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VACCINES

Vaccines are safe, effective, and do not cause autism. This part of the doc is entirely credited to Unmastered, who has a Wordpress here. For convenience, you can cite all this stuff with this doc.

In light of all of the debate about COVID vaccines, it’s important to note that this section doesn’t talk about the COVID vaccine. We’ll get to that eventually but we’re lazy and there’s a LOT of ground to cover regarding that specific topic.

Vaccines are Good

Vaccines are safe and effective at protecting against infectious diseases. Refusal or failure to vaccinate leads to outbreaks and endangers the lives of children.

Pietrantonj 20
- MASSIVE systematic review of the effectiveness, safety, and long-and-short term risks associated with MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine
- Included 138 studies (over 23 MILLION participants) and found that children who received all three doses of MMR were 96% protected from measles and also 96% of preventing further spread
- There was evidence of an association between MMR vaccine and a small risk of idiopathic thrombocytopaenic purpura (ITP). However, the risk is TWICE as high if infected with MMR.
- Reporters followed 13 million children who received the vaccine–found NO association between MMR vaccine and autism
Schiller 12
- Overview of clinical trial results of two Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines.
- Found both vaccines are HIGHLY effective at producing an immune response in preventing anogenital infection
- BOTH vaccines were found to be extremely safe with risk of serious adverse effects related to the vaccine low and similar to the control group.
Guo 18
- A cross-sectional study that compared the 4-year average annual incidence rates of cervical cancer in the 4 years before the HPV vaccine was introduced (2003-2006) and the 4 most recent years in the vaccine era (2011-2014).
- In 2011-2014, incidence rates for cervical cancer were 29% lower than that in 2003-2006.
- “A significant decrease in the incidence of cervical cancer among young females after the introduction of human papillomavirus vaccine may indicate early effects of human papillomavirus vaccination.”
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/pert.html
- Finds that incidence of pertussis (whooping cough) has seen an 80% decline since the introduction of the DTP vaccine in the 1940s
Panhuis et al. 13
- Study that digitized all weekly surveillance reports of notifiable diseases for U.S. cities and states published between 1888 and 2011.
  - Consists of nearly 88 MILLION reported individual cases
  - Selected eight vaccine-preventable contagious diseases
  - Estimated number of cases prevented since vaccine introduction for seven of the eight diseases selected (there was no data on pre-smallpox cases-vaccination era).
- “Assuming that the difference between prevaccine and vaccine disease incidence rates was attributable solely to vaccination programs, we estimate that a total of 103.1 million cases of these contagious diseases have been prevented since 1924.”
- It is reasonable to assert that these are conservative estimates due to underreporting which was far more prevalent decades ago.
Gahr et al. 11
- Investigated the 2011 measles outbreak in Minnesota.
- Found the source to be a 30-month-old US-born child of Somali descent infected while visiting Kenya
- The disease spread to the Somali and non-Somali population mostly through the unvaccinated
  - 21 cases identified. 16 of 21 (76%) case-patients were unvaccinated
  - 9 of the 16 were age-eligible for the vaccine but unvaccinated, 7 because of safety concerns about the MMR vaccine causing autism.
  - Three case-patients had unknown vaccination status
- Other contributing factors included exposure to infants too young for the MMR vaccine
- Two-thirds of the cases in this outbreak were hospitalized for respiratory complications.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/outbreaks-among-somali-immigrants-in-minnesota-thanks-for-the-measles-again-andy/
- Graph showing the declining immunization rates among Minnesota-born children of Somali descent.
- A small survey found that Somali parents in Minnesota were significantly more likely to believe autism is caused by vaccines
Anti Vaccine misinformation was spread heavily in Minnesota by anti vaccine groups like the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota among Somali parents which led to this spike in vaccine refusal and ultimately resulted in outbreaks.

Vaccines do not Cause Autism or SIDS

This misinformation has been spread largely by “Anti-Vaxxers” and discredited papers. These claims too often rely on confusing correlation with causation, or have other issues with them.

Autism:

A list of institutions that have reviewed evidence from all the studies and have all concluded that vaccines DO NOT cause autism or ASD.
- Institute of Medicine
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
- The American Academy of Pediatrics.
This vaccine-autism claim can be traced back to a study by Andrew Wakefield, but his study had a lot of issues
- Published a study in 1998 with 11 co-authors claiming to find a correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism
- The study did not stand the test of time and the results could not be replicated
- 10 of the 12 authors have since retracted their support and the Journal Lancet retracted the paper in 2004.
- Andrew Wakefield has been the subject of ethics investigation by the General Medical Council for conflicts of interest in the 1998 paper
  - Wakefield was being paid as an expert by trial lawyers interested in suing Vaccine Manufacturers over alleged injuries. Some of the children used in the study were children of the parents who were suing.
  - The General Medical Council in the UK stripped Wakefield of his medical license for research misconduct.
The 2014 documentary VAXXED also attempted to support Wakefield’s claims that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism
- VAXXED covers William Thompson who became known as a “CDC whistleblower” for alleging scientific misconduct at the CDC.
- Thompson co-authored a CDC study in 2004 that failed to find a link between MMR vaccine and autism.
- Thompson’s CDC allegations were used, by anti-vaccine activist Brian Hooker, to support the claim that the CDC “covered up” data that showed evidence of an increased risk of autism among African American boys who received their first MMR Vaccine before 36 months.
- There is NO evidence that the CDC committed fraud.
  - The only thing Thompson mentions is a scientific disagreement over what data to publish in the CDC’s 2004 paper.
- The CDC did not hide any data from the public.
  - The data set used by the CDC in the 2004 paper has always been available to qualified researchers.
- The CDC did NOT cover up a finding that MMR Vaccine is linked to autism.
  - The CDC released a population-based study in Atlanta in 2004.
  - The study looked at children with autism and children who did not have autism, then looked at the age of the MMR vaccine was given to see if children who had autism were more likely to have been vaccinated at a certain age than those who did not.
  - No association was found but it did find that children who had autism were more likely to have been vaccinated later than 24 months but before 36 months than those who did not.
  - Further information was gathered from all study subjects who had Georgia birth certificates to see if there were any factors that could explain this finding (birth-weight, parents’ age, mother’s education level etc.).
  - After controlling for those factors, the anomaly disappeared meaning there was no link found between MMR vaccine and autism.
  - The researchers argued that any higher likelihood of children with Autism having received the MMR vaccine was likely due to immunization requirements for special education preschool.
- The CDC did not use birth certificates to intentionally exclude African Americans.
  - Anti-vaccine activists claimed that the CDC only required birth certificates for African Americans in the study so they could be excluded from the birth certificate subgroup analysis.
  - This was supposed to show that the CDC wanted to cover up a link between MMR vaccine and autism in African American boys.
  - However, the researchers used birth certificates for all the children in the study. Image below is from the study.
Hooker 14
- A re-analysis of the 2004 CDC study by Brian Hooker concluded that African American boys who received the MMR vaccine between 24 and 36 months were at a 3-fold increased risk for autism. Found no association for any other group.
- BAD MODELS, BAD STUDY - used statistical models that didn’t account for factors other than the MMR vaccine that could skew the results.
  - Finding a three-fold increased risk at 36 months is not surprising because autism is usually diagnosed by the time a child is 36 months. The 2004 CDC study used models to account for age. This study did NOT.
  - Used the same CDC dataset but used a different study design. This is likely to introduce errors into the analysis.
- LIMITED DATASET - After excluding low-birth weight infants, the timeline had to be modified from a 36 month cut-off to 31 months because there were LESS THAN 5 people in this group.
  - This was likely a very SMALL subgroup and the number of children used in the analysis is UNKNOWN.
- The study has since been retracted due to undeclared conflicts of interest and invalid statistics and methods.
Jain et al. 15
- Retrospective cohort study involving 95,727 children with older siblings with and without autism
- “In this large sample of privately insured children with older siblings, receipt of the MMR vaccine was not associated with increased risk of ASD, regardless of whether older siblings had ASD. These findings indicate no harmful association between MMR vaccine receipt and ASD even among children already at higher risk for ASD.”
Yota Uno et al. 15
- A case-control study investigating the relationship between the risk of autism and early exposure to the combined MMR vaccine and thimerosal consumption
- There were NO significant differences in MMR vaccination and thimerosal dosage between cases and controls AT ANY AGE.
- “NO convincing evidence was found in this study that MMR vaccination and increasing thimerosal dose were associated with and increased risk of ASD onset.”
Taylor et al. 14
- Meta-analysis assessing the relationship between vaccine administration and the subsequent development of Autism or ASD.
- Included in the analysis were five cohort studies involving over 1 MILLION children and five case-control studies involving 9,920 children.
- “Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the components of the vaccines (thimerosal or mercury) or multiple vaccines (MMR) are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder.”

Other Claims about Autism:

1. “In 1986, Autism rates were 1 in 15,000 children. After the National Childhood Vaccination Injury Act of 1986, Autism rate was 1 in 10,000. Today, it is about 1 in 50.”

https://youtu.be/8Tl3tUQng9Q
This is PURE CORRELATION. No cause is implied here. The much more likely reason for the Autism rates is an increase in diagnoses.
Just because two things are happening at the same time does NOT prove a link between them, let alone a cause.

2. “Somali Americans have higher rates of autism in Minnesota than other ethnic groups so they are right to be suspicious of MMR Vaccine.”

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-016-2793-6
Found that Somali children were just AS LIKELY to be diagnosed with autism as white children
However, the study did find that Somali children with autism were more likely to have an intellectual disability than other ethnic groups.
- This, however, does NOT prove that vaccination was the cause. There have been other proposed potential causes such as Vitamin D deficiency.

SIDS:

Vennemann et al. 07
- Meta-analysis examining the relationship between immunization and SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
- Examined nine case-control studies that found either no association or found an association with a REDUCED risk of SIDS.
- “Immunisations are associated with a halving of the risk of SIDS. There are biological reasons why this association may be causal, but other factors, such as the healthy vaccine effect, may be important. Immunisations should be part of the SIDS prevention campaigns.”

Debunking Misc Anti-Vax Claims

1. “CLAIM: The components in vaccines, thimerosal (mercury) and aluminum, are not safe and lead to neurotoxicity in children.”

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/patient-ed/conversations/downloads/vacsafe-thimerosal-color-office.pdf
Thimerosal is a compound that contains mercury that is used as a preservative in certain vaccines to prevent the growth of bacteria. In 1999, the U.S public health service recommended the removal of thimerosal in childhood vaccines to reduce infant exposure to mercury. This was a PRECAUTIONARY measure. Thimerosal was never proven to be dangerous.
Thimerosal contains ethylmercury which is different from methylmercury. Methylmercury is what is found in bodies of water, fish, or other food. High amounts of methylmercury is dangerous to the nervous system.
Ethylmercury is broken down differently and quickly by the blood and exists in such low levels in vaccines as to be completely safe.
Other than the flu vaccine, Thimerosal has been removed from childhood vaccines since 2001. (Flu vaccine has a thimerosal-free dose for children)
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/adjuvants.html
Aluminum is an adjuvant which helps vaccines work better by creating a stronger immune response in people
Aluminum-containing adjuvants has been safely used in vaccines since the 1930s
Aluminum is one of the most common metals found in nature. Infants are exposed to more aluminum in breast milk or formula than from vaccines.

2. “I have never been vaccinated and neither has my child and we never got sick with any of these diseases.”

While this may be true, this is most likely because the majority of the rest of us are immunized through vaccines. In other words, the child is benefitting from Herd Immunity. This means that enough people are vaccinated around you that it makes infectious disease difficult to spread. Herd immunity is also incredibly important for children who can’t get vaccinated (those with weak immune systems).
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6740a3.htm?s_cid=mm6740a3_w
- The percentage of kindergarten age children that are vaccinated remains HIGH.
Using this as an argument against vaccines is a textbook example of the composition fallacy. This occurs when someone infers that something is true of the whole because it is true among some parts of the whole.
- If everyone didn’t vaccinate their children because a few parents’ children never got sick, herd immunity would break down and the result would be outbreaks and epidemics of infectious diseases.

3. “MMR vaccine has killed children. Disease can be deadly but so are vaccines.”

https://www.idsociety.org/public-health/measles/myths-and-facts/
There have been NO recorded deaths from the MMR vaccine.
There have been some rare cases of death from side effects of the vaccine among children with compromised immune systems. These children are also NOT recommended to get the vaccination.
The vaccine prevents THOUSANDS of death each year.

4. “The flu vaccine isn’t even effective!”

While it is true that influenza is a difficult virus to create a near perfect vaccine for because the strains quickly mutate, this does not mean that the flu vaccine is ineffective.
Still, even though the effectiveness varies year by year, it still provides protection and is safe to receive.

5. “Vaccine manufacturers are not regulated like other drugs. They can put whatever they want inside of them.”

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/infographics/journey-of-child-vaccine-h.pdf
Vaccines are held to a HIGHER standard than other pharmaceutical drugs because they are given to healthy individuals.
Vaccines typically undergo YEARS of clinical trials
The benefit-risk ratio must be shown to be exceptional.
After approval, vaccines are continually monitored for safety.

6. “Parents have the right to not vaccinate their child if they so choose.”

This is a philosophical issue that comes down to different values. I would argue parents DON’T have this right. First, this “right” would lead to endangering the lives of others and their children. In other words, public health outweighs your personal beliefs about vaccines and parental authority.

7. “Vaccines make the immune system weaker. It is better to let your body fight off diseases naturally.”

https://youtu.be/MSsVTaLkPng
While it can be true that natural infection causes better immunity than vaccines, the price paid for fighting off disease naturally can be deadly. For example, developing liver cancer from hepatitis B or death from measles.
The goal is to produce immunity. It doesn’t matter where the bacteria comes from. With vaccines, immunity is achieved without the risks associated with the virus itself.
- https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-pertussis-resurgence/
- Recent outbreaks of pertussis show that immunity from natural infection weakens over time too (4-20 years).

8. “The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out billions of dollars to Americans who have been damaged by vaccines.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/health/you-should-get-vaccinated.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
Out of the 21,000 people who have filed claims, about 6,600 people have been compensated over a 30 year period.
About 70% were settlements in cases where no sufficient evidence was found that the vaccine caused any injury
The CDC estimates vaccines have prevented 732,000 deaths among children in just a 20-year period.
- Even if we accept the number of people who have been compensated as those who have legitimately suffered injury from a vaccine, the lives saved greatly outweighs this risk.