Dachel Media Update: The Perpetual Puzzle
By Anne Dachel
Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and their OurKidsASD brand.
Here's an overview of the massive coverage of YET ANOTHER STUDY DISPROVING A LINK BETWEEN VACCINES AND AUTISM. (Don't reporters ever get tired of saying this?)
Researchers examined 67 studies and 20,000 research papers. Now obviously a research paper doesn't have the same weight as an actual study, but notice how certain news outlets got the numbers mixed up.
Vox cited "166 independent studies" without telling what exactly that meant.
INCREDIBLY the Washington Times said that researchers had looked through 20,000 studies. SERIOUSLY? 20,000 STUDIES? So did several others news sites.
Reporters will say ANYTHING. They have no idea how absurd they sound. It was just amazing to see how quickly this story was out. (TIME put the story out twice!)
AUTISM: the disorder no one knows anything about--THE PERPETUAL PUZZLE TO SCIENTISTS AND DOCTORS--isn't caused by our unchecked, ever-expanding vaccination schedule. (Why don't people believe it? How many studies do experts have to come up with?)
Washington Times: Medical review: Yes, childhood vaccines are safe
A published review of 20,000 scientific studies on childhood vaccines concludes they are safe — period — and should be obtained to prevent deadly diseases.
CNN reports the study, set to appear in the Pediatrics journal, found side effects from vaccines are “incredibly rare,” and there are no ties between vaccines and autism or childhood leukemia, which has been suggested.
The Westside Story: Vaccines have low-risk of harming children
A review of over 20,000 studies has come to this conclusion, perhaps finally putting to rest the worries about giving children vaccinations. Although many people believe that vaccines can cause autism, the studies found no evidence at all between the two
Savingadvice.com: The Data Is Clear: Vaccines Are Safe, Effective and Do Not Cause Autism
The conclusion of researches, after reviewing in excess of 20,000 childhood vaccine scientific studies, is that the study’s authors could find no evidence of a link between childhood vaccines and children with autism, despite the vocal anti-vaccine community. There simply is no credible evidence that this link exists.
NBC News: Childhood Vaccines Are Safe, Review Finds NBC News
All those vaccines that children get in the early years are very safe, and adverse side-effects are very rare, a large review of vaccine safety finds. The federal government commissioned the California-based RAND Corporation to review all that’s known about the battery of childhood vaccines to reassure people who still have their doubts.
TIME: Study: Measles, Mumps and Rubella Vaccines Not Associated With Autism
A new study on childhood vaccines determined that immunizations do not lead to autism — a finding that researchers hope will dissipate fears propagated by antivaccine campaigners such as Hollywood stars Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey.
TIME: Childhood Vaccines Are Safe, Says Pediatrics Group
The latest in-depth review of immunizations shows that they aren’t linked to higher risk of autism or cancer
It’s been three years since the Institute of Medicine (IOM) came out with its comprehensive look at vaccine safety. That’s enough time to generate dozens more studies investigating side effects and risk of conditions such as autism and cancer that keep some parents from vaccinating their children against potentially lethal diseases like mumps, measles and pertussis.
KRMG Tulsa: Another study finds vaccines don't cause autism
Researchers combed through 67 previous studies and still found no link between vaccinations and autism.
The MMR vaccine (measles-mumps-rubella) was named in a 1998 study to be linked to autism, but that study has since been retracted. This new study confirms that vaccine is not to blame for autism.
Minneapolis Star Tribune: Research again finds childhood vaccines are generally safe, serious side effects
The latest analysis of childhood vaccines confirms they're generally safe.
The report should be reassuring to parents, the researchers say. For example, there still is no evidence the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. Nor is there any proof vaccines cause childhood leukemia
Detroit Free Press: Vaccine side effects extremely rare, studies say
Serious complications related to vaccines are very rare, and there is no evidence that immunizations cause autism, according to an analysis of 67 research studies.
Health Day: Childhood Vaccines Vindicated Once More
Parents worried about getting young children vaccinated against infectious diseases have fresh cause for reassurance, researchers say.
A new review of existing scientific evidence has concluded that childhood vaccines are safe and don't cause serious health problems such as autism or leukemia.
Fox News: Serious reactions to childhood vaccines are rare, study says
Serious reactions to vaccines are extremely rare among children, according to a new review of vaccine safety in kids, which also refutes any link between vaccines and autism.
Vox:A review of 166 independent studies confirms . . .
It's already well-established that the vaccines commonly used to immunize kids in the United States are safe, and effective at preventing many potentially lethal diseases.
But because of persistent misinformation about the risks of vaccines — and the actual danger caused by parents who choose to not vaccinate their kids — a group of researchers decided to conduct a systematic review of all the controlled studies on vaccines in the scientific literature.
Their conclusion, once and for all: vaccines are safe and effective.
ABC News: Childhood Vaccines Deemed Safe, Again
The latest analysis of childhood vaccines confirms they're generally safe.
The report should be reassuring to parents, the researchers say. For example, there still is no evidence the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. Nor is there any proof vaccines cause childhood leukemia.
Detroit Free Press: Vaccine side effects extremely rare, studies say
Serious complications related to vaccines are very rare, and there is no evidence that immunizations cause autism, according to an analysis of 67 research studies.
Yahoo News: Vaccines have low risk of serious side effects: study
Some childhood vaccines are linked to serious side effects, but they are quite rare and do not include autism, food allergies or cancer, said a review of scientific literature Tuesday.
No fatalities were found in the research, which spanned from 2010 to 2013 and included a total of 67 studies, whittled down from more than 20,000 research papers.
Boston.com: Childhood Vaccines Again Deemed Generally Safe
The latest analysis of childhood vaccines confirms they’re generally safe.
The report should be reassuring to parents, the researchers say. For example, there still is no evidence the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. Nor is there any proof vaccines cause childhood leukemia.
The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and their OurKidsASD brand. Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy is one of the largest and most respected compounding pharmacies in the country. They use only the finest quality chemicals and equipment to prepare our patients’ compounded medications and nutritional supplements. Customizing medication and nutritional supplements for our customers allows them to achieve their unique health goals.
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism and author of The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public, which goes on sale this Fall from Skyhorse Publishing.
Autism mom:
At age 35 - my husband was seen as a patient by Dr. Shoffner down at Emory Clinic. My adult husband -always top athlete, top in his class for chemistry, top in his field as a polymer researcher - worked 12 to 14 hours a day - then would come home and feed and look after his cows finally succumbed to his many vaccine injuries. He received on at age 28 and had a seizure -- but continued to do okay with just a few symptoms until he received yet another DPT shot a few years later when he stepped on a nail.
This was after our two kids had reacted to their vaccines and saw how well that went over with the medical profession, so we said nothing about vaccines to anyone. Dr. Shoffner said my husband's mito was acquired, and wanted to do further environmental testing - thinking my husband's job as a polymer chemist was involved.
Yes it was - kind of -- because they were offering free tetanus shots at his work place when he was 28 -- he took it on his way out of work and barely made it home before seizing in the hall way.
Dr. Shoffner I noticed left Emory clinic - small wonder since they are sitting right next to the CDC and went for a while to work with Dr. Cohen up in the Cleveland Clinic -- I am glad to hear that Dr. Shoffner is still around and still working.
And this all happened in the early 1990s.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 04, 2014 at 08:37 AM
I think that "something" caused the lowering of glutathione, perhaps it was Tylenol , I don't know, but with low glutathione our kids can not detoxify many metals with mercury being the likely suspect in autism . Maybe a simple test before vaccines, to measure glutathione could prevent autism. Maybe there's enough known about tylenol to put warnings on the label as we did with aspirin and it's connection to Reyes? I've read where nebulized glutathione has shown some improvement in ALS. Research is badly needed!
Posted by: barbaraj | July 04, 2014 at 01:03 AM
Apparently the review was of 20000 "titles."
Whatever that means.
Posted by: Carol | July 03, 2014 at 01:01 PM
Benedetta,
I think vaccines are indeed triggering a mitochondrial dysfunction in our kids. Mito experts have said that mitochondria are very sensitive to viruses and toxins. In an open letter, Dr. Poling wrote that there could be 72,000 kids like Hannah but noone has ever looked at whether kids dxed with autims have an underlying mito problem (see letter below). After the Hannah Poling case, UC Davis researcher investigated and found that many kids with autism have an unerlying mito problem. Makes sense when you look at the symptoms of autism including sensory disturbance, GI problems, developmental delay, seizures, language delay. sometimes vision probelms, motor difficulty are all symptoms of mito dysfunction.
Read:
An Open Letter from Dr. Jon Poling to Dr. Novella (excerpt):
"4. How many Hannah Polings are out there?
The short answer is that nobody knows. However, there is emerging data to suggest that she is not alone.
Dr. Shoffner will be presenting his experience with 37 patients with combined autism and mitochondrial dysfunction at the AAN meeting in Chicago this April. 65% of his referrals are positive for mitochondrial dysfunction. Of course, his yield is subject to referral bias as a mito expert, so the prevalence of mitochondrial dysfunction in Autism is surely less than 65%.
The best estimate to date of the prevalence of mitochondrial dysfunction in autistic patients comes from Oliviera et al. in a population of 120, 5 of 69 (or 7.2%) showed mitochondrial dysfunction. If this is generalized to the US estimate of 1 million patients with ASDs, then the number of kids like Hannah could be 72,000! Isn’t this worth further study?
Dr. Shoffner furthermore advocates, along with us, that vaccination is important even for kids with mitochondrial dysfunction. I would argue that you should not give nine at one time and that none of them should contain Thimerosal (mercury)."
full letter:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/03/dr-jon-poling-o.html
"Children with autism have mitochondrial dysfunction, study finds" - Science Daily
"Children with autism are far more likely to have deficits in their ability to produce cellular energy than are typically developing children, according to new research. A study found that cumulative damage and oxidative stress in mitochondria, the cell's energy producer, could influence both the onset and severity of autism, suggesting a strong link between autism and mitochondrial defects."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130161521.htm
Posted by: Autism mom | July 03, 2014 at 11:05 AM
Another thing about "rare" serious adverse side effects. What does that even mean when referring to drugs, in this case vaccines, targeted for the entire world's population, that have not been tested, according to the manufacturers - at all - for carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, teratogenicity, or effect on fertility. What does the estimation of "rare" serious adverse side effects mean when these potential long-term adverse effects are not even being considered? Yet, we have no shortage of cancer or fertility clinics or patients that need them. If you don't ask the right questions, you can get all kinds of wrong answers, in the case of vaccines, on purpose.
Posted by: Linda1 | July 03, 2014 at 10:21 AM
this is a PR war and has nothing to do with the truth. Pharma controls the media so they can lie all they want knowing the believers will gobble it up and repeat then lies. After the young man died from an adverse reaction to a flu vaccine last year, I emailed the story to a woman at the FDA vaccine safety office (VSO) and asked her if the VSO ever investigates these individual cases. The answer is "no". When is comes to vaccine safety, the VSO relies on population studies which invariably show vaccines are safe in the context of the population as a whole. They could do a million population studies and they will never show a problem. If a few children get thrown under the bus, apparently thats okay with FDA.
Posted by: Autism mom | July 03, 2014 at 09:52 AM
Side effects being "rare" is one thing when a drug is being taken by maybe 1% of a population. "Rare" means something else altogether when it is 100% of a population that is targeted to receive that drug, in most cases for these drugs, multiple times for each individual. Instead of "rare", I'd like to see numbers, yearly expected morbidity and mortality, from each of these vaccines, in the targeted population (and I don't mean something like what we sometimes see - 1 out of 1,000,000 per dose either, because unfortunately too many Americans won't do the research to find the number of doses and multiply by the number of people to find out that in a population of 320 million, that's a lot of "rare" serious adverse events). You know, like we're told with the seasonal flu - 30,000 to 60,000 deaths per year, or whatever they come up with in any given week to stir the targeted population into a flu vaccine seeking frenzy. Interesting how with the so-called VPD's, they always use numbers.
Anne, your article could have also been titled, Perpetual Propaganda.
Posted by: Linda1 | July 03, 2014 at 09:24 AM
You know what's interesting about this study? Absolutely nothing. It is just a rehash of the same data that they've been spouting for the past 10 years.
A friend of mine is a programmer. He has a saying; GIGO. For those of you not savvy to the lingo, that means "Garbage in, garbage out."
If the data they utilized in the study is flawed (for example, they don't account for the fact that Adverse Events are extremely under reported), what would the output of that data then be?
Posted by: False Skeptics Make Me Laugh | July 03, 2014 at 08:40 AM
"Reporters will say ANYTHING. They have no idea how absurd they sound. It was just amazing to see how quickly this story was out. (TIME put the story out twice!)"
Indeed Anne, the absurdity never ceases. With these furtive, desperate efforts to reassure people that vaccines are safe, I am starting to wonder whether pharma and their media goons are not too bright, and cannot see that they are on to a loosing strategy. Simply, they are digging themselves in a hole, and it's getting deeper and deeper. Eventually there will come a time where there is no escape from it.
Looking at another potential out for them, all that needs to be considered is that they are already protected legally from the harms that their products cause, and really are only vulnerable to the public's eroding confidence in their products. And this eroding confidence is the supreme threat that may -- and if current trends hold 'will' -- decimate their stocks. At this point, I would think a certain degree of capitulation is the best strategy for them. They could simply put out a study that maybe hint at a weak link between vaccines and autism. Then they could appear to be acting proactive and revise the vaccinatation schedule, recommending more delayed vaccination, but in the end still requiring all vaccines. Indeed thy might experience some serious fallout from such a concession, but it will never be as serious as the one they will experience when things reach the tipping point and the public eventually figure things out on their own. Capitulation would also be good, since by seeming to be sincere they can attempt to regain the public's trust, and definitely wooing the majority who are already terrified of VPDs, as well as the fence sitters who would definitely welcome delayed vaccination. In the long run, this strategy has the potential of killing the anti-vaxx movement, while potentially enabling pharma to escape relatively unscathed.
Posted by: Greg | July 03, 2014 at 07:37 AM
Saturation media coverage of .. yet another "massive study" .. proving once again .. vaccines are completely safe.
Which begs the question:
What is wrong with that ever widening pool of parents .. reported to have higher education and financial assets than most .. who remain reluctant to vaccinate their children according to the recommended and approved schedule?
I don't blame the media for being perplexed .. after all they have done to portray vaccines as "safe and efficient"?
It must be Jenny .. Dr. Wakefield .. or else .. that damned internet.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | July 03, 2014 at 06:50 AM
Vaccine reactions are rare and vaccines are safe --
Meanwhile: The government has made just the cutest advertisments about a cute little 9 + kid calling on the cell phone - to the house phone causing his elderly grandmother on a cane to hurry pass him in the hall way - to answer it -- in which he asked her to get him some food.
Or the young guy riding his golf cart out of the garage - 10 feet to the mailbox.
Perhaps that Fishy language as reported on FOX NEWS about the Vaccine Compensation Court saying that a vaccine didn't cause autims but made an underlining mitochondrial disease to be made worse -- is indeed fishy -- cause maybe vaccines are is causing mitochondrial disorders --
Hard to believe had human beings that roam the whole wide world hunting and traveling like wolf packs can't now get off the couch.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 02, 2014 at 10:40 PM