting such a statistic would be inconsistent with the author's argument.

Other Comments by jt512

23. Comment #243806 by William Kaiser on September 7, 2008 at 12:11 pm

Well... to lighten the mood a little with a dark suggestion... ;-)

I suggest that parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated with MMR and other vaccines should instead have them vaccinated with HOMEOPATHIC vaccines!

Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass. The autism rate would remain the same and the rate of communicable diseases would rise. How would the Homeopaths explain that scenario?

Now folks, before you go apeshit on me, I said it was a dark suggestion! I'm sort of pitting two idiotic ideas against each other in which everyone loses.

WK

P.S. Hey, I said it was a joke in poor taste didn't I? ;-)

Other Comments by William Kaiser

24. Comment #243814 by King of NH on September 7, 2008 at 12:25 pm

I think Apathy personified made a very valid point. In the main article it was not made clear what study was used. He simply asked about one of the correlative studies that may have been used or might have been not studied for various reasons.

The correlation IS a crucial fact, jt512. Facts are the little pieces that make up an argument, and this would be one of those little pieces. The correlation does not equal causation is an important rule.

Asking for more scientifically gathered data on something is not rejecting science, it's doing science. Don't attack people for refusing to take science's word for it, they shouldn't. None of us should. They tell me the world is round. I say, "Prove it." They prove it.

Other Comments by King of NH

25. Comment #243818 by mordacious1 on September 7, 2008 at 12:37 pm

Philrt

Welcome to the site. Have you tried this:

http://www.autismweb.com/floortime.htm

My wife and I did this before it was a developed therapy, it seemed like common sense. I think it is very effective if done at a young age.

[edit] As I stated earlier, the key to helping these children reach their potential is early diagnosis and intervention.

Other Comments by mordacious1

26. Comment #243828 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on September 7, 2008 at 1:23 pm

Peet: 'Actors' Medical Influence A Sad Fact'

5 August 2008 11:59 AM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Latest: Actress Amanda Peet is continuing her campaign against parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, by urging the public to ignore medical advice from celebrities.

Just weeks after sparking controversy by dubbing such parents "parasites", the new mum is standing up to stars like Jenny McCarthy and Charlie Sheen, who have used their status to vocally oppose vaccinations.

During an appearance on U.S. TV show Good Morning America on Tuesday, Peet begged parents to listen to experts before deciding whether to immunise their kids - and not rely on the advice of celebrities.

She said, "I'm not a doctor, which brings me to another point. It seems like the media is often giving celebrities and actors more authority on this issue than they're giving the experts and that's a sad fact.

"And I know that's a paradox - that's part of why I wanted to become a spokesperson, so I could say, 'Please don't listen to me, don't listen to the actors, go to the experts.'"

Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad

27. Comment #243829 by Philrt on September 7, 2008 at 1:23 pm

Thank you mordacious, its a pleasure to be here.

Yes, we've done a lot of the Greenspan stuff at home as well as speech therapy, occupational therapy and a host of other items much of which was probably crap. But when a doctor looks at you and, with a very uninterested tone, tells you that there is nothing you can do, you start searching.

And yes I agree, early intervention seems to be critical.

Other Comments by Philrt

28. Comment #243838 by chewedbarber on September 7, 2008 at 1:49 pm

I suggest that parents who refuse

In the US it is illegal to refuse.

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29. Comment #243848 by Philrt on September 7, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Depends on your state chewedbarber.

I guarantee you that it is legal here in Oklahoma to refuse.

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30. Comment #243850 by mordacious1 on September 7, 2008 at 2:21 pm

Philrt

Don't give up hope. Our autistic son is now a junior in high school and is at best "hanging in there". It is a 24/7/365 job though. I hope you have positive extended family support that can give you some relief, unfortuately we had none. That makes it harder. Good luck to you.

ps. My son just had a meltdown because he burned his finger on a pizza bagel. Those meltdowns get scary once they're 6'2.

Other Comments by mordacious1

31. Comment #243852 by mordacious1 on September 7, 2008 at 2:23 pm

I also think that you can "refuse" based on religious grounds in any state.

Other Comments by mordacious1

32. Comment #243858 by BarelyEvolved on September 7, 2008 at 2:40 pm

My brother's son is autistic. At some point after having the MMR, he stopped making eye contact and his speech development went into reverse.

As far as he and his wife are concerned, it was the MMR that did it. My sister-in-law spoke to a 'Professor' through her call centre work who believed that it was a conspiracy (no idea on what field this professor was in, but he's a Professor so he must know what he's talking about..).

He cites events such as Tony Blair having his son given the split jabs. Quotes the massive price of the separate jabs as evidence that there is a conspiracy to cover up the supposed cause to keep costs down.

When it comes down to it, people believe people, papers, and correlation in their own experience. That evolved phenomena is so powerful, it easily trumps the advice of many faceless organisations and governments who stress that MMR is safe.

And maybe it's better to have something to blame than nothing.

Other Comments by BarelyEvolved

33. Comment #243859 by Border Collie on September 7, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Having worked with autistic kids and others for years, I can tell you that the parents are grasping at straws, looking for any explanation, trying to blame something, for their child's problem. So the possible natural association or correlation of the vaccine and autism, in the parent's view, could easily be magnified greatly out of proportion.

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34. Comment #243871 by Katana on September 7, 2008 at 3:09 pm

I was told that the rise of autism has been due to the fact that doctors are getting better at diagnosing it and recognizing it in children and adults, where before it would have been dismissed as something else. Also autism seems to be recognized/diagnosed at the same age the jabs are given, and people put 2 and 2 together and get 5.

I notice that people always want to believe the worst about science, people start screaming "won't someone think of the children", new age weirdos see vaccinations as unnatural, and before you know it you start seeing minor outbreaks of the diseases again. A lot of people (in first world countries) probably haven't seen people dying of measles, and those old enough who can aren't having children or are dead themselves. If kids were regularly dying (slightly morbid tone here) of these diseases then a lot more parents wouldn't hesitate to vaccinate but alas people forget how deadly measles is and how unpleasant mumps and rubella are.

I have had measles, mumps and rubella and all i can say I'd rather have taken my chances with the jab. I've had immune problems all my life and poor health, though not a causation i do have to wonder what I'd be like without having had those diseases. My mother tells me the measles almost killed me and my sister, i briefly remember the mumps and rubella was fucking horrible.
I'm only 23 by the way but i caught these before the MMR was available, i remember the other kids getting the jab when i was about 8.

Can someone remind me, i was told a certain percentage of the population has to be vaccinated to stop the disease from re-emerging, i can't remember the percentage or whether this was true.

Other Comments by Katana

35. Comment #243884 by atp on September 7, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Apathy's point is valid and not subject to a logical fallacy.

Science works like this:
1. You propose a theory (vaccine causes autism)
2. You make predictions (there should be a correlation between vaccine and autism)
3. You check the data (is there a correlation?)
4. The theory is either strengthened or weakened by the found

Now finding correlations is evidence for the theory, but it does not prove the theory.
Finding no correlation is evidence that the theory is wrong, but it does not disprove the theory (1).

Saying that looking for correlation, or lack thereof, is a logical fallacy is the same as saying the scinetific method is based on a logical fallacy.

(1) Some may be surprised by this. Causation should lead to correlation, right? Yes, but there are at least two problems.

One is that there may be factors hiding the correlation. Let's say A causes B, but C effectively stops B. And C is always present when you gather data.

Another is that the data gathered was not good enough or there was some methodical error the scientists were not aware of.

In science we gather evidence. Evidence strengthen or weaken a theory. But rarely prove or disprove theories.

Other Comments by atp

36. Comment #243885 by NakedCelt on September 7, 2008 at 4:05 pm

What gets me:

I'm autistic (Asperger's Syndrome). And, though I know it's neither rational nor fair, whenever I read something like this, somewhere in my brain the message I hear is I would rather my children die of measles than turn out to be like you.

Other Comments by NakedCelt

37. Comment #243911 by ljirving on September 7, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Comment #243792 by jt512 on September 7, 2008 at 11:18 am

I really don't know why you are getting all bent out of shape on this. What Apathy is pointing out is that if there is no correlation between the two (indicative of, but not proof of, causation) then we should expect to see no decline in autism as a result of the decline in the rates / numbers of children being vaccinated.

As a PhD biologist myself, I think Apathy's idea is a very good place to start, and certainly the lack of correlation between the two would preclude anyone (any intellectually honest person, anyway) from stating that there is a causal relationship.

Other Comments by ljirving

38. Comment #243918 by coljac on September 7, 2008 at 10:51 pm

Perhaps one could summarize thus:

A statistical correlation is necessary but not sufficient to prove causation.

Therefore, a lack of correlation (e.g. rise in vaccinations but no corresponding rise in diagnoses of autism) would be very strong evidence against a causual relationship, but if there was a correlation, it would not be sufficient to prove one.

Therefore, one can acknowledge the article and still ask valid questions about the statistics.

Other Comments by coljac

39. Comment #243972 by brainsys on September 8, 2008 at 4:34 am

If you want a really sad afternoon visit this forum:
http://jabs.org.uk/forum

JABS is the infamous organisation that helped get Wakefield's extremely unscientific MMR theories into the media resulting in a catastrophic reduction of jabs in London. Hence the predictable return of measles and its consequences.

You will find in the forum many examples of "it happened to x, therefore it is true whatever the science". It seems that this may be a self selecting group that is rather over-endowed with what might be a connectiveness gene!

The language and thought patterns/paranoia etc almost completely mirror that of fundamentalist religious folk. Which is why I think that Hitchens/Dawkins might be wrong in attributing the problem to religion. I see religious belief as the symptom, not the disease. If you could eliminate religion these people would be batty about some other belief. That's it really. People can be believers or, like me, skeptics with a mutual difficulty understanding each other's thought processes.

Other Comments by brainsys

40. Comment #244054 by Apathy personified on September 8, 2008 at 8:17 am

jt512,

No, the article does not mention a debate about whether there is a correlation between vaccination and autism

From the first line of the article;

The link between childhood autism and vaccines has, once again, been refuted. A large study by Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health Center for Infection and Immunity found no link between measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism cases.

In my book, that classifies as a mention - of course, it's not what the article is really about, but it is still mentioned.

As others have put more eloquently (thanks to King of NH, atp, ljirving and coljac) - i was merely inquiring if there is, in fact, any correlation (i'm not implying any causation) - As this would likely be the initial point in any experiments to determine causation.

You then ask why the author did not present statistics on whether there has been a change in the incidence of autism following a decrease in the incidence of vaccination.

I wasn't asking about this author, it was just a general inquiry - as it's a statistic i haven't really seen.

Besides, putting that statistic up would not weaken his point at all. The point of the articles is the danger of assuming correlation = causation due to 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'.

Asking if there is a correlation does not fall into the logical fallacy - as i haven't made any assumptions about causation, i've just asked about a statistic.

Other Comments by Apathy personified

41. Comment #244059 by Jesus was a zombie on September 8, 2008 at 8:30 am

Katana

You are right that a certain percentage of the population must be vaccinated to prevent an outbreak of a particular disease, i believe this is termed "herd immunity". The percentage needed, unless i am mistaken, varies with each particular disease.

One of the reasons for this is because not every immunisation is successful. For example, if a new vaccine was invented for ebola say (before you ask, I have no particular reason for picking ebola!), it may only have a ninty five percent success rate. So even if you get the jab there will be a one in twenty chance that it will not take and so you still will not be immune. This is where herd immunity comes in, as most of the people you meet day to day will be immune (provided they have had the vaccine of course) and so form a kind of protective barrier around you. Of course this is not perfect, but it is effective enough in preventing a large scale or very serious outbreak.

Now imagine that twenty percent of the population refuse to get the vaccine for some reason. Now a significant proportion of the people you meet will not be immune, the protective barrier has effectively been breached and so a large serious outbreak is much more likely.

I hope that is not too much of a garbled explaination, it has been a while since I have studied immunity and diseases!

Other Comments by Jesus was a zombie

42. Comment #244091 by liberalartist on September 8, 2008 at 9:25 am

My brother's son is mildly autistic. He is in a regular classroom but struggles. My sister-in-law, gullible and religious, started talking about vaccines causing austism about 8 or 10 years ago. Since then I have seen many studies to disprove this and have shared this information with my rational brother. But even he wants to blame vaccines despite the evidence. And I can see it is because they want someone to blame, and they don't want to have to blame themselves.

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43. Comment #244183 by popecorkyxxiv on September 8, 2008 at 12:18 pm

So yet another case of "My subjective interpretation of reality is more 'True' than science which is predicated exclusivly upon Objective reality, that's because science doesn't have any feelings or personal experience" My whole schtick is that sciences lack of personal bias and feelings is what makes it more factual than a believer's 'Truth' since truth is nothing but a subjective interpretation of objective values and in no way physically exists. That's why theists always rant about truth, truth doesn't actually exist. Fact does exist which is why they completely avoid factual accounts or evidence when debating because they have nothing that objectively supports their beliefs and when you start trying to talk fact when you don't have any, you start sounding like a mook pretty quickly.

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44. Comment #244249 by jrizziii on September 8, 2008 at 1:39 pm

I don't like this article because the large study turned out to be only 38 children. I think that is very misleading and hurts the credibility of the author.

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45. Comment #244419 by k1mgy on September 8, 2008 at 5:10 pm

The study that this article latches onto is hardly worthy of putting the MMR issue to bed, but it is being lauded by vaccine proponents and their government enablers as another reason to vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. Pump the human body with all sorts of genetically-altered materials, preservatives, adjuvants, heavy metals... all to push back against, in most of the western world, illnesses which in the main result only in parental and societal inconvenience. Death and maiming from the majority of the diseases vaccines are supposed to protect against are in the statistical noise levels, and when they happen they strike equally well the vaccinated and un-vaccinated population.

The study examined the intestinal tissue of 25 autistic children so see if the Measles virus was present. When none was found it was concluded that this should end any question as to a link between the MMR and Autism-spectrum disorders.

The absence of a persistent Measles virus, in a pitifully small sample group, fails to consider the "hit and run" nature of a virus. All it shows is that Measles wasn't there. It never considered whether or not the virus had been previously present.

The suggestion that there may be a biological mechanism that results in Autism-spectrum disorders as a result of the MMR was first proposed by the UK's Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He found a statistically high rate of measles virus active in the gut of previously-healthy children who developed Autism rapidly following the MMR. Wakefield has been thrashed by the medical-industrial establishment in the UK and forced to set up shop in the US. It seems that all this because his findings went against the prevailing regime.

Methodical studies need to be initiated which compare the immune and brain health of a large sampling of vaccinated versus un-vaccinated children over at least a 10 year time span. Public health, medical, and pharmaceutical establishments continue to resist and instead meter out bogus conclusions. Should the prevailing vaccine policies be adjusted, so with it go the fortunes of pharmaceutical companies, the delivery system, the deep-pocket medical lobby, and the hack politicians who keep the whole system ticking.

I have, as the previous demonstrates, a deep distrust of a system that continues to amble along with a one-size-fits-all schedule, while innocent children and families are shoved off to the wayside and discredited.

Vaccine theory is equivalent to the theory of Gravity, but the potential for widespread genetic and biological damage brought to the fore by a large body of circumstantial evidence, places the science of vaccine formulation and the wide-swath administration policies in the realm of a slightly-educated guess.

I don't hang my hat on guesswork and in this vital public health debate, there's far too much guessing.

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46. Comment #244422 by k1mgy on September 8, 2008 at 5:21 pm

Regarding refusing vaccines in the US, "Chewedbarber" wrote "In the US it is illegal to refuse. "

This is completely and utterly false. Such statements as this, given quickly and without consideration to the audience, deserve repudiation.

In most US states a basic schedule of vaccine administration are pre-requisite for entry into public and private primary schools. Almost all states have a provision for medical, philosophical and/or religious waiver. It is not illegal to refuse vaccination.

What is illegal is to force a medicine on any human being. Read the Neuremberg Trial testimony to see what happens when a state strips its citizens of their rights to control their own bodies.

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47. Comment #244533 by Skeptacy on September 9, 2008 at 5:41 am

Comment #244419 by k1mgy on September 8, 2008 at 5:10 pm (and several others)

Looking through your previous posts it appears to me, with respect, that you bear the hallmarks of an anti-vaccination "true believer"

I was going to point out various weblinks to articles dismissing the links but I am almost certain it would not interest you.

However, you refer above to the "pitifully small sample group" (25) of this study.

The MMR controversy began in 1998 when English doctor Andrew Wakefield published a study in the Lancet suggesting a link between Gastrointestinal problems and autism...its results were based on an analysis of only 12 children.
(since then, epidemiological studies in Denmark and Finland, each of which studied over 500,000 children, have subsequently failed to show any link between MMR and autism.)

Pitiful don't you think ?

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48. Comment #244581 by phatbat on September 9, 2008 at 7:13 am

k1mgy

So what is it then that makes you think that there is any more reason to mistrust the MMR vaccine than any other medicine?

As skeptacy said, the wakefield study was only 12 children and as far as i'm aware every study since then has failed to show any link between MMR and autism.

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49. Comment #244921 by jt512 on September 9, 2008 at 7:53 pm

ljirving wrote:

As a PhD biologist myself, I think Apathy's idea is a very good place to start

As an epidemiologist, I wouldn't expect a biologist (or someone in any of the natural sciences) to understand the practice of epidemiology. However, I would hope that you would be as open to a brief introduction to my field of study as I would be to yours.

Actually, as you say, a study such as that which AP has suggested might be a good place to "start," but we are no longer at the start of investigating the vaccination--autism hypothesis: over a dozen studies have already been published, some with far more rigorous methodologies than the study that AP is suggesting. As I said before, it doesn't make sense to follow up stronger studies with weaker ones; there is little to gain, and potentially a lot to lose. I'll get to the latter point in a bit. First we need to understand why the study that AP suggests is so poor.

What AP is suggesting is a type of study known in epidemiology is an ecologic study. The design is fraught with intractable problems. Like any observational study, raw associations observed in an ecologic study could be attributed to nuisance variables, or confounders, rather than to the exposure under investigation. However, in ordinary epidemiologic studies, confounders can potentially be controlled using statistical techniques. In ecologic studies they cannot because, by definition, measurements in an ecologic study are taken on groups of people, rather than on individuals. The consequences of this are subtle, but profound. Say, for example, that the study finds that the incidence of autism decreased when the incidence of vaccination decreased. And say, further, that in fact that this was true; that is, that the result was unconfounded at the group, or ecologic, level. At first it would seem that we could say, then, that children who were not vaccinated had a lower incidence of autism than those who were vaccinated. But oddly enough you cannot validly infer that from the data. For all we know, the incidence of autism actually declined in the vaccinated children. Mistakenly believing that an association between two variables that holds for grouped data implies the same association at the individual level is known as the ecologic fallacy. I briefly mentioned it in a previous post.

There are many examples of erroneous findings in the scientific literature, owing to this very misinterpretation of ecologic studies. Often they become widely reported in the news and on the internet because they seem so startling. One notorious example was a study that found that the greater the amount of dairy products a population consumed the greater was their incidence of osteoporosis. This suggested that milk, among the richest sources of calcium in our diet, might actually cause osteoporosis. However, the majority of studies that have examined the relation between dairy consumption and osteoporosis at the individual level have found the opposite to be true. Nonetheless, the erroneous results from the ecologic study continue to be widely cited on the Web and in popular books by vegan activists and wacko anti-milk fanatics.

Let's get back to AP's proposed study. Because of the inherent weaknesses of the methodology, no matter what the results of the study might be, we really wouldn't know how to interpret them. If the results, say, showed a decline in the incidence of autism, we would have no way of knowing whether that decline was actually due to the reduction in the vaccination rate. Nonetheless, the results would get reported in the popular press and would convince some parents who otherwise would have vaccinated their children not to. This is why it is important to avoid conducting bad epidemiologic studies. Bad studies by their very nature have negative public health ramifications.

Thanks for listening.

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50. Comment #245073 by Apathy personified on September 10, 2008 at 7:32 am

jt512,
Thanks for your in depth post (Comment #244921).

As a physics student, my exposure to epidemiology has been rather limited (non-existant) - so hopefully that may explain some of my past ignorance of the processes of epidemiology.

I fully see your point and now i can answer my own question -

'Why don't we ever see quoted the incidence level of autism since the MMR jab incidence level declined?'

Answer -
Because it would just be a number, a statistic, from which we can't infer anything useful to serve our research purposes.

(Please correct me if i'm wrong)

I am now very curious as to how an epidemiologist would look for a link between say, a certain vaccine and autism - Any info on that would be much appreciated.

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