Vaccines and Autism Timeline

[x]
This is a timeline of how this whole debacle began, and has been continuing since.  It starts with Wake field publishing his study, and on the left gives examples of pro vaccines-causing-autism things that have happened, mostly public thing like Jenny McCarthy's campaign; on the right it tells of some of the numerous studies showing no link between autism and vaccines.

Mercury proved not to cause autism (again).

Article
This article, from Fox news of all places, discusses a study that shows that mercury in vaccinations, an uncommonly used and commonly quoted additive to vaccines, does not cause autism. Though not the first study disproving a link, the rumor never seems to die, so people continue doing new studies. The kind of mercury that has specifically been called a concern is called ethylmercury. From the article, "The researchers collected urine samples from 54 children with autism spectrum disorders, and compared these with three other groups: 115 children from the general population, 28 children who attended special schools (mainly because of learning disabilities), and 42 children who didn't have autism, but had a sibling with the condition."

"An Elaborate Fraud?"

Article
 This article, varying from the basic format of articles severing the connection between autism and vaccines, is more about the backlash from the original infamous study, and why that study has been discredited, that why exactly autism and vaccines aren't linked. I'd like to address both of those points in their own sections.
Why the study has been discredited:
The number on reason the study has been discredited, and the reason most of his (Wakefield's), co-authors withdrew their names was that Wakefield  had been paid 435,000 pounds ($674,000) by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers using the results of the study. That is in incredibly large conflict of interest that he, unsurprisingly, failed to mention. The second, equally important but less-cited reason the study has been officially discredited is that there is strong evidence that Wakefield fabricated a large portion of the test subjects medical history, editing, excluding, and just plain making-up data that would have rendered his study inconclusive, false, or even just less convincing. Form the article, "Godlee, [BMJ]'s editor-in-chief, said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield examined in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR vaccine and three never had autism." Essentially, though some of the data may possibly be useful, though personally I highly doubt it, the study itself needs to be thrown out. To the scientific community, it has been, but to most of the population "discredited" means nothing. Wakefield himself "was found guilty by the General Medical Council of serious professional misconduct in May 2010, and was struck off the Medical Register, meaning he could no longer practice as a doctor in the United Kingdom." (Wikipedia)
The backlash:
 Across the U.S. and the United Kingdom, as a direct result of this study, MMR vaccination rates have dropped, falling as low as 80% by 2004 in Britain, and measles and mumps outbreaks have happened at a frightening increase. According to the article, "In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

Though the study has repeatedly failed to stand up to scrutiny, and has never been able to be replicated, for some reason it continues to be cited and defended.

Response to previous posts as a whole, and what to do about the misinformation

While reading over the posts over the last few days, I've noticed a particular problem. Some of the posts (including my almost all of my own) seem to be very fond of trashing the outlandish claims conspiracy theorists propose, and admittedly some are quite ridiculous. But I think it's very easy to put ourselves up on a pedestal and say "look those idiots, they're so stupid" and just think of him or her as some random person typing up an article while foaming like a rabid dog. I do recognize the hypocrisy of ranting about this on a blog. But rather than just foaming ourselves (and believe me, I want to just as much as the next person), I think we need to find more productive ways of expressing ourselves. I've seen this in many of the blogs as well, when people back their claims up with factual evidence in order to disprove strange theories.

I think that fundamentally, the primary reason people come up with strange conspiracy theories is because it's hard to access the factual information. For example: in the case of vaccines causing autism, information explaining the effects (or lack thereof) of thimerisol is accessible, but tends to be either too vague or too technical, there's very little in between. I think that the way to at least reduce the number of conspiracy theorists is to make the information more widely available through a variety of mediums. I don't watch cable TV very frequently, but when I do, I am depressed to find that shows such as Animal Planet and Discovery Channel are filling up with reality TV shows about people who own pit bulls and "ghost scientists" performing exorcisms in people's basements. You would think that with so many people getting on television these days (especially if it can include bubble heads from New Jersey), that at least one person has a good idea about how to go about invalidating conspiracy theories in and educational and entertaining way. Obviously there will always be the naysayers who hang onto a conspiracy theory with their fingernails, but at the very least, the correct information will be out there. If we do that, then I think we will have a more informed public and therefore can make better decisions regarding science, technology, and conspiracy.

There is no "Devil" in "Vaccine"

This video cites Andrew Wakefield (who you should all be familiar with by now) as a reputable source.

Now, that should be more than enough condemning evidence for me to go off of, but it's really SO big that I'm not going to bother with it for a bit. Honestly, there's a lot of stupid you can pack into a video 8 minutes long (like this one)- lots of claims, few citations. The video mentions cases of multiple girls that have taken the vaccine and experienced symptoms such as seizures, severe abdominal pain, wart outbreaks, paralysis, and fainting spells. They say there were 18 deaths, nearly 4.5 of which due to "blood clots" (by the way, the 4.5 comes from the language in the video, saying "nearly a quarter cited blood clots"). However, the video is titled: "HPV Gardasil Vaccine Proves Lethal - 47 Girls Now Dead". There is mention of one more death, in total, that I could find, bringing the number of alleged deaths up to 19. Although that 18 could have come from just one study (in fact, I believe it did), the video is obligated to mention the source for what otherwise just looks like a wild exaggeration.

That's pretty far from 47 in my book, but I'll chalk that poor bit of math up to the same reason the creator of the video uses Andrew Wakefield (notice the lack of a doctorate- for good reason) as a credible source to back up their point.

To sum it up, this video is chock full of anecdotal evidence, accusations, and exaggerations; all of which it claims are fact-based and rational arguments. Unfortunately, some people still believe that the plural of "anecdote" is "data".

More on Vaccines...

After reading my classmates blogs regarding autism and watching many videos posted by them, I decided to look into it myself, expecting to find the same results. And I did. Consensus states that there are many cases arguing a risk of autism involved in vaccinations, yielding no scientific proof. This article argues, "...teenage boys vaccinated as children were: Twice as likely to suffer from autism, four times as likely to have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and boys and girls of all ages - vaccinated as children - were more than twice as likely to have developed asthma." This information is credited to "a June survey of more than 10,000 families," and no further information is provided about the survey. What I have not been able to find, is statistics on the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated, and the percentage of autistic children for both vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients. Why is this information not available, and if it has become such an issue, why are scientists not thoroughly researching the subject to avoid these consistent misconceptions? Many posts about autism cause by vaccines blame mercury levels in some vaccinations, however there are no studies readily available about the relationship between mercury and autism, or the level of mercury it would take to affect a patient regardless of its effects (autism, disease, death, etc). More in this article claims that vaccines cause allergies, depression and other psychological disorders. It becomes hard to decipher what the purpose of the argument is. To attempt to educate the public about the threats of vaccines and demolish all vaccinations, or an attempt to prevent and increase in autistic children and the potential of vaccinations increasing that number? I'm still waiting for the answers to my questions, and don't know why they have yet to be answered after how long this has been an issue.

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/204991.aspx

Alternate theory for why we come up with conspiracy theories

In response to Robin's most recent post (March 4), I would like offer an alternate theory as to why people come up with and believe conspiracy theories. In this video, Michael Shermer, of Skeptic magazine, proposes that conspiracy theories arise because we are hard wired to find patterns in everything, and therefore we sometimes connect the dots incorrectly. One example of this would be the link between vaccines and autism. If a child gets his/her vaccines and starts showing signs of autism, we automatically assume that the vaccines must be linked to the autism. This is also magnified by the fact that if a pattern, or supposed pattern, is pointed out to us, then we begin to see it more frequently. Shermer showed this with abstract black and white pictures of dots. This would also explain the 23 enigma and how any other sorts of conspiracies can possibly gain ground.

In some ways, Shermer's theory is complementary with the theory explained in Robin's post. Robin states that conspiracy theories are comforting because they make people feel as if they have some idea about how the world works. For example, Shermer cites both pigeons being given food at random times, and baseball players, who are very superstitious at bat, but not in the field. He states that even in a completely random environment, people will find some sort of pattern and believe it works because it's easier than saying there is no pattern or by going out and doing an investigation. (This doesn't explain why Mythbusters is so popular though. I'm sure we can all agree that explosions have nothing to do with it.)

At the end of his talk, Shermer proposes that the idea of "agenticity" is how conspiracies such as HAARP, the Illuminati, or 9/11 can become popular. He describes agenticity as "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency, often invisible beings, often from the top down." He goes on to explain that this could explain mono/polytheism, intelligent design, government conspiracies (such as HAARP), aliens coming to save/help mankind (watch the 1950's version of The Day the Earth Stood Still if you don't know what I'm talking about) and other ideas of a supreme power controlling everything. However, he also points out that it can be harder to disregard ideas such as this because conspiracies of this sort can happen, such as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which was instrumented by more than just John Wilkes Booth.

Why Do Conspiracy Theories Happen?

It is possible to swiftly discredit conspiracy theories like HAARP and 2012 without so much as a second glance, to label the creators of said theories nut-jobs and leave it at that. While these theories are convoluted, conclusion-based, blame-seeking and just plain incorrect, the fact that they exist and have nominally wide followings is worthy of study and investigation. Why do people follow conspiracy theories, even the flimsy ones, not grounded in any kind of scientific foundation?

A recent article in Psychology Today addressed just this question, citing multiple reasons that conspiracy theories have become exceedingly prevalent in our particular contemporaneity.

Firstly, the article points out that conspiracy theories often act as comfort. A morphine drip for an exceedingly cynical public. In a society where people constantly feel uninformed and unable to control the events around them (think: 9/11), there is comfort in having a black-and-white vision of the world, a deceptively simple way to explain the things over which one has no control.

The article also mentioned the the increasingly digitized nature of society is helpful in popularizing conspiracy theories, and creating a snowball effect in which they get larger and larger - a la HAARP and the Vaccines Cause Autism scare.

A lot of factors create a conspiracy theorist, but Psychology Today certainly proposes many adept interpretations of the current conspiracy epidemic.

Vaccines and the Link to Autism

Looking through the lens of a conveniently located YouTube video, we might just be able to find something on that.  According to many (idiotic) people, the link between vaccines and autism is so absolute that they have even gone out to protest about it.  This hopefully can't get very far due to their lack of evidence, even the original article published in the Lancet was taken off the sight due to it's lack of credible truth to support its claims.  Even in the video, an autism specialist says that there is no proven link between vaccines and autism.  In fact, there is no link at all.  The preservative many people blamed was removed from vaccines, and yet the autism rate continues to rise.
No, if these idiots could just get it through their thick, minimal-IQ heads that there is NO EVIDENCE and therefore NO LINK between vaccines and autism.  If they could simply understand that the preservative was REMOVED COMPLETELY on their push and autism continues to rise.  Maybe if they realized that the first signs of autism have ALWAYS begun around the first 1-2 years of life.
Maybe their kids JUST HAVE AUTISM and it's not anyone's fault but their own that they have dedicated so much time pointing fingers that we lack the money to research and cure it.
They're idiots.
Ignorance must truly be bliss.

How People Delude Themselves

Even though thimerosal--a mercury-containing and allegedly autism-causing chemical--has been removed from most vaccines, people continue to believe that vaccines cause autism. Why? The David/Goliath factor: big bad money-grubbing pharmaceutical companies vs. private-practice Dr. Dudenheimer. The general public is more likely to believe the friendly-looking Dudenheimer than the enormous corporate behemoth towering over his shoulder. But if Dr. Dudenheimer hears on the internet that vaccines cause autism and decides to test this, he will have some experimental bias. Say it with me, folks: BAD SCIENCE! The big pharmaceuticals will then have less power to debunk this; any attempts they make will reek to the public of the very bias that tainted Dr. Dudenheimer's results.

So the root cause of this disinformation can be traced back to fear-mongering and bias. Boatloads of bias.

I AM ANGRY!!!!!!! PART 2

The other day I was once again on the Internet, that seems to happen allot, when I once again stumbled upon A VIDEO THAT MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL!!!!!! It was video on Youtube that showed clips from a certain news station. Any guesses??? It can't be that hard......... it's FOX! The news clip was trying to be used as proof that vaccines cause autism, and on first inspection they are right, but Fox News is NEVER right. I had to look into it more, and I knew the way to do this was by watching the rest of the video, Fox has the habit of debunking their lunatical tirades at the same time they are making them. It did not take them long either. They brought in a medical expert, who revealed something very important. The girl who had gotten autism from the vaccines, HAD ALREADY HAD AUTISM PRIOR TO GETTING THE VACCINE!!!! I surely hope that you can understand the significance of this. Vaccines do not cause healthy people to get autism, they only rarely bring autism out in people who already autistic. I can see how people might think that that is a bad thing, and arguably it is. But autism always surfaces after a time, if you are born autistic, than you will have symptoms of autism. Taking the risk of not having an autistic child vaccinated because you want them to enjoy a few years of un autistic life just long enough for them to miss it when the symptoms set in. This akin to being born blind, or going blind at the age of 5. If the later happens than you are devastated because you will miss seeing, but if you are born blind than arguably you do not loose anything, which helps the transition become easier. But I digress I am delving into a very controversial ethics issue. The bottom line is this, the girl mentioned in the video would have gotten autism regardless if she had not taken the vaccine. It is helpful to no that vaccines might cause autism to surface, but as a result of this coming from Fox, vast quantities of people will be too scared to get vaccines for a reason that is not worth dieing for. One must also keep in mind that autistism can be triggered by any number of things, I have personally witnessed someone who had autism brought out by a head injury suffered in football. Following that logic, vaccines, football and any activity that carries the risk of a head injury should be illegal. Not to mention any numbers of other factors can trigger autism to emerge, stress trauma, sickness, time, or anything that effects the brain. Vaccines are just one more thing to be added to that list. ANYTHING can trigger autism, their is no point in blaming it on one measly thing.


By: Anti Väinämöinen

Vaccines do not cause autism, plain and simple.

I recently read an article written by a contributor to Discovery: Fit and Health that intelligently summarizes and debunks the deadly myth that vaccines can cause autism. The article was written by a woman named Katie Lambert, who holds an English degree from the University of Georgia. Far from the person you would expect to be contributing to a medical column, but this just proves that all it takes to effectively analyze a subject is smart research and the effective use of true critical thinking. 

Originally people thought that increased rates of autism and the link to vaccines could be attributed to a preservative used in most vaccines called Thimerosal, which is known to have trace amounts of toxic mercury. There is much wrong with this argument, as the author points out. Thimerosal contains less than 1 microgram (or one millionth of a gram) of mercury. So little it would have no impact on the human body. Secondly, Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, which is not the same as the methylmercury, the kind of mercury that can bioaccumulate and cause poisoning. Furthermore, Thimerosal was removed from all vaccines other than the flu vaccine after re-evaluation of the chemical and upon further request you can receive a flu vaccine without Thimerosal. Even with the removal of Thimerosal, autism rates continued to rise. Yet people still make the argument that Thimerosal is the cause of rising autism rates.

One of the main catalysts that accelerated the growing alarm that vaccines can cause autism was a study conducted in 1998 by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. The study concluded that soon after receiving the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) some children developed advanced autism. Lambert’s article explained how, not only was Wakefield’s study conducted on just 12 children, but after an investigation, it was found that Dr. Wakefield “altered and falsified” his data. The only reason that the study has such a profound effect on the public was because it was an easy study for people to understand, due to its simple nature. It was also published in one of the most prestigious medical science journals.

Finally, Lambert’s article explains the dangers of not being vaccinated. Vaccines are arguably one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. Due to vaccinations, deadly diseases such as polio, smallpox, pertussis, and diphtheria, have been practically eliminated. What people don’t realize is that not so long ago, it was not uncommon to know someone on your block who died or was disabled from one such sickness. Because of this the misleading fear that vaccines cause autism, parents are no longer vaccinating their children, subsequently herd immunity is dropping and these deadly diseases are on the rise. 

Source Article:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/autism/vaccines-autism.htm

Link to further sources:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/autism/vaccines-autism3.htm

People who preach that vaccines are bad should be imprisoned.

Growing up in one of the most well educated communities in the country one could assume people to have the knowledge not to believe the absurd rumors about the danger of vaccines. However for one reason or another, the population in the city of Boulder tends to believe that vaccines are bad and do not have their children vaccinated. Because of this lack of vaccinations, Boulder Colorado’s herd immunity has dropped significantly, leaving the vaccinated portion of the community susceptible to diseases brought on by the non-vaccinated populous in the community.

 About five years ago, I received my scheduled TDaP (Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis) booster vaccine. Unfortunately about a year later I found myself diagnosed with Pertussis, a sickness more commonly know as whooping cough. Due to the poor decisions of the people who decided not to vaccinate their children, but are immune to decease through herd immunity, I ended up in the hospital and under legal quarantine for a week (For those who don’t know what that is, if you leave your house and they catch you, you go to prison) despite receiving my vaccination. My immune system was down all of the following year leading to more sickness. Due to the damage I received over the month or so of continuous coughing, I was then diagnosed with permanent asthma. I just wanted to put into perspective how serious and real the danger of not receiving a vaccination can be. People should not have to suffer due to the unbelievably irrational community that buys into claims that are based on literally non-existent science. Vaccines are one of the most brilliant advancements in science. Lets not reverse the progress they have made. 

Recent Article: Anti-Vaccination

"The correlation between 38 vaccines given in the first two years of life and autism has not been studied." -- Mary Tocco
-
This entire article is composed of exactly the same argument--that we live in the age of information and scientific evaluation, and yet "The United States has one of the worst Sudden Infant Death (SIDS) rates in the modern world."
For one thing, the U.S. does not, in any stretch of the imagination, have one of the highest infant mortality rates. According to the CIA World Factbook, the United States has a "5.98 deaths/1,000 live birth" rate. Other countries, such as Zambia (total: 64.61 deaths/1,000 live births) or Mongolia (36 deaths/1,000 live births) have a much higher rate of infant deaths--to mention only a few countries at random. Compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. has an average (perhaps even below average) infant mortality rate. Perhaps Tocco's version of the "modern world" only consists of North America.
For another, the correlation between vaccines given in the first two years of life and autism has, in fact, been studied. There are multiple scientific journals and studies that have reported on the subject over the past 20 years, each saying precisely the same thing: vaccines do not cause autism. In fact, vaccines can't cause autism because of the properties associated with the autism spectrum such as the fact that it occurs in the brain and is present since birth (though it is generally dormant for upwards of 5-10 years).
This article makes me genuinely begin to question the integrity of some researchers and reporters in the U.S.--how educated are they? Can we trust them to accurately report any unbiased, unsheltered facts?

I AM ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other day I was surfing the wide world of sports, when I came over a sudden desire to do my homework .  I found an evil irritating video from fox THAT MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL!!! I AM ANGRY!!!!!  In the video Fox was bitching and whining over the supposed government cover up of autism causing vaccines.  They brought on an overly irritating women who showed no signs of intelligence, AND TREATED HERE SENSELESS WHINING LIKE SCIENCE!!!!!!!  ARRRGGGHHH!  The video claims that their is insufficient evidence supporting the claim that vaccines don't cause autism.  Then they start whining that the government wants the thousands of (insert nasty adjective here) people who believe that their children's autism was caused by vaccines to find medical evidence to support their claims!  They even go as far as to say it is nearly impossible for people to do that.  WELL DUH!!! IF THEIR IS NO BLOODY EVIDENCE THAN YOU CAN NOT FIND A MEDICAL EXPERT TO SUPPORT IT!!!!!!!!  The show than turns to their own medical expert who says that that the government did tests which could not find any link between  autism and vaccines.  Incredible, FOX is actually telling part of the truth!  But, the expert than goes on to claim that the court that oversaw the tests was bad.  She never critisizes the actuall science, just the government, how FOX!!!  This program not only makes me mad, but they are spreading hurtful lies that are not BASED ON SCIENCE!!!   When the millions of gullable people that infest this world see this, they will stop taking their vaccines and ALL DIE!!!!  The show then concludes by trying to console the dummpy lady they brought on and managed to put in a few parting shots to the government over this.  They are spewing lies that could potentially kill people just to push their own political agenda! 

F**&^B  %$#@ *&^%%&*(*!!!!   *&%^$@@ #%#%%#$&&****#&&#&% ##@#!!!!!!! $$#@@%%$ sh#ht bloody all got %%$$##$#@!!!@@#$ bahhggg %%%^**gggggghggggGGHHHFD%%%^^&*  %%(GO%%%$&T) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Anti Väinämöinen
    

Topic Combos

I wasn't in the mood to write a proper blog post today, so I decided to see what idiocy/brilliance I could dig up if I cross-referenced 2 or more topics via Google.

 

 HAARP + 2012

• THE PUN IS RUINED BY PUTTING IT IN ALL CAPS
• Epic showdown will be epic?

Stem Cells + Vaccines Cause Autism

•  Nice layout. >:(
• Correlation = causation, evidently.

Apocalypse + Multiverse

• Surprisingly nothing related to science. Someone needs to teach those yoo-hoos in pop culture what a multiverse actually is.

Vaccines: Not So Risky a Business After All

Let's start with the basics- you're all (hopefully) familiar with the name Andrew Wakefield by now- best known for collaborating on an article in the Lancet in 1998 condemning the MMR vaccine for causing autism.

This Scientific American blog post by David Ropeik (Harvard Extension School instructor, author of several risk-studies books and consultant on risk perception) looks at how Wakefield's "work" (referred to in quotation marks because of its obvious illegitimacy) has affected the perceived risk of vaccines. He talks about how humans perceive risk, and states the overall lesson of the article as: "sometimes what we do to protect ourselves feels safe, but makes things worse"- an example of which being the reluctance to ride a roller coaster for the first time. Until one can accurately assess the actual risk in a situation, one operates off of a mental model of perceived risk, which can cause an individual to act in what seems to be a less rational way in a situation so long as their perceived risk is higher than actual risk.

So, how does perceived risk come to exist as higher than actual risk? For starters, Ropeik mentions several factors that help determine risk:
"•We know that human-made risks are scarier than those that are natural. Vaccines are human-made.
• We know that a risk will seem more threatening if it comes with little benefit, and vaccines protect us from diseases that are mostly gone (thanks to the vaccines), so their benefits are perceived as minimal (even though the risk remains).
• We know that a risk imposed on us feels scarier than one we choose to take on our own, and vaccination is imposed by government (though one can opt out).
• We are more afraid if we don’t trust the people in charge of our health and safety, and many people don’t trust vaccine makers or the government health agencies overseeing vaccine programs.
• Finally, we know that any risk to kids evokes more fear than the same risk to adults, and the whole fear of vaccines movement got started, and still largely focuses on, autistic children."

Essentially what he's saying is that all the vaccine controversy needed to get itself started was Wakefield's ridiculous allegations; however, once that spark occurred, it snowballed into something much bigger. The problem currently being faced is, as you know, that herd immunity is decreasing and the diseases certain vaccines prevent are coming back; thus, the action based on perceived risk for children is causing a far worse situation to develop (although not much is worse than a few kids being Autistic. I'm kidding).

So, how does the perceived risk level decrease? I would say that it doesn't need to decrease at all; however, there needs to be a shift in what sort of risk is being perceived. If the Concerned Public was more worried about their child's increasing chance of catching Polio (rather than their child's incredibly low chance of being Autistic, which arguably isn't that bad), more voluntary vaccinations would take place and as a result our herd immunity would begin to return. After the perceived-risk-shift, too, there would be much less resistance to the scientific studies that disprove the vaccine—autism link (i.e, all of them) and that nasty little Wakefield problem would go away; everyone wins. Except the Polio.

-Ian

The Diatribes of a Perceptually Peeved Student of Science in Regards to a Fear Mongered Rant on Vaccines

Today is a day like any other day, in that it started out at 12:00 am in the morning.  However, this day is completely unique in the history of the known universe, in that FOR THE FIRST THE CALENDAR READS FEBRUARY 4, 2012.  In this modern day and age I am absolutely astounded that our knowledge of common sense ranks below that of our good friends, the monkeys.  I am in fact making reference to a particularly unsavory website I found with a carefully worded google search the other day.  It was a website claiming that vaccines cause autism.  Is the website correct.  Who knows?
      This website makes only one argument that has any bases in fact.  That mercury causes autism.  This is not proven, however, it is known that mercury does affect the brain.  This is a possible source of autism causing ingredients.  However, their is no evidence that supports the idea that Mercury causes autism, although it has been known to cause kidney disease, but that is another issue.  One of the websites arguments is that autism has been rising in children over the past ten years.  If you know anything about humanity and its fascination with deadly artifacts than you know the trend they have taken in terms of ofteness of use.  For instance, in the 1940's we used to think that radioactivity was good for you and we even built radioactive spas.  This all changed when people started dieing off of this.  The same is true of Mercury, we used to use it as medicine, and know we no better and are facing it out of use.  So this tells us, that the less often we use mercury, than the more often we get autism.  Either, mercury was the only thing preventing autism in the past, which implies mercury prevents autism, or the rise in autism is purely coincidental.  You take your pick.  I personally believe that the rise in autism is caused by TV sets getting thinner.  If you check the graph....... THE THINNER TV'S GET THAN THE MORE CASES OF AUTISM THEIR ARE!!!!!!  HOLY SH*T!!! BY THOR'S BEARD!! THAT IS AMAZING!!!  My point exactly, their must be a cause of the rise in autism, but statistically it is not mercury in vaccines.  Go Gophers.

By: Anti Väinämöinen

The anti-vax movement, broken down

Here
"Vaccine Rejectionism Spectrum Disorder is an umbrella term applied to individuals who mislead others, through spoken and/or written communications, about the risk of vaccines and vaccination." The author then goes on to break down and classify the spectrum of rejectionism disorders, including "crank disorder" which can be recognized through symptoms such as "belief that all disease can be prevented by proper nutrition, exercise, and chakra balancing."

Good for a highly technical giggle.

Vaccinated by Force

Vaccinated By FORCE, NOW AUTISTIC

Can childhood vaccinations cause autism? Well, let's look at one family's story. Two healthy parents had a healthy baby boy, Johnny. However, after he was given his four month shots, he started to get very sick. Doctors ruled out several common causes for Johnny's illness. His parents hospitalized him. After his twelve month immunizations, Johnny started getting worse. This time, in addition to illness, he started to lose his developmental functions. He was diagnosed with Autism soon after. Almost a year and a half after Johnny was born, his little sister Sierra was born. After the incident with Johnny, they were determined not to have Sierra vaccinated, but they were forced by the doctors to do so. The little girl was taken from her mother, forcibly given vaccines, and she was in critical condition by the end of the day. Her doctors didn't think she would survive because her organs were beginning to fail. She was vaccine - injured, her parents saw the effects the very night she was vaccinated. She was put on a feeding tube for three years, and then, like her brother, was diagnosed with autism. In the medical community, vaccine induced Autism is very controversial. In a study done in England, it was "suggested that there is a link between the Measles Mumps Rubella vaccine and autism" because the "preservatives and ingredients in the vaccines could be causing Autism in significant number of children." Now, one in 150 children in the United States had autism. Currently, the CDC says that there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, but they do support additional research. Although this family firmly believes that vaccines gave their children Autism, because of their own experience. They say that studies such as the one done in England proves their point. They also believe that having vaccines forced upon a small child is morally wrong. The news group that covered this story tried to call in medical professionals, many of which were not answered. The News would also like to point out that they are neutral on the issue.