Vaccines still don’t cause autism

The US government recently decided to compensate the parents of a girl who had developed autism-like symptoms shortly after receiving a series of immunizations as a young child. For people who believe that autism is caused by vaccines, this decision has been perceived as an important victory.

But to believe that this case provides evidence for a link between immunizations and autism is pure fantasy. Proponents of the vaccine-autism hypothesis have ignored the real reasoning behind this decision, just as they ignore the scientific evidence disputing their claims.

Terry and Jon Poling, the parents of the child involved in this case, explain that their daughter started to display a host of health problems a few days after receiving eight immunizations more than eight years ago. They claim that a mercury additive in the vaccines caused these problems and ultimately led to autism-like symptoms in their child. 

The Polings and their supporters argue that the vaccine-autism connection is proven by two main pieces of evidence: the similarities between symptoms of autism and those of mercury poisoning, and the increased rate of autism after the introduction of mercury containing vaccines in the 1970s. However, this support is scavenged from distorted historic trends and mischaracterized chemical effects. While it does not seem to sway the believers, a large body of scientific evidence and expert examination has firmly refuted these claims.

Mercury poisoning and autism do indeed have some similar symptoms, but the connection seems to stop there. Multiple controlled studies demonstrate that there is no difference in mercury levels between autistic children and those without the disorder. Researchers have also shown that mercury levels in vaccines were well below the federal safety limits.

In fact, a new study by the University of Rochester demonstrates that what little mercury is present in the vaccines is excreted from the body much faster than previously thought. The vaccine additive leaves the system more than ten times as fast as the mercury ingested from eating fish.

The historic correlation between autism and vaccines is a similarly faulty argument. Just because autism rates started to increase throughout the time when mercury additives were used doesn’t mean that these two events are related. You could just as easily draw this connection with the increase of greenhouse gas emission during this time or the proliferation of microwave ovens in US households.

Studies of children who received vaccines without the mercury additive further discredit this historic correlation. The rate of autism in Denmark has been increasing since they eliminated mercury from their vaccines fifteen years ago. California has also seen an increasing rate of autism since mercury was removed from their vaccines in 2001, and a nationwide study demonstrated that different levels of mercury additives had no effect on autism rates.

In 2005 the Chochrane Library did the most comprehensive review ever conducted of scientific literature on the autism-vaccine link. They found absolutely no credible evidence that supported this connection.

With so much evidence that refutes the link between vaccines and autism, why did the scientific community decide to compensate Terry and Jon Poling for their daughter’s struggle with autism? The answer is simple: they didn’t.

The Polings’ daughter suffers from a rare genetic disorder that affects mitochondrial function in the cell. The decision made by government officials is that the vaccines may have exasperated this underlying medical condition. The officials did not say that the vaccines caused autism, that they caused the mitochondrial disorder, or that the mercury additives were the culprit. 

Furthermore, this concession was made without the support of scientific evidence. There has been no research that demonstrates a link between vaccines and this mitochondrial disorder, and many researchers and public officials have condemned this decision as being baseless. The Center for Disease Control was quick to respond to this ruling by emphasizing that no scientific link between autism and immunizations exist.

It is important to examine our public health policies for risky practices, but insisting that this connection exists in the face of so much contrary evidence is absurd. It distracts the scientific community from exploring other causes, and deceives the public into believing that immunizations – which save countless lives every year – are dangerous.

    

References:

Mercury and autism

http://jcn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/19/6/431

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/pr/news/story.cfm?id=1848

Population studies of vaccines and autism

http://www.slate.com/id/2123647/

Review of scientific literature on autism-vaccine link

http://www.cochrane.org/press/MMR_final.pdf

 Responses from scientific community on compensation ruling http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2008/03/07/doctors_defend_safety_of_vaccinations/8485/

A good chance for human survival

It is easy to feel despondent about the condition of the world today. Every year millions of people die from violent conflicts, poverty, and diseases like AIDS and Malaria. Those who escape this death toll have to grapple with the threat of global warming, economic depression and an impending energy crisis.

 

Our current situation looks bleak. In many cases the damage we’ve inflicted upon each other and our environment seems to have finally produced obstacles that can’t be overcome. Is it really as bad as it seems to be? Are we slowly faltering along the path of human progress?

 

The answer is tentatively optimistic. Life is indeed pretty crappy for a great number of people, but the end of days is probably not yet at hand. There are some exceptions, but a large body of evidence suggests that life is actually getting better for the majority of humans. 

 

In the early 1980’s the World Bank reported that more than 40 percent of people were living on less than one US dollar per day. Individuals living in such extreme poverty had little access to medical care, education, or safe drinking water. Thus, child mortality rates were high and life expectancy was relatively low.

 

Today, only around 20 percent of the world population lives on less than one dollar per day. Except for Africa, poverty rates have declined significantly throughout the world since the early 80’s. Life expectancy is increasing in many of the poorest nations and, according to UNICEF, child mortality rates have decreased by nearly 50 percent. In fact, for the first time in modern society the child mortality rate is under 10 million per year.  

 

Most of the world is also becoming more educated. International literacy has gone from about 75 percent to nearly 90 percent in the last thirty years, and high school and college education rates are increasing in nearly every world region.

 

These social advances in turn contribute to an increasingly robust world market. According to the World Bank the global economy grew by 4 percent last year, and many other countries prospered above this international average. The gross domestic product increased by 7 percent in India, 10 percent in China, and more than 6 percent in Africa last year.

 

Advances in global health issues provides another solid platform of optimism. Government and philanthropic funding for the research and treatment of disease and poverty has never been higher, and new treatments are being developed every day.

 

Except for Africa, death rates from two of the world’s deadliest diseases – HIV and malaria – are declining. Vaccination programs have defeated smallpox, reduced measles by 60 percent over the last ten years, and nearly eradicated polio. Genetically engineered food is reducing malnutrition, and simple vitamin drops are preventing blindness and death in children across the world.

 

Of course, disease and poverty are still deadly realities for many people, and positive trends are not good reasons to shrug off responsibility or justify apathy. Instead they should serve as a map marker to help guide the progress of our species.

 

Nearly half of Americans believe that we should not get involved with the welfare of other countries. Their impulse to focus on our own problems is certainly understandable, but this would be a disastrously counterproductive approach. Human progress is an internationally connected effort, and without continued commitment to the prosperity of our fellow man the future really will become as awful as it sometimes seems. 

 

 

References: 

 

International Poverty Statistics: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/tables/dollaraday.htm

International Education Statistics:

http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=143&IF_Language=eng

International Child Mortality Rates:

http://www.undispatch.com/archives/2007/09/global_child_mo.php

World Health Statistics:

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/en/

 

AIDS wasting: a lucrative business

Patients suffering from rare medical conditions often have a hard time finding effective prescription treatments, even if the drugs have been around for a long time. The consumer base of patients with rare diseases is very small, so it is difficult for pharmaceutical companies to make a profit from selling these treatments.    

To make sure medication for rare diseases are continually produced, the US government created the orphan drug classification. This status is granted to drugs that are important for the treatment of serious diseases, but wouldn’t otherwise be profitable to produce. Companies that decide to sell an orphan drug get financial support and exclusive rights to manufacture the product, and patients usually get easy access to their medication.

However, many pharmaceutical companies use this system as a government sanctioned monopoly. Since the patient’s health depends on their medication, and all other companies are prohibited from producing it, the company that initially picked up the orphan drug can set any price and still remain sure that it will sell.

In 1995, Savient Pharmaceuticals reintroduced a promising anabolic steroid, called Oxandrolone, to treat cases of extreme weight loss caused by Hepatitis and HIV wasting syndrome. Oxandrolone was available for around $800 per year when it came out thirty years ago, but since it was classified as an orphan drug the cost of an annual prescription increased to almost $11,000. International companies have offered to produce it for less than the original 1970’s cost (around $600 per year), but federal law forbids patients from purchasing the medication from anywhere but Savient Pharmaceuticals.

Of course, no one should be surprised that US pharmaceutical companies don’t hesitate to force dying AIDS patients to pay arbitrarily huge sums of money for treatments that cost nearly nothing to produce. Corporations are legally obligated to maximize profits for their shareholders. But there is no excuse for the federal government’s continued facilitation of this kind of price gouging.

With the help of this program, dying patients have become the best type of customer for many different pharmaceutical companies. In 2006, Genzyme Corporation made more than $900 million on an orphan drug for Gaucher disease, while spending less than $30 million to produce it. In Brazil, a drug to treat leprosy and certain types of cancer sells for seven cents per pill, but its orphan drug status allows Calgene Corporation to charge more than $55 per pill in the US.

Price gouging on these medications has become so extreme that insurance companies are even starting to reduce the coverage of diseases that are treated with orphan drugs. Many insurance providers now require that the patient pay for half of the costs of medications under the orphan drug status, and some will no longer cover any part of the prescription cost.

The orphan drug act was created to protect patient health, but its efficacy relies on pharmaceutical companies having some amount of morality. This very obvious flaw has attracted no changes to the legislation, even though it has been ruthlessly exploited for years.

If the federal government is going to create programs that interfere with the free market, it should be prepared to provide the oversight necessary to ensure their success. As is the case with the orphan drug program, a half-assed attempt at regulating capitalism can often do more damage to the citizenry than what would have happened without government intervention.