As contemporary as it is, the huge vaccine-autism debate has caused different implications on the population, which is still suffering the repercussions. Since the publication of Wakefield’s study, the percent of MMR vaccinated children in England dropped from 92 to 80%, which signifies an increase in measles, mumps and rubella cases all around the country (Callahan 6). Moreover, according to the World Health Organization, every year 2.5 million unvaccinated children die of diseases preventable by vaccines; a number that has been increasing in the last years due to vaccine hesitancy (Downs 6). Ironically, as mentioned before, the autism cases are increasing each year, and no possible solutions seem to emerge. The debate even poses a threat…
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects the brain’s development of social and communication skills. A person with autism may have repetitive behaviors, social challenges, and communication difficulties which last throughout a person’s lifetime. About one percent of the world’s population is living with autism, and about 3.5 million Americans are living with an ASD. There is no known single cause for autism, but most accept that autism is caused by abnormalities in brain structure or function. Brain scans show differences in the brain structure when compared to a neurotypical brain (Autism-Society).…
Hundreds of studies have been conducted on autism and its possible link to vaccinations. The medical community agrees that autism results from abnormalities in the brain and that a vaccine would not cause autism. According to the article, “Autism-Vaccine Link” by WebMD, “Since that initial finding, 14 studies including millions of children in several countries consistently show no significant difference in autism rates between children who got the MMR vaccine than those who didn't.” Children getting autism right after a vaccination does not prove that the vaccination caused the autism. In reality, it remains a mere coincidence and autism does not result from these…
Over the last couple of years, there has been a raging debate over the controversy of vaccinations causing autism. Throughout the 1980s, autism sky rocketed with unnatural signs. Many children were developing normally, until the age of 18 months. As signs of autism started showing, more rapidly. Numerous parents, began to find reasons to blame the government, as rumors spread worldwide about the association of vaccines to autism.…
More than a decades ago, there was a proposed correlation between MMR and autism from the research study. However, this proposal did not proof the statement even though many parents still feels hesitant to administer this vaccination. The author stated that autism is a horrible disease…
Three hypotheses have been proposed to support this: the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism by damaging the intestinal lining, allowing the entrance of encephalopathic proteins; thimerosal, an ethylmercury-containing preservative, is toxic to the central nervous system; and the administration of multiple vaccines overwhelms and weakens the immune system. Many researchers along with multiple epidemiological studies have been documented to ensure the safety of vaccinations for parents who will harbor concern for their…
Equally important to this is the statement made by Justin Fox, “The belief in a link between the MMR vaccine and autism… (Was proposed by)…a British doctor who has since lost his medical license” (Fox, 2015, Paragraph 1). Furthermore the amount of credible medical professionals, government organizations, and scientists who claim there is no relationship between the two appears to outweigh the opposition heavily. According to one government operated organization “Some people have had concerns that ASD might be linked to the vaccines children receive, but studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD. In 2011, an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on eight vaccines given to children and adults found that with rare exceptions, these vaccines are very safe” The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2015). In addition to this information, the text continues to say “A 2013 CDC study added to the research showing that vaccines do not cause ASD.…
The president of the National Vaccine Information Center thinks the MMR vaccine could cause a regressive form of autism. “In which a child will take a downturn in development after receiving the shot (WebMD, 2000, p. 1).” The NVIC is a non-profit organization that was formed by parents that have had their children adversely affected by vaccinations. Nearly all US Health departments deny any link between the MMR cocktail and autism, but the CDC has decided to conduct a study in Atlanta to further investigate the…
Fourthly, the MMR vaccine have not been found to cause intestinal inflammation or loss of the intestinal barrier function. And lastly, the claim that the peptides seeping through the bloodstream into the brain was never identified nor proven (Gerber). With the Anti vaccine movement growing in size many researchers have gone out of their way to prove that there is no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. There have been “several features of large-scale vaccination programs allowed for excellent descriptive and observational studies—specifically, large numbers of subjects, which generated substantial statistical power; high-quality vaccination records, which provided reliable historical data; multinational use of similar vaccine constituents and schedules; electronic medical records, which facilitated accurate analysis of outcome data” (Gerber) yet the anti vaccine movement deny no matter how much proof there…
The article I chose on Fortune.com contains both emotion and support fallacies. A one-time supporter of the anti-vaccine documentary, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, and father of an autistic child Robert De Niro decided not to exhibit the documentary titled, “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Conspiracy.” It claimed that the CDC hid results that would implicate the vaccines in causing autism in a small subset of African Americans.” (Tarkan, L., 2016) "Dr. Andrew Wakefield was accused of falsifying the results of his study that linked the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) to autism;" His bogus findings evoked fear in parents across the country. “By the time study was retracted in 2010, the damage was done.…
First, the risk of autism was comparable in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Second, there was no chronological clustering of cases of autism at any time after immunization. Third, both autistic disorders and other autistic-spectrum disorders were not associated with MMR vaccination. The results are from a nationwide prospective cohort study with nearly complete follow-up data, which was one of the study types discussed in the…
Vaccines and Autism Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist caused a widespread panic with a now vastly discredited and retracted paper from 1998 that linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Since his paper, there has been a ton of scientifically unsupported theories linking vaccines and autism. Many parents also stopped vaccinating their children as a result (Gross, 2016). In 2011, Dr. Mercola published an article titled How to Help Eliminate the Hidden Enemy That Triggers Autism.…
In response to the claim that the CDC destroyed and suppressed evidence that the MMR vaccine increases the rates of autism within a certain demographic, I agree with Dr. Woolwine’s conclusion. Woolwine believes that the bulk of evidence shows that the Center for Disease Control didn’t misrepresent its findings, that it didn’t commit fraud and that none of the claims discussed that vaccines cause autism are supported. I too am not sure if Hooker was intentionally fraudulent in his paper or simply incompetent in his methodology, because there doesn’t seem to exist any public evidence proving one conclusion or the other. Due to the fact that fraud does happen during peer review, the non-expert can judge claims in the mass media that conspiracies…
The MMR theory of autism relates to 1993 where a group of researchers led by Dr Andrew Wakefeild advocated an association of measles, mumps, rubella vaccine (MMR) was the cause of Autism. Autism is a mental condition which is a neurodevelopmental disorder, a brain based disorder which effects an individual’s social skills and development. This theory was supported by the theoretical thought that different types of mercury exposure to a child caused the effects of autism. The particular mercury in MMR was thimerosal, which is used to avert contamination of multi-dose vials of vaccines. This links with the social development of somebody with autism with the inability to socialise which is carried into their growth.…
One of the major vaccines that the parents seem to postpone is the MMR vaccine. According to Tanner, Dr. Amanda Dempsey, a researcher at the University of Michigan and pediatricians says that parents were swayed by inaccurate information and mass media influence in regards to the fraudulent theory of a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Although, it has been proved through several studies to be a false allegation, vaccination rates continued to decline. There is no scientific evidence that suggests the MMR vaccine is related to autism-especially the MMR vaccine they have now. In the past, some MMR vaccines contained thimerosal,…