Vaccines and Brain Disorders

Vaccines and Brain Disorders

Michael Arnold Glueck & Robert J. Cihak, The Medicine Men
Monday, July 16, 2007

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The U.S. autism rate is 1 in 150 children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Is there a link between childhood vaccines and autism? The pendulum keeps swinging in opposite directions as this skin wrenching emotional and scientific national debate continues.

In the meantime, we continue to play risky "cocktail" roulette with the health of our children.

Generation Rescue commissioned SurveyUSA, an independent opinion research team, to interview parents in nine counties in California and Oregon.

Methodology closely mirrored that used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish the national prevalence for neurological disorders such as "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," "Attention Deficit Disorder," "Asperger's Syndrome," "Pervasive Development Disorder," "Not Otherwise Specified," or "Autism."

Roll Call, a leading publication for congressional news and information, recently drew attention to this survey that showed vaccinated boys had a 2.5 times higher risk of neurological disorders than unvaccinated boys, and calling for a national study to explore these disturbing results.

Based on interviews of 11,817 households, involving 17,674 children aged 417, the data showed:

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Vaccinated boys, compared with unvaccinated boys, were 155 percent more likely to have a neurological disorder (relative risk RR 2.55), 224 percent more likely to have ADHD (RR 3.24, and 61 percent more likely to have autism (RR 1.61).

All vaccinated boys and girls, compared with unvaccinated children, were 120 percent more likely to have asthma (RR 2.20).

Comments J.B. Handley of Generation Rescue, "For less than $200,000, we were able to complete a study that the CDC, with an $8 billion a year budget, has been unable or unwilling to do. We think the results of our survey lend credibility to the urgent need to do a larger scale study to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children for neuro developmental outcomes."

At a press conference in summer 2005, Dan Olmsted of United Press International asked CDC Director Julie Geberding whether the government has ever looked at autism rates in the unvaccinated population.

She responded, "In this country, we have very high levels of vaccination . . . and I think this year we have record immunization levels among all of our children, so to (select an unvaccinated group) on a population basis that would be representative to look at incidence in that population compared to the other population would be something that could be done . . ."

"Listening to the CDC talk about the reliability of parent reporting, we thought there's a quick way to get a proxy for whether or not there's any truth to the hypotheses that vaccines and all these neurological disorders are related," Handley said.

His organization believes that mercury, including a type used for decades in routine childhood immunizations (the preservative thiomerosol) is a major factor in the 10-fold increase in reported autism cases over the past 20 years.

The anxiety that vaccines are linked to the rise of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders has been largely dismissed by public health officials and mainstream medical groups — especially since a 2004 report by the respected Institute of Medicine found no such evidence — and suggested research money go to more "promising" areas.

Affected parents, some of whom say they watched their children regress into autism immediately following physical reactions to vaccines, have continued to press the issue.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., has re-introduced a bill to compel the National Institutes of Health to do a study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations (Dan Olmsted, Science Daily 6/26/07).

"Generation Rescue's study is impressive and forcefully raises some serious questions about the relationship between vaccines and autism," Maloney said.

"What is ultimately needed to resolve this issue one way or the other is a comprehensive national study of vaccinated and unvaccinated children. The parents behind Generation Rescue only want information. These parents deserve more than roadblocks; they deserve answers. We can and should move forward in search of those answers."

To which the Medicine Men add an emphatic, what are we waiting for?

Editor's Note: Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., penned this week's column and thanks Jane Orient, M.D., who contributed to this article.

Contact Drs. Glueck and Cihak by e-mail.

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., comments on medical-legal issues and is a visiting fellow in economics and citizenship at the International Trade Education Foundation of the Washington International Trade Council.

Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a senior fellow and board member of the Discovery Institute and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

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