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May 13th, 2008
10:48 AM ET
Vaccines and autism
Last week, I sat down with Dr. Bernadine Healy at CNN's Women's Health Summit in New York City. She is a remarkable person who has been the "first" at many things, including the first woman to head the National Institutes of Health. We talked about many things, including the persistent brain fog patients and their doctors have when it comes to heart disease and women. Everyone should know that heart disease is the biggest killer of women; in fact heart disease kills ten times as many women as breast cancer. What I wanted to blog about today, though, is her response to a question I asked about autism. She had written a column about the topic in U.S. News and World Report and told me she believes the link between vaccines and autism is "biologically plausible." Of course, that spurred several more questions from me (click here to watch). Healy went on to say that many in the scientific world have been quick to dismiss the concerns of parents and have not conducted the necessary studies of causation to definitively rule out a vaccine/autism link. Healy's comments have become a lightning rod in the medical community – with an infectious disease expert with the American Academy of Pediatrics calling CNN twice yesterday to express concern parents will misconstrue Healy's comments and stop get their kids vaccinated – and that vaccines save lives. Wow. We had to take a moment at the summit, where I reminded the doctor that her comments seemed to fly in the face of most of her former colleagues at the NIH, and the CDC, FDA, and AAP for that matter. She is sticking to her guns, as is the neurologist father of Hannah Poling, who believes when the vaccine court awarded his daughter Hannah compensation, it was a milestone in this debate. Neither are anti-vaccine, and both are arguably legitimate scientists.
I have said over and over again that I was going to keep digging into this issue. What is happening here? For the record, I have had both my girls vaccinated on schedule, but I am curious - what do comments like Healy's say to parents and scientists? Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation. |
  About this blog
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love. Recent Comments
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By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
chirag – "When" I have a heart attack? It really is funny to me that your rhetoric includes words such as "ethical." What is not ethical is intimidating people into vaccinating their children and twisting the truth and facts to make them believe vaccines are required. What is not ethical is injecting a flood of poisons and toxins from the vaccines into an undeveloped immune system of a newborn. Thimerosal is only on piece of the puzzle. There are other toxins in vaccines, like formaldehyde and aluminum. Aluminimum is widely used in vaccines and is a known neurotoxin. Do you think this is disputable? What happened to "First, do no harm?"
And for your information, thimerosal is still used in vaccines today, other than the flu vaccine. All it takes is a little research to find the package inserts, like here: http://www.vaccineshoppe.com/US_PDF/ActHIB_5122_08.03.06.pdf.
http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/package_inserts.htm has a good list of package inserts for various vaccines.
The words you use to describe the certain disasters of not vaccinating are well placed, and they are all too common by vaccine proponents to scare people. You use words such as "deadly" or "debilitating" to describe the terrible side effects of “Vaccine preventable diseases”. Why is it that people in favor of vaccines, such as yourself, do not discuss the "deadly" or "debilitating" side effects of receiving a vaccine that in no way is a guarantee of not getting xyz disease? As for control groups, I don't think it would be accurate to compare children of developing countries to children of this country. Developing countries do not have the sanitation, cleanliness, and hygiene of this country. These are key factors to the decline of diseases, not vaccines.
Don't get me wrong, my opposition to vaccines does not mean that I don't think drugs are beneficial and life saving when used properly. But trusting the FDA to ensure the safety of these drugs is a joke. My faith goes away when FDA members sit on the Boards of the very pharma companies whose drugs they approve. I lose trust in the FDA when it allows for the deception of labeling of Trans Fat as 0g, despite the fact that hydrogenated oils are listed on the ingredient list and in spite of the fact that the Institue of Medicine says that there is no safe level of trans fat in the diet. By the way, I don't eat trans fat so I can mark that off of the list of possible causes for my pending heart attack.
A Reveur: what do you mean coincidence doesn't mean cause. coincidence is ruled out when the numbers go from 1 and 10,000 to 1 and 150. That's not coincidence, that's genocide.
Michael Melgar: the references listed are nothing more than distorted under researched biased opinions. I'm not sure why everyone is acting like the U.S has a wonderful track record in health and medicine. These are the same people that injected syphillis into black men during the Tuskegee Experiment. The same people (Merk) that put a pill out on the market a few years back that did absolutely nothing. It was used to raise profits! These are the same people that have yet linked AIDS to a viable source (you don't even want hear my thoughts on that). The same people that have only come up with "treatments" for diseases and no cures in over 50 years! And lastly, these are the same people that come up with diseases like lazy leg syndrom which have never been issues in America before. It's truly sad how corupt and decietful this industry is. WAKE UP AMERICA!
A Reveur is right.Just, that it is not genetic either or due to environmental
It is critical that health care providers consider the impact of collective environmental exposures and their negative impacts on human health. Incomplete data does not mean safe.
Bill Couzens Founder, Lesscancer.org
Dr. Stephanie Cave testified before the the Committee on Government Reform in the U.S. House of Representatives and Congressman Dan Burton July 18, 2000 regarding the link between Mercury and Autism. Burton, who has an autistic grandson, has held several hearings since then on vaccine safety and more information and documents about the government knowing about the risks of thimerosal are being uncovered. Through the Freedom of Information Act, SafeMinds recently recovered the transcripts of the "Simpsonwood Meeting" in which doctors from the CDC and FDA appear to be very aware of research showing links between Thimerosal in Vaccines and neurological disorders, but agree not to acknowledge it. Now a new University of Pittsburgh study with primates – the kind of research Dr. Healy says we need to do to show causality – indicates that Rhesus monkeys given thimerosal in doses equivalent to those received in childhood vaccinations developed symptoms of autism. Transcripts of all of the above as well as Healy's CBS interview can be found on the Healing Arts website at:
http://www.healing-arts.org/children/mercury_in_vaccines_autism_research/thimerosalinvaccinationslink.htm
It seems these doctors are acknowledging there could be a link between vaccines and autism. However, just because there could be a connection there does not mean that children should not be given their vaccinations. I do think it is very possible that something in the vaccines may trigger the onset of autism in someone genetically predisposed to it. With that said, the benefits of the vaccines, I think, far outweigh the potential of developing autism. As one of the previous posters said, parents should definitely consult their family histories. And parents may also want to consider spacing out the vaccines, so their children still get them but they are spaced out a bit more than the current vaccination schedule. There is a really great debate about the vaccines and autism subject at http://www.opposingviews.com/questions/are-autism-and-vaccines-linked Experts from both sides debate the issue and make some thought-provoking point. Great read on the subject!
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