Comments on: And now the antivaxxers’ humiliation is complete

By: Felicia Sease

Felicia Sease — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:11:28 +0000

REALLY? That two year old boy from Indonesia who smokes forty cigarettes is CRAZY. Someone needs to kick his folks a few times, or just throw them into the nearest large body of water. I saw the video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TOtoVEJSTU

By: Melinda Gallup

Melinda Gallup — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:14:16 +0000

I’ve never smoked it. Neither has my husband. Our son has autism, my husband has Asperger’s. My husband’s parents didn’t smoke it either.
We are vegan and eat all organic foods, are non-smokers, and we don’t drink alcohol.

By: Melinda Gallup

Melinda Gallup — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:02:54 +0000

Yes, our governments are lying to us. They want everyone in the world to be autistic (actually, autistics are pretty awesome- I’m married to one, and we have a son who is autistic, not to mention my many friends who are on the spectrum as well…). No, there’s no possible way that any of the scientists, doctors, researchers, and people in the government have a child with autism. Nope. That could never happen, and that’s why they are lying to all of us about vaccines!
Sheesh! Honestly, these anti-vaccine people need a reality check! They are mad that their child/children didn’t turn out to be who they thought they would be, and they need to blame someone or something. I feel bad for them. They cannot accept reality, and it’s their unvaccinated children who will suffer because of their parents’ stupidity.
The United States needs to include not vaccinating a child as neglect and child endangerment. These people are putting their children in harms way, leaving them vulnerable to deadly infectious diseases. You wouldn’t leave your child alone with a convicted sex offender. You wouldn’t let your child play with fire and gasoline. You wouldn’t leave your young child home alone. You wouldn’t allow your preschooler, kindergartner, or toddler walk home alone. You wouldn’t do these things because it puts them at risk. So why would you not vaccinate your child when ALL of the evidence shows that vaccines do NOT cause autism?? What kind of an idiot parent would do that? I’ll tell you what parents would- the kind who do not deserve to be parents.

I am the mom of a little boy who has autism. We believed the scare and didn’t have our son vaccinated until he 2 years old. He was clearly autistic by 18 months old, even though he showed signs since birth. When it was clear that he was autistic, we had him vaccinated. I’m glad we did. He is now current on vaccines.

By: Niall

Niall — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:58:32 +0000

The retraction by the Lancet serves very little in the grand scheme of things. For us Skeptics we already knew the paper was flawed, for the anti-vaxxers it just goes down as another big Pharma conspiracy. What the retraction does do is once again highlight the issue and better inform people stuck in the middle ground.

Engaging with anti-vax advocates such as Dreamer and Deprogrammer (as enticing as it seems to hit them with hard facts) also serves very little. They are the textbook definition of an Ideologue and I doubt any amount of good empirical science will sway them from their delusional state.

By: godlizard

godlizard — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:51:38 +0000

Oddly enough, a study was released today linking maternal age with autism — with mothers at or around age 40 having a much higher incidence. I’ve not read enough of it to say whether or not their methodology was solid, but if it is, it would go a long way towards explaining the increases, women have been putting off babies for career for the past three or four decades, since the “womens liberation movement” — and it’s logical, because it’s a well-documented fact that birth defects and complications rise with age.

Let’s face it, whether you’re a pot smoker or not, plenty of environmental factors can cause chromosomal damage — and the older you are, the more damaged your zygotes are bound to be.

(oh, and @Brian, the study did indicate that older parents are more likely to have the resources and education to identify and seek diagnosis — and cited that a possible factor)

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:13:27 +0000

So have the autism rates been normalized against the increase in our ability to diagnose it?

By: owen

owen — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:49:12 +0000

Actually, for many modern vaccines, an adjuvant is necessary to produce a protective response. Originally vaccines were whole killed or attenuated organisms. Beginning with the Hepatitis B vaccine as the (I believe) first genetically enginered sub-unit vaccine, vaccine manufactures began to try to focus on developing vaccines that were immunostimulatory while reducing antigens that produced uwanted side effects. Unfortunately, reducing the number of antigens necessarily reduces the immune response. Microgram per microgram, an unadjuvanted sub-unit vacine is unlikely to produce as much of an immune response as a whole vaccine. There is a dose response, but often even large doses do not produce protective levels of antibodies and or cellular immunity. So they are adjuvanted. MF59 was initially developed and tested sometime around 1989 as a modern adjuvant to suport modern vaccines.

By: rustle

rustle — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:00:03 +0000

I thought it was Skepticblog’s policy not to allow extensive cut-n-paste in the comment’s section? Or am I wrong on that point?
http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/thimerosal.php

By: kabol

kabol — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:12:38 +0000

i’m not ronald reagan either, obv.

or maybe i AM….i am the ghost of….oh crap, look out — it’s pablo escobar! he’s trying to fight me for internet time! ::wrastle::

well — where was i?

By: kabol

kabol — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:08:57 +0000

i’m not feeling all that victorious, actually.

maybe if someone had a clue as to what WAS causing so many cases of autism in children these days i’d feel more celebratory.

oddly enough, i always come back to my own little notion of long term marijuana use in one or both of the parents. but i’m not a scientist or anything.