Epidemic Threatens Britain -- Measles, Not Autism

By Anne Dachel

Anyone who's done a Google news search on vaccines/autism over the last couple of weeks can't help but notice the stories about the huge push by British health officials for the MMR vaccine.  Dozens of reports are all saying the same thing: Vaccination rates have fallen off so much in Britain that the public is being warned of an approaching measles epidemic.  The only way to prevent this from happening is to have a major uptake in MMR vaccinations. 

The tone of the articles makes it clear to the British people that measles is life-threatening and the possibility of a massive outbreak is very real.  The statistics are scary.  The Guardian reported, "The number of cases of measles is on the rise across the country. There were 1,726 confirmed cases in England and Wales in 2006 and 2007 - more than in the previous 10 years put together, when there were 1,621 cases."

The press is giving parents plenty of reasons to be worried.  Sources repeatedly said, "Estimates by the Department of Health suggest a measles epidemic in Britain could affect between 30,000 and 100,000 children and young people."  Another paper reported, "The DoH says that around 10% of measles cases require hospital admission and one in 5,000 are fatal."

The Worcester News ran the piece, Anti-MMR parents put others at risk, in which we heard only the government's contention that "there is no scientific evidence to justify claims of a risk of autism. No link has been found and such studies have been debunked."   A local health official complained, "Parents who do not get their children immunised risk the health of their own children and other children."

One thing is clear: this is the fault of parents not vaccinating.  The Mail ran a story about anti-MMR mothers who are putting everyone in danger (HERE).  Jonathan Myerson wrote, "The arrogance is stunning, the stupidity is off the scale. But give the mother of a newborn something to fight against and logic is history."  This was in reference to the research by Dr. Andrew Wakefield linking the MMR and autism.  Myerson completely dismissed Wakefield's findings and blamed the press in Britain for falsely convincing trusting mothers that there was danger in the MMR. 

In the current stories about the need for the MMR, reporters generally spoke in the past tense when it came to the link to autism.  Most gave only one or two sentences-- "The measles return and current fears for an epidemic are the result of reduced MMR uptake following the claims the vaccine is linked to autism. But numerous studies have failed to find such a link and we are completely confident that MMR is safe."

The public also heard a lot from chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson who has taken the lead in sounding an alarm over all the unvaccinated kids at risk for measles urging doctors to "help cut the risk of a measles epidemic" by immunizing.

Personally, as an American, I see the autism-vaccine controversy in a different light and I have a number of questions for the British press.

Why is the media creating this hysteria over a possible measles epidemic when it isn't happening now?

The chart on England mortality rate from measles 1838-1978 (HERE) clearly shows that measles deaths were dramatically disappearing years before the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1968.  One has to wonder just how much of an impact the vaccine actually had.

In the countless stories in the UK about measles, why don't we hear anything from the non-vaccinating parents as to why they're not complying?  Why doesn't the press there report this in a fair and balanced manner?  Blaming parents but not investigating their opinion is tantamount to publishing government propaganda. 

Another obvious question comes to mind: Since there is such concern over the MMR causing autism and bowel disease, why not provided a single vaccine just for the measles?  It would seem a simple way to alleviate the concern over the combined live virus vaccine.  Health officials however remain firm that this is a "drive for the MMR jab." 

The Guardian had an editorial Aug. 12 blaming this health crisis on Wakefield's original work on the MMR back in 1998.  Journalist Peter Wilby wrote, "The research that led to suggestions of an MMR link with autism came from Dr Andrew Wakefield and 11 colleagues at St George's Hospital, London. It was later discredited. He and two others are now charged with serious professional misconduct before the General Medical Council."

Gone are the days in Britain when Dr Peter Fletcher, former Chief Scientific Officer at the Department of Health, was in the Daily Mail Former science chief: 'MMR fears coming true' | Mail Online (HERE) saying that 'the refusal by governments to evaluate the [MMR] risks properly will make this one of the greatest scandals in medical history.'  According to Fletcher's interview in 2006, science hasn't settled the question of vaccines and autism.  Fletcher was quoted saying,  'Steady accumulation of evidence' from scientists around the world was showing that the MMR vaccine was causing brain damage in certain children.  He furthermore made it clear why so many were in denial.  'There are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and elsewhere who have staked their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves.'

British coverage has reduced this to a debate only over the findings of Wakefield originally published in 1998 in the Lancet and they continue to talk about the claim that vaccines cause autism in the past tense as if there was no longer any debate.  It's hard to believe that we're on the same planet when we see stories everyday in the American press about the very heated and ongoing autism controversy.  We in the U.S. autism community may be outraged at the coverage at times, but it's there--on local and national news. 
   
You'd think that the publicity over the Poling case or the comments by Dr. Bernadine Healy on CBS News would have caused at least a ripple in the British media, but they didn't.  They were never covered in Britain.

Here in America, we've expanded beyond just the single thimerosal issue and we are looking at the whole vaccine schedule with cries of "too many, too soon."  There's cause for concern here over the host of toxins commonly found in children's vaccines.  These worries are never raised by the media in the UK.

This brings me back to Liam Donaldson.  Donaldson has gotten a lot of media attention over the impending measles outbreak and I wondered what someone in his position was doing about the real epidemic of autism in Britain.  I tried to research how he's combating autism and incredibly the overwhelming information available about Donaldson and autism consists of only of stories about Donaldson denying that the MMR causes autism.  Donaldson seems to be putting all his efforts into this and accusing Andrew Wakefield of peddling 'poor science.'

It needs to be noted that the hysteria over measles in Britain is happening at the same time that Wakefield's up on charges before the General Medical Council.  What an amazing coincidence for health officials.  MMR rates have dropped off dramatically because of Wakefield's findings and tens of thousands of children in the UK might contract measles as a result.  Could this be sending a strong message to the GMC to influence their decision?  Children's very lives might depend on it.

Measles is the crisis of the moment in Brtiain, not autism, but last year it was announced that the official British autism rate was one in every 86 children.  That stunning statistic wasn't cause for national alarm and serious inquiry into what was affecting children's health.  While one in 86 was more than twice the number previously thought, Liam Donaldson didn't seem worried.  The press too had a casual attitude about the new rate and one headline simply stated, Autism--quite common.  The BBC told us, "Part of the reason for the increase is likely to be improved diagnosis and greater awareness in schools of the problem."

Health authorities in Britain should have been in a panic over the fact that while one in every 86 children has autism, one in every 86 adults doesn't.  This is a looming disaster for both the US and the UK  The generation of disabled children represents a cost to taxpayers that we can't begin to imagine.  Officials in both countries are in denial, but at least in the US, the public is hearing about the controversy over vaccines.  The British people can see that damage that been done.  Children with autism are on endless waiting lists and are making huge demands on the schools.  It's only a matter of time before the ridiculous claims simply won't work.  The children with autism and the upcoming class of young adults with autism in the UK and here will present a bill we simply can't afford to pay, but in Britain, it may not even make the papers.

I am sure of one thing.  In both countries, health officials and members of the media who failed to do their jobs, who covered up the truth and turned their backs on our children won't be able to just walk away in denial.  They will be held responsible.  The evidence is everywhere, too obvious to ignore.  I can't imagine that either group will have a shred of credibility left in the end.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Comments

[Twyla]

The picture illustrating this article brings back memories of seeing this movie (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) on TV as a young kid -- it gave me a nightmare!

[Jack Hep]

Sounds similar to the last impending epidemic of 1994, invented mathematically by a government that later failed to inform its rapid consenting public that less than 200 cases of measles had been prevented at the cost of 8 millions vaccinated with thousands of adverse reactions, hopsitalisations and chronic debilitation that are logged in the archives. That 'epidemic' turned out to be suspiciously coincident with the end of shelf life of vaccines pulled due to links with the meninigitis epidemic of 1992 that had been flagged to the JCVI government advisors years before it was pulled - could they care less about our kids? The answer is probably, after all have not Ukraine and Argentina recently puled MMR due to a large number of suspicious deaths after the vaccine was distributed - I do not remember any warning to parents, from our department of health about the deaths and suspension of MMR in those countries pending investigations, as part of the requirement for parents and children to be fully informed prior to expecting their consenting to what may be suspect MMR...

[Theresa]

Dear Ds Advocate - is the "D" your an advocate for Brian Deer by any chance?

[Garbo]

Took a moment to follow the link to epiwonk's blog. It's actually very interesting, especially this bit from his comments:

Aug 9th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

Hi, Epiwonk!
Really enjoying your blog over here.

Just a couple of other caveats to add.

1)There’s also this fairly recent finding (which, of course, needs to be replicated before being taken too seriously)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18086216?dopt=Abstract

“There was a positive association between pertussis infection and atopic disorders in the pertussis vaccinated group
only. From the present study, it cannot be concluded whether this association is causal or due to reverse causation.”

Which might go along with this:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TD4-4RTTJHD-3&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F25%2F2008&_rdoc=3&_fmt=summary&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%235188%232008%23999739985%23683006%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=5188&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=12&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=da944064c4c7121ed478361bef19aa8c

“Summary
The global expression of immune response genes in infants after vaccination and their role in asthma and allergy is
not clearly understood. Pharmacogenomics is ideally suited to study the involved cellular responses, since the
expression of thousands of genes can be assessed simultaneously. Here, array technology was used to assess the
expression kinetics of immune response genes with association to asthma and allergy in peripheral blood mononuclear
cells (PBMC) of five healthy infants after vaccination with Infanrix-Polio Hib. At 12 h after in vitro
re-stimulation of the PBMC with pertussis toxin (PT) antigen, 14 immune response pathways, 33 allergy-related and
66 asthma-related genes were found activated. ”

2) aluminum adjuvants stimulate an IgE-heavy immune response, so you really need to look at asthma and allergy in
a cohort who recieved all 4 aluminum adjuvanted vaccines and compare that to those who recieved none.

Go down to page 114 here to read a bit about aluminum and the potential Th2/IgE “bias” created by that adjuvant:

http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/AL%20-%201.pdf
(WARNING: BIG PDF transcript of HHS workshop on aluminum in vaccines.)

And epiwonk's response:
"I hesitate to comment on your other observations, since I’d prefer to stick to epidemiology, which is my area of expertise."

See? Epiwonk is a valuable member of this community! S/he just happens to be interested in meta-analysis rather than helping our kids or kids born in the future.

As an aside, that HHS conference on aluminum in vaccines happened in May 2000. That was an election year, 8 years ago, right? And who's been in office since then? And what have they done about this, exactly, in those 8 years?

Apologies to the moderators for length and breaking margins. I can get supplements into toddlers but I don't know how to squish URLs.

[colmcq]

But Suissa was wrong.

[John Stone]

Colmcq

The only thing which is clear from this is that the Staten Serum Institut, Denmark and the New England Journal of Medicine don't wish to discuss it, or any criticims of their study.

[Stagmom]

D's Advocate, you have several comments on this post alone. Do you need me to show you the others you've posted here over the weeks and months? Stop whining. We don't have to approve every comment from every commenter - nor do we. We have several people who moderate - and our tolerance levels vary. If you dislike Age of Autism and/or our practices, don't read us. Spend your time with your fellow doctors and pharma/biotech professionals at the scienceblogs. Capisca? Kim

[colmcq]

Does this mean you are going to stop referencing Suissa's letter in future discussions about Madsen now that you know his logic and conclusions were wrong?

[John Stone]

Of course, Epiwonk will not even put his real name to his criticisms. On the other hand we do find that the data separately obtained by Stott et al, and Goldman and Yazbak showed an increase in autism in the vaccinated group - as suggested in Cochrane's reading. Colmcq seems disinclined to dispute Cochrane. Meanwhile we are expected to swallow - presumably without comment - the ad hominem 'Why crank journals are unreliable' from Anthony Cox of UK medicines licensing authority yellow cards scheme(MHRA).

You wonder on what basis you would get a 9% protective effect against autism with MMR unless there was an improper adjustment? And I remain puzzled, if Suissa, was simply wrong why NEJM did not allow debate. What is happening is that any discussion is being institutionally pushed to the margins - and then conducted on their side by shadowy surrogates like Epiwonk (apparently a retired CDC scientist).

http://epiwonk.com/?page_id=2

[colmcq]

"Suissa is saying essentially the same thing as Cochrane, only Cochrane fails to mention in what way the errors would effect the result. Is Cochrane wrong too?"

That was not my point, and as well you know it! Suissa is wrong - yet you keep quoting his erroneous letter. If you think epiwonks comments were unfair or flawed, please post your rejoinder.

[John Stone]

Returning to Colmcq's brittle claim - if Madsen et al and NEJM had been able to deal with Samy Suissa's criticisms it would have been greatly to their advantage to have the letter published. The obvious inference is that they could not.

[shaun turpin]

I used to live in the UK and unlike most parents on this forum my son was not vaccinated, but hair and blood test showed a very high elevated amount of Heavy Metals primarily Mercury and Aluminum !!! I could not understand how they got there and through my googling research I can now point the finger at Epidural ( mercury ) via his mother and Vitamin K ( aluminum ) which we where blackmailed into by the bad parents scare tactic if we didn't.

The press are one thing in the UK but the National Health Service who having injected there poisons and diagnosed my son just a few years later basically suggested we locked him up and throw away the key.

Well a big Thank you America and to the internet my son his now recovering very well ,we now live in Brazil where the rates of Autism are nothing like there are in the UK and the USA !!! most incidence are in the bigger industrial cites like Sao Paulo and even so the rates quoted are 1/2500 . I don't know to much about there vaccination program hopefully someone might one day soon be able to find out more .
Again Thank You
Shaun and Austin aged 7 and 11 months

[Ds Advocate]

Awwww. This is a sad commentary. You will no longer post my questions or responses. How sad. It speaks volumes about this website and your cause.

Funny, those scienceblog websites post all commentary and opinions, including several posters that post here regularly. What does that say of those sites ethics and their position, I wonder?

I guess if you can't be right, do your darnedest to fool people into believing you.

So sad.

Well, atleast you, the editor was able to read this and can think about your attitudes toward public discourse and morality in the media, and perhaps you'll think abit about who you really are and where you stand on this issue.

Really, really sad.

[Craig Willoughby]

Does anyone happen to know if there is any information on how many deaths there have been from the MMR vaccine within the past 10 years here in the US? Just a curiousity

[Cherrymam]

To those who would not like to agree with the parents of the autistic kids, I would say:
I have watched the vaccine autism discussion in the US since 1998 and in India since about 2003. ( One more coincidence for the health authorities- The cases of autism increased in India after mmore doses of Hib and Hep B and Flu vaccine with mercury were added to the Indian schedule) One conclusion after all these years: Listen to the Parents of the Autistic Kids- They'll get it right. The doctors and public health people will not.It happens every time without fail. The parents say autism is increasing- The public health docs say no it is not. Research proves parents right. Parents say that the mercury in vaccines is too much. Public health docs say nonsense, until a senior immunologist admits the truth. It is far too much. Parents say that autism is not fully genetic. Once again they are right. Its amazing- all those dumb parents who now dont want to vaccinate their kids according to the schedule. They were right every time. Maybe they will be right in the future too! My money?- Its on the parents.

[Garbo]

WHOA! "I don't see a problem in the government intervening to save people (and their children) from parental stupidity."

At the risk of feeding the trolls, frankly, I don't see the problem in the people (parents) intervening to save their children from governmental stupidity.

Turning this argument into a "blame the parents" game is an old standby of Pharma shills everywhere. Equating parents not injecting potential toxins into their babies at the moment of birth with parents beating their children over the heads is a specious argument.

Parents here did the vaccines; that's how they got here. Parents speaking out about how their children were injured by vaccines happens to be protected by the 1st Amendment. Parents who are deciding whether or not to vaccinate look around at their friends and neighbors and see the truth in growing and undeniable numbers -- the current vaccine schedule can be dangerous. If Pharma, FDA and CDC spent half the time making vaccines safer that they do defending the unacceptable but profitable status quo, they'd get a lot farther in the long run.

Last I checked, we don't (mostly, lack of Congressional oversight notwithstanding)live in a Pharma-fascistic police state.

[John Stone]

Colmcq

Suissa is saying essentially the same thing as Cochrane, only Cochrane fails to mention in what way the errors would effect the result. Is Cochrane wrong too?

[Carolyn M.]

Tracey-- we are not crazy. Vaccines are not 100% safe for everyone, nor has it been anywhere close to having been proven that they do not cause autism (or have you forgotten Hannah Poling?). There are people who should not be vaccinated according to the recommended schedule if at all - those who are allergic to one or more ingredients of the vaccine, those who have had a vaccine reaction (or who have a family history of vaccine reaction) and those who have a family history of auto-immune disease are examples.

I know myself that vaccines can cause harm. My brother caught a very bad case of the measles from the vaccine - not the MMR, the prior version of the vaccine. This was confirmed by his doctor. My mother was told by her doctor that she should not take the flu vaccine anymore; every time she took it she caught the flu, which then progressed to bronchitis and at least twice to pneumonia. My daughter has autism, which we believe was caused by her vaccinations and my 4 dental amalgams.

By the way, I had mumps twice, and I had no real difficulty in getting pregnant. So much for your categorical statement that mumps cuases sterility.

Also, your post strongly implied that you would like to have us all forcibly vaccinated. That is more in keeping with something a totalitarian state would do. I hope that you do not truly mean that.

Carolyn M.

[Craig Willoughby]

"It's time to take off the tin foil hats, folks. When science repeatedly proves that vaccines don't cause autism, and some people disagree, I don't see a problem in the government intervening to save people (and their children) from parental stupidity."

Really? Then why do so many scientists disagree. Why is it that Dr. Healy, Dr. Poling, Dr. Gordon and the host of other doctors who have stepped away from mainstream medicine and become DAN doctors are all saying that the science is wrong? Could it be because the science is wrong?

Why is it that Hannah Poling developed autism after a vaccination? And how can you even remotely justify listening to organizations that knowingly and willingly poison people for profit and then try to cover it up (I'm not talking about vaccines here, I'm talking about Drug companies and Vioxx, Paxil, and too many others to even name in one post). Too bad there's no vaccine for gullibility, Tracey.

Hey, I think I hear the rest of the sheeple calling you, Tracey. Hurry up and follow the rest of the herd. It's hard to really see what's going on when someone's but is in your face, Tracey.

[Craig Willoughby]

What sickens me about all of this is all of the air-time that this is getting. All over the news stations, they talk about how this is growing into the next major epidemic, that we're going to have bodies lining the streets from all of these measles deaths. 140 something cases out of 300 million Americans. MY GOD, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

But, they don't mention the fact that a growing number of children are having adverse reaction to the vaccines (insert Church of Immaculate Vaccination mantra here ("But vaccines SAVE LIVES!")). They don't mention that the reason why all of these parents are choosing not to vaccinate is because of the loss of trust with the medical community. Pharma is guilty guilty GUILTY of knowingly lying about the safety of their products, and they've been caught red handed more than once. And nothing is being done about it. So how is that the fault of the parents?

Oh, about the media play on all major networks. Yes, I smell a coordinated attack. Let's scare all those crazy ant-vaxxers. Either that, or we'll make the public stone them in the streets. Muah hah hah