Quote:
The article presented convincing evidence to debunk 3 myths:
- MMR causes autism.
- Thimerosal (mercury) causes autism.
- Simultaneous administration of multiple vaccines overwhelms and weakens the immune system, triggering autism in a susceptible host.
Gerber and Offit reviewed 13 large-scale studies that demonstrated no association between the MMR vaccine and autism. These included ecologic studies, retrospective observational studies and prospective observational studies. The findings were consistent; the only outlier in all the studies of MMR was Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s small, discredited 1998 study, which was fully retracted by The Lancet in early 2010.
They reviewed 7 large-scale studies (again, ecologic, retrospective, and prospective) that consistently demonstrated no association between thimerosal and autism. They showed that the hypothesis was not biologically plausible, since the symptoms of mercury poisoning are distinct from those of autism and are not produced by the thimerosal in vaccines.
They showed that the overload hypothesis is not credible because
- The immunologic load has dropped from 3000 components in the 7 vaccines used in 1980 to less than 200 in the 14 vaccines recommended today.
- An infant’s immune system is capable of handling the thousands of antigens it is exposed to early in life.
- Vaccinated children are not more susceptible to infections.
- Autism is not an autoimmune disease.
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http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=7807
from this original
Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses (Oxford)
Also another great read on the
Toxic myths about Vaccines.
Its interesting that since MMR > Autism link is about as dead in the water as can be, Jenny Mccarthy and her ilk are moving the goalposts to well then what about other stuff in vaccines, all the while seemingly unwilling to just read the facts or talk to experts in these matters.