Autism and Vaccines Around The World: Vaccine Schedules, Autism Rates and Under 5 Mortality
AUTISM AND VACCINES AROUND THE WORLD:
Vaccine Schedules, Autism Rates, and Under 5 Mortality
View the entire study HERE.
Generation Rescue, Inc. April 2009
The United States has the highest number of mandated vaccines for children under 5 in the world (36, double the Western world average of 18), the highest autism rate in the world (1 in 150 children, 10 times or more the rate of some other Western countries), but only places 34th in the world for its children under 5 mortality rate. What’s going on?
Objective: To compare vaccine schedules, autism rates, and under 5 mortality rates of the United States to other countries to see if any differences emerge.
Design: A full publication and literature review was completed to determine vaccine schedules and under 5 mortality rates for 30 countries, including the United States. The 29 other countries all had lower (better) under 5 mortality rates than the U.S. Additionally, autism rates were compared for certain countries with reliable, published autism prevalence data.
Results: The United States mandates the most vaccines in the Western world (36), double the average of the 30 countries studied (18). All countries with lower vaccine mandates have better under 5 mortality rates and many have materially lower autism rates.
Conclusions: The analysis lends credibility to the relationship between vaccines and autism and challenges the public view of both the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics that more vaccines is always positive for public health.
I simple search turned up another issue with this report. All countries list have some type of Universal Health Care system expect United States, Channel Islands and Cyprus.
Posted by: Mary | May 18, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Doodle said "I'd be curious as to why the UK has such a high autism rate." This is totally unscientific on my part, but just based on news accounts, internet postings, etc., it seems like they have a greater problem with the MMR in the UK. Of course kids here in the U.S. sometimes react to the MMR too, but I'm wondering whether the MMR used in the UK is different from what we are using, or the same. I seem to recall that the UK used the urabe strain MMR for longer than most other countries, but I don't know whether currently there is anything different about their MMR or whether they import the same brands as we use. Maybe someone who knows more than me about this could shed some light on this.
Posted by: Twyla | April 05, 2009 at 11:03 PM
I see what you're saying, Twyla, and it makes a lot of sense. I think that for kids living in poverty conditions in the US, the situation is similar, and that measles (as you rightly point out) doesn't actually kill them--it just makes it easier for them to die of other illnesses, and if they get the measles vaccine, these secondary infections might kill them anyway.
Doodle, I'm glad you liked my first paragraph ;-) and I see what you mean about the way the study is reported. I wonder about the UK, too; maybe they have a higher mercury-contaminated fish intake than we do.
I just watched my TiVo'd Larry King Live... What a great episode! I loved how Dr. Fisher had no response to JB about the varicella vaccine ('cuz there is no reason for the US to mandate a chickenpox vaccine!) I also thought Jim Carrey did an awesome job--nice to have a professional speaker on the right team!
Posted by: Theresa | April 05, 2009 at 10:49 PM
Bravo Generation Rescue!!
This is the study I've been hoping to see for the last 5 years. Autism is not as prevalent in the rest of the world as it is in the US. The vaccine schedule is not as loaded in the rest of the world as it is in the US. Vaccine practices in Europe are much different than here in the US (one at a time is the rule). You put all these together and you get the mess we are in at the US of A. Why?? There is only one answer: the influence that the pharmaceutical industry has over congress, senate and the presidency has no parallel anywhere else in the world. The signs are everywhere for all to see. In no other country will you see prescription medicines being advertised to the general population as if they were the flavor of the month as it happens here, both in mainstream TV and newspapers, which in turn makes these subject to their high paying masters. This situation has created an even bigger mess than the collapse of the financial industry. The rest of the world is not following US practices with respect to vaccines and they may be spared our tragic, shameful and completely avoidable autism epidemic. A crying SHAME!!
Posted by: WE SHALL OVERCOME | April 05, 2009 at 07:07 PM
Theresa -
An infectious disease specialist once told me that the reason why more kids die of measles in third world countries is because the measles virus temporarily impairs the immune system, making the child vulnerable to secondary infections which are more common in these countries.
Posted by: Twyla | April 05, 2009 at 12:32 AM
Theresa,
Just adding your first paragraph to the discussion section would have improved it. The problem with this article is that is just shows data and does not discuss it, but does draw a conclusion. It is really interesting data but we should not have to guess at the why's and the how's. That is the job of the writer of the article to discuss. It is all just imcomplete, and not in the sense that it actually needs more data, but that it needs to explain what the results are (regression plots with all data points - showing only a few and leaving out the UK from the autism data is unacceptable) and then have at least some discussion of the possible reasons that the US has such a horrible under-5 mortality rate. Just implying (it was not even stated) that vaccines did not help with mortality rates is not enough.
I'd be curious as to why the UK has such a high autism rate (higher than the US from what I have seen) and fewer vaccines than the US.
for Twyla
This is simply like an informal peer review. If the data were not presented in the formal of a scientific study then it would not matter; it would just be a presentation of very interesting data. The problem is that right now I can imagine the link to this sudy being sent all over, and it will probably be cited around the web since it *looks* the part. All it takes it to flesh it out, discuss the why's and how's, and make it actually *be* the part. No need to have more resources to gather more data. Even a few hypotheses as to "why and how" are fine.
Posted by: doodle | April 05, 2009 at 12:05 AM
Very interesting -- thanks for pulling together this information -- brilliant to think of making these comparisons.
Doodle, of course there could be more in depth examination of all sorts of confounding factors. But I don't think GR has the resources to do the analysis you have in mind. And I think this needs to be looked at in the context of the many times that we are told by vaccine defenders, "Well, I'd rather have my child be autistic than dead." If our 36-vaccine schedule is really so critical in protecting the lives of our children, one would think that we would not be number 34 on this list, behind so many countries that give 10 or 11 vaccines.
The "Diseases are dangerous" statement is used as a rationale for dismissing any criticisms of the vaccine program -- as if vaccine injuries should not even be studied because we must have all these vaccines, just as they are, to combat dangerous diseases. These statistics indicate that 10 or 11 vaccines instead of 36 don't cause an increase in infant/toddler/preschooler mortality.
And how out-of-step is our program with the rest of the world, if we give 2 or 3 times as many vaccines as other developed countries?
Granted, I am not a scientist, and so I don't look at this with high expectations of a study, just as very interesting statistics.
Posted by: Twyla | April 04, 2009 at 05:08 PM
For Doodle--
I don't think the Generation Rescue study aims to show that vaccines contribute to under-five mortality rates; I think it aims to show that vaccines do not materially improve under-five mortality rates. In other words, poverty, malnutrition, etc., are not confounding factors; these *are* the factors that matter when one looks at under-five mortality rates--and vaccines are not a material factor. Kids who would have died from measles-related complications in the US, but who didn't get the measles (because of the vaccine) just end up dying of something else, so they still die.
I'd really like to see a study on death rates from common childhood illnesses, listed by socioeconomic group. I'd be willing to bet that a kid who doesn't get enough to eat and doesn't have access to good medical care is more likely to die of something that would be no problem for an average-income or rich kid.
The way I think of it, "Measles don't kill people. Poverty kills people."
Of course, accepting this would mean that the way to reduce under-five mortality would be to implement taxpayer-financed improvement of living conditions for economically disadvantaged people, rather than hidden-cost health insurance-funded massive vaccination campaigns--and Big Pharma wouldn't make a dime!--so it's unlikely that public policy on this issue will change. Just look at how we've handled hepatitis B: instead of implementing needle exchange programs for IV drug users and encouraging condom use among prostitutes (or just accepting that blood-borne pathogens will kill some percentage of prostitutes and IV drug users), we've decided that it's a good idea to inject poison and disease into day-old babies.
Posted by: Theresa | April 04, 2009 at 04:10 PM
Go, Generation Rescue!
This is good information, and any parent or parent-to-be might look at this and be moved to reconsider the CDC's "vaccination schedule"--thus saving much misery and possibly lives.
This is good work; there is always more to be done, but this is good work.
Wish I'd seen this before I let them jab my kids.
Posted by: Terri Lewis | April 04, 2009 at 03:13 PM
Confounding factors, like poverty level, or nutrition, always have to be examined. That's the whole point of a discussion section in a scientific paper, to discuss the why's and the how's.
Saying that the CDC doesn't do things properly is not really an excuse. Look, if this article is destined to be quoted in later press releases as a scientific study with results and a conclusion, it needs some more work. If it is just a blog entry for the day, maybe it's fine, but then it shouldn't look like a study.
Things have progressed to the point now that there is a battle between CDC "science" and new research. Everyone already knows that the CDC work is biased and purposefully flawed to present a predetermined conclusion. It is not a good idea though, to fight the CDC studies with research that appears to have similar flaws in objectivity, whether it does or not. If Generation Rescue is going to do a scientific study, it had better make it airtight.
Posted by: Doodle | April 04, 2009 at 11:07 AM
Confounding factors? Since when is that ever a consideration? Perhaps you watch too much television and, based on dispropotionately biased coverage, think every parent in America whacks their kids on the head then stuffs them in the trunk.
These are babies under five.
For example? How about the official flu mortality statistics fabricated by CDC and myopically reviewed to assure maximum carnage.
Americans are told 36,000 people die from the flu, yet, the majority of mortality is actually pneumonia, and flu deaths are typically less than 300.
Get a grip.
Posted by: Ole' Ole' | April 04, 2009 at 09:28 AM
As an article it is really interesting, but it should not be put into the format of a scientific paper as it is not suitable for peer review or publication. The data itself is valuable and would be a good basis for a real journal article but there is still a great deal more work necessary in order to be suitable to submit to any journal, or hand to a governement official, if that is the intent.
For one thing, there is no examination of any confounding factors that could cause variations in mortality rates. The goal of table 2 appears to be to show that there is a relationship between the number of vaccinations and mortaility rate, but there is no regression plot or any statistics, so the relationship is only implied. Without any statistical analysis or dicsussion of confouding variables one cannot draw any scientific conclusions.
The bigger problem, though, is that all of the countries from table 2 are not included in table 3. There is no explanation for *why* the data was segmented this way, so it just looks bad, especially when the UK is shown in Table 2 to have 20 vaccinations (almost the same a France) yet it is well known that it has a high autism rate. Just that one fact alone is painful to see omitted, as it indicates that either someone just forgot to include it, or removed it from the table because it did not "fit" with the other results. Fixing that table and then discussing the apparent discrepency would help a great deal.
For now though, the information itself would be useful for a press release or some other document but there is no way it should be put in the format of a scientific paper with those type of basic problems. Credibility is pretty important, and it is just not good to put something on the web that looks like something that it is not.
Posted by: doodle | April 04, 2009 at 01:42 AM
The trouble is the semantics anal retentives will always consider this misinformation because they only acknowledge vaccines and will never count doses.
Let's not forget that they don't even know how to convert Thimerosal expressed as a percent to actual ethylmercury micrograms.
That kind of scientific incompetence makes acknowledging the total number of mercury molecules squirted into infants and babies free to do their damage outright impossible.
Being pro-vaccine in circumstances like these is the ultimate fallacy. If you acknowledge that vaccines and the program for vaccination are unsafe and you do not act appropriately to stop what's going on, you are no better than your foe. You actually do a great disservice to many innocent people, who don't have much understanding.
Frank Engley had the correct opinion when he shut down a company for failing to manufacture GRAS and GRAE medical consumable products. When they tried to place a guilt trip on him he simply and appropriately replied, "It's not my problem."
Posted by: Media Scholar | April 04, 2009 at 01:21 AM
Question of curiosity, not skepticism.
Did anyone check to see if the vaccines of all the countries were the same in content, strength, and volume?
I just want to make sure i'm not contradicted with more solid data if i ever bring this up with others.
Posted by: Curious in Pennsylvania | April 03, 2009 at 11:05 PM