<p>Of course, they did it in the most weaselly way possible. They said vaccines cause autism like symptoms, but not autism itself. What's the difference between the symptoms and the disease? David</a> Kirby: The Vaccine-Autism Court Document Every American Should Read - Living on The Huffington Post</p>
<p>Ok, I didn't read this article very thoroughly. Only one child developed autism as a result of a vaccine, they didn't say anything about the connection between vaccines and autistic children in general.</p>
<p>That's because no connection has ever been proven between autism and vaccines in general...</p>
<p>Yes, I am aware of that. I made this post because it was proven in this one case. That's news.</p>
<p>Although the government has clearly acknowledged a causal link to vaccinations in this case, they were very careful not to say that the vaccinations caused autism and instead suggest that a pre-existing mitochondrial condition had been effected by the vaccines. I'm not sure if it was a good move on the part of the government to admit to any sort of liability (not that I side with them on the autism/vaccine argument). Not surprisingly, however, several people disagree with the government's position; from a recent article in Times magazine covering this case:</p>
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[quote]
In Hannah's case, the vaccine court determined that the underlying dysfunction of her mitochondria put her at an increased risk of injury from vaccines.</p>
<p>That decision, however, comes as a surprise to experts on mitochondrial disorders. In response to the Poling case, the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation has released a statement saying, "There are no scientific studies documenting that childhood vaccinations cause mitochondrial diseases or worsen mitochondrial disease symptoms."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Case</a> Study: Autism and Vaccines - TIME</p>
<p>Personally, I agree with those that say there is no ONE cause of autism, and that there are both genetic and environmental factors at play. At the same time I feel we should take a closer look at the timing of vaccinations given to young children. To me, this seems like it could be a very significant factor in explaining the increases in autism that we are seeing, and I suspect that we will here much more on this issue as further research is done. From the same Times article: </p>
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[quote]
It's difficult to draw any clear lessons from the case of Hannah Poling, other than the dire need for more research. One plausible conclusion is that pediatricians should avoid giving small children a large number of vaccines at once, even if they are thimerosal-free. Young children have an immature immune system that's ill-equipped to handle an overload, says Dr. Judy Van de Water, an immunologist who works with Pessah at U.C. Davis. "Some vaccines, such as those aimed at viral infections, are designed to ramp up the immune system at warp speed," she says. "They are designed to mimic the infection. So you can imagine getting nine at one time, how sick you could be." In addition, she says, there's some evidence, that children who develop autism may have immune systems that are particularly slow to mature.</p>
<p>Van de Water worries that current vaccine schedules may be overly aggressive for some children. She suggests that parents who are concerned about vaccine safety ask their pediatricians to give fewer at a time. And, she adds, don't vaccinate a child when he or she is ill.
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<p>Note: the following argument avoids citing people [to avoid ad hominem issues.] Please inform me if I err.</p>
<p>"Proven" is a strong word to use in science. "Disproven" is more plausible. Whether you want to use it or not, posts #3 and #4 directly contradict the facts. Before I comment further, note this: the matter at hand is not lack of evidence for a link, but that the explicit evidence, almost unanimously, denies the existence a link.</p>
<p>I am fairly suspect of the court data. I emphasize "fairly," [and in particular I cannot currently grant credence to the statement below.
[quote]
PS: On Friday, February 22, HHS conceded that this child's complex partial seizure disorder was also caused by her vaccines. Now we the taxpayers will award this family compensation to finance her seizure medication. Surely ALL decent people can agree that is a good thing.
[/quote]
Notwithstanding its lack of a source, it continues to acknowledge a six-year gap between vaccination and relapse.</p>
<p>The fatal error in the whole argument is that regression is an entrenched feature of the ASD distribution. A dirty googling might lead you to a raw statistic, Autism:</a> Why Do Some Develop Then Regress?, sourced through the sponsoring centre University</a> of Michigan Autism & Communication Disorders Centers. The assertion is a 20-40% prevalence of regressive cases among all. However, for a meaningful explanation, the paper Autism</a> and Epilepsy: What Has Regression Got to Do with It? purports causal linkage, in some direction, between regressive and epileptic cases. The statistics below match the court case neatly: observe the percentage range and the age of peak symptoms, please.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The age of regression of language differs between LKS and autistic regression. Children with autism are more likely to regress earlier, usually prior to age 2, as contrasted to those patients with LKS, who more typically have a regression in language after 3 years of age (3638). Furthermore, seizures are more likely to occur in children who regress in language after age 3 (3638). This finding is different from data on children with LKS, as only 12%14% of these children regress before age 3 years (39), and the peak age of onset of symptoms is between 5 and 7 years (40). McVicar et al. found that children with isolated language regression have a higher frequency of epileptiform discharges and seizures than children with both language and autistic (i.e., social and behavioral) regression (41).</p>
<p>Children with late-onset autistic and cognitive regression, usually occurring after age 3, have been classified under the subgroup of disintegrative disorder; this subgroup has a higher incidence of epilepsy (70% vs. 30%) than other subgroups of children with autism (42,43). The differences between children with autistic regression (i.e., those who regress prior to age 2) and children with disintegrative psychosis need to be further delineated. Similarly, issues related to why children with autistic regression, early or late, have worse outcomes than children without regression require further study (44).
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<p>Further, let us go back to the first cited article. The "concession" is "explained" at David</a> Kirby: Government Concedes Vaccine-Autism Case in Federal Court - Now What? - Living on The Huffington Post, a link on the cited site.
The core of the link seems to be
[quote]
But mitochondrial disorders are rare in the general population, affecting some 2-per-10,000 people (or just 0.2%). So with 4,900 cases filed in Vaccine Court, this case should be the one and only, extremely rare instance of Mt disease in all the autism proceedings.</p>
<p>But it is not.</p>
<p>Mitochondrial disorders are now thought to be the most common disease associated with ASD. Some journal articles and other analyses have estimated that 10% to 20% of all autism cases may involve mitochondrial disorders, which would make them one thousand times more common among people with ASD than the general population. </p>
<p>Another article, published in the Journal of Child Neurology and co-authored by Dr. Zimmerman, showed that 38% of Kennedy Krieger Institute autism patients studied had one marker for impaired oxidative phosphorylation, and 47% had a second marker.</p>
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[/quote]
</p>
<p>But didn't that just defeat the columnist's conclusion?
He is directly citing a statistical correlation between ASDs and Mt disorders. Perhaps one of the few more effective self-defeats the argument would be citation of mirror neuron mutations, a demonstrated and perfectly correlating cellular phenomenon defining* the traits of ASDs. The columnist's logic seems to be in reverse. </p>
<p>*See cogprints.org/2613/.</p>
<p>So is the case "proven"? No. Neither Law nor applied science stick to proof. Their realm is mainly evidence and hypothesis. On the other hand, it has been disproven.</p>
<p>At least outside the imagination of certain communities [NO OFFENCE], the issue is settled. I would point you to one of many times the ilk of news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4311613.stm has appeared on news, but you have access to Google yourself.</p>
<p>I am on the ASD myself and do not believe it is caused by vaccines. I think it's biological and possibly hereditary.</p>
<p>I agree with EnjoyTheSilence[I'm autistic too];a little bit of digging will show you that many of the involved genes have been identified, and recently MIT researchers managed to suppress autistic-like traits in certain mice by means of phenotype suppression.</p>
<p>** Editted for spelling errors by GeekNerd</p>