Every so often this debate gets raised. Some people are convinced there is a link between vaccines and autism; others are firmly convinced there is not a link.
There IS a correlation between vaccines and autism, in that most children get immunised, and some children are later diagnosed with autism. But is the correlation causative?
I can't speak for the US in terms of immunisation program, only for how it happens in Australia. Here, our babies are immunised with triple antigen at 2 months, 4 months and six months. There are new vaccines coming in all the time, there are more now than when I had my kids vaccinated. But the MMR was the one which people really questioned - it gets given around 12 months of age, here.
Most kids who get diagnosed with autism DO NOT get diagnosed before 12 months of age. A child who is non-verbal - you don't begin to worry until they're at least 2. And of those who get diagnosed with autism, there are two main groups - those for whom you can see the problems pretty much from the beginning in so far as speech doesn't develop properly and from an early age they do things like lining up toys etc; and those who seem to begin to develop normally but who later regress. Of those who regress, this seems to happen at about 18 months to 2 years of age.
So it's understandable that we see a possible causative link to whatever vaccine the kids had previously. There are so many variables here, and so many kids are immunised, that when you look back and ask each parent, "Was your child immunised?" almost all of them will say, "Yes." And some people see this as spooky, when in fact it's statistics misleading you into thinking there is a connection.
I'm speaking scientifically here - to prove a link, you need to find something to link it TO. You then need to account for all the other variables, including the incidence of autism in those few who were not immunised, as well as those for whom symptoms were apparent before the child was ever immunised. I can look back with the luxury of 20:20 hindsight and see that difficult child 3 had signs of autism from birth. There were odd things I observed in his first week, which were unusual and which persisted and were later recognised as part of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)/stimming.
That's not to say that SOME cases of autism couldn't be connected to immunisations; but scientifically, the jury is still out at best; or its refuted, from other points of view. Any attempts to study the link have been futile. A big problem is the number of people who ARE immunised, with no problems. If immunisations cause autism, then clearly there have to be other factors to account for the LOW incidence of autism (otherwise everyone immunised would be autistic).
The other big problem comes in (scientifically speaking again) when you consider - "what is autism?" This has changed a lot over the last ten years and is still changing, year to year. There is a lot of inconsistency in how autism is defined and hence how it is diagnosed. Certainly, a lot of kids meet diagnostic criteria now, who would never have been diagnosed as autistic thirty years ago. Or maybe even twenty years ago. We have been told that difficult child 1 does not have Asperger's. But we have been told that he does. Similarly, we were told that BOTH boys were retarded. Then later testing showed they are actually both extremely intelligent.
it's all very subjective, and therefore NOT scientific.
Now let's look at legal guidelines. We so often see a gap between a legal definition and a medical one. I like to read forensic records and similar true stories and this keeps cropping up - a person might be classified as medically insane, but considered legally sane. The definition of legal insanity in years past has been connected to the M'Naghten Rule, which stated that if the person knew at the time of committing the crime that what they did was wrong, then they were legally sane at the time of committing the crime. Now apply that rule to Hannibal Lecter (a fictional character). Dr Lecter was locked up in a prison for the criminally insane, and yet by his actions (trying to hide the evidence of his crime) he showed that he knew that what he did was wrong, he just went ahead and did it anyway. Medically insane, legally sane.
A gap between medicine and the law.
There are other cases I won't go into, but many legal cases end with the defendant going to prison instead of getting medical help, because at some level their actions indicated that they knew society would not approve; hence they are judged to be legally sane, and locked away for life instead of getting treatment.
Or a murderer will be found legally sane at time of committing the offence, but the state can't execute someone who is insane at the time of execution (which is a medical definition at that time) so they are found guilty, sentenced to death - then they can't be executed, they must be treated and if they ever recover their sanity, THEN they get executed.
When the law and medicine clash, some really silly things can happen.
Similarly, the law can decide certain things even if it flies in the face of scientific reason. Charlie Chaplin was found legally to be the father of a certain young actress's baby, even though medically it was proven (by blood tests) that he wasn't the father. The law decided, and he paid up.
This case - I don't know much about it, but from what I know of the legal system, such a judgement can happen even if scientifically the jury is still out.
So don't get your hopes up, either for an explanation or a payout. I think both will be a long time coming.
As for what is in medications and immunisations - you can always find out. The information isn't freely available, it's true, but it does exist. No drug can be released (at least in the US & Australia, and a lot of other countries) without stringent testing to prove it will do what it says it will do, without causing harm which is not also identified in the testing. And even then, there have to be decisions made by various government bodies as to whether to allow it or not, and under what conditions. Thalidomide is still being made and sold, but now it is clearly directed so it cannot be given to a pregnant woman. It's a useful drug in other ways.
The governing bodies are given a list of exactly what is in each product they pass, including the inert ingredients. A lot of those inert ingredients are there as part of the labelling system, to make it unique (such as colour, shape, etc). Others are there as carriers or preservative.
With immunisations, the preservative thimerosal (called thiomersal in Australia) was sometimes used, once upon a time. It is this preservative that was once considered to be a possible culprit for autism developing as a result of immunisations. I understand that this has now fairly conclusively been declared to NOT be at fault. I don't know about the US, but when I did some digging I found that thiomersal has not been used in Australian immunisations for decades now; certainly my kids never received it. And it's unusual for Australia to chuck something out if you guys in the US are still using it. We got stuck with DDT and 2,4,5 T for years (decades) after they were banned in the US. In fact, US companies happily kept manufacturing them so they could see it to Australia (and other countries). A few Sydney councils, notably Blue Mountains, bought US war surplus 2,4,5 T (Agent Orange) after the Vietnam War to use in city streets. One idiot councillor said, "It's perfectly safe, I could drink a glassful."
This was possible again, due to the gap in what is medically (or scientifically) understood, and what is legally.
If this girl is getting money to help pay for her needs, then I'm happy for her. But if I were her parents, I'd be putting expensive plans on hold until well after the appeal.
Marg
