Moreover, there is a larger problem afoot with these moms out there. If it is printed, they believe it, more now than ever, which is interesting. Also, there is a fanatacism that is driving all of this. Due to the culture of instantaneous information, the helicoptering of parenting is rapidly jumping off the edge of the societal cliff, so to speak.

About a month ago, I met a woman from a local parenting forum whose daughter was diagnosed with Autism. Of course, the initiating event was immediately after the MMR. A combination of fairytales, hype and guilt has taken this mother to the very edge of her sanity. You can’t speak rationally to her. She believes the vaccines are to blame because she wants to believe it so badly so that there is something to blame. The desperation out there is what is creating a bandwagon effect, which is propelling the movement into a paranoia and ignorance that cannot seemingly be controlled by evidentiary proof. This mother has just joined the Omnibus as a plaintiff.

However, she herself told me that she has Immunodeficiency Disorder. She thinks her other son, who is a teenager, is learning disabled. She further stated, in our discussions, that her daughter wasn’t progressing normally before the event that took place subsequent to administration of the MMR.

How much more first hand observation do you need that there was something there? Yet, despite this knowledge, she is convinced that, had it not been for the MMR, her daughter would be completely normal.

It is clear to me that emotion is overtaking reason on this topic. The parents behind the ‘noise’ need to have their grief and guilt relieved, because it cannot be accepted that nature and mutation have their way with us at their whim.

Now, go find some real evidence that the DTaP vaccine is riskier than pertussis (over 69 babied died from pertussis in the last three years of complete data), diphtheria and tetanus.

Real documentation does NOT include news reports, blog entries, videos, books, and anything that has not gone through a peer reveiw. Usually they are indexed at http://www.pubmed.gov .

The 2 articles that you cite are from random news sites ‘Detroit Action News’ and ‘the Philadelphia Bulletin’. The reporters are also clearly not science journalists. So why should we trust their opinion over the medical and scientific consensus?

The simple answer is we shouldn’t.

Those articles are all guilty of the very problems Dr. Novella discussed in this and previous articles. In particular the first article is quite unashamedly trotting out famous figures with no scientific background and quoting their statements as if their personal conclusions must be considered. What does what John McCain, Jenny McCarthy or Jim Carrey think have to do with the evidence? They are not famous for being medical researchers or for their ability to assess scientific research. Quoting their opinions as if they are particularly significant would be the equivalent of quoting Eminem’s opinion in a discussion on the evidence for evolution.

Both reports are full of shoddy reporting. The first one for instance summarises the Hannah Poling case as “the government concession of a vaccine-Autism link in the first of 5,000 such cases pending gives hope to other claimants”. This is clearly a misrepresentation of the outcome. See Dr. Novella’s article for more details. The second report also admits all the points Dr. Novella highlighted i.e. that vaccines are not made from aborted fetuses but derived from a cell line derived from an aborted fetus over 40 years ago!

It’s good that your just ‘putting the info out there’ because if you were arguing that the reports you cited were convincing you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

Maybe you might be checking out a different set of vaccines, but either way, HCN, just because you say something is a credible source does not necessarily mean it is credible. The same goes for me and Novella. However, since you say that it has been removed from vaccines, I’ll just put this link out of a report from WXYZ-Detroit where it is still in 11 vaccines given to children, and moms who look at the package insert still find it there. Now maybe they were being paid off by the anti-vaccine advocacy organizations, who knows, right? But…just putting the info out here.

http://www.wxyz.com/content/news/investigators/story.aspx?content_id=599da2da-f75e-4844-952e-1241f33b57fd

And the material in vaccines being grown on aborted fetal tissue, at least according to the Philadelphia Bulletin is still quite here.

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19849224&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

I don’t even mean to convince anybody, because I know it’d be too much work. I still wouldn’t vaccinate my child though. But just read everything Doc Novella says, and these links I’ve posted together and make your decision off that.

Of course I have had my own children vaccinated.

Thimerosal is still in some flu vaccines. But – these are not part of the routine schedule. They are optional.

Also, even if a child received a flu vaccine with thimerosal every year – they would still be getting much less than prior to the removal of thimerosal from the routine schedule. The point is – the dramatic decrease in thimerosal exposure was not followed (now 6 years) later by a decrease in autism. This lack of association is strong evidence against any causal relationship. That is the point that you and other anti-vaccinationists keep missing.

I stated quite clearly why I disclosed my experience. Exactly how is my “tone” authoritative? This is a dismissive question. I never cite my own authority. I simply interpret and relay the evidence and the consensus of opinion.

Regarding your false claim that “Aborted fetal tissue is also an ingredient in vaccines”, David Gorski already addressed this one over at SBM:

“…there’s also a love of harping on “aborted fetuses,” as though vaccines were somehow made from aborted fetal tissue. The reality is far less dramatic. For some vaccines, viruses are grown in a cell line derived from an aborted fetus nearly 45 years ago and maintained continuously in cell culture since. (Some antivaccinationists do know this, but they like to try to tap into religious objections to abortion by playing this gambit.)”