Vaccines and Autism?

Question

My sister is having her first child (baby boy due 6/2 very excited!!). Her co-worker who has a autistic 3 year old boy has said her sons vaccinations were the cause of autism and that the chances of this happening are greater in baby boys. She told my sister not to get the baby vaccinated untill he is older. Has anyone heard this before? Is this a fact? Should she wait?

Answer 1

go to thinktwice.com

Answer 2

Really it is up to the parent. I, too, battled with the vaccination thing while I was pregnant. I have a nephew who is autistic, so my husband and I thought long and hard about vaccines. It was discovered a few years ago that my nephew had very high levels of mercury and other metals in his body, which I'm told is a characteristic of autism, and I'm also told there is a link between those metals and vaccines. Yeah, there's also some other weird stuff in them (a previous poster mentioned some)... For me, I did a LOT of reading online. It came down to a personal preference and "feeling" for my husband and I - we weighed what we felt were the risks... I just found it rather odd that as Americans, everything we consume (food, medicine, etc.) is required to have a label that lists the ingredients in the item... Why is it that parents are not given a "list of ingredients" for the vaccines that their children are going to receive??? I personally think that vaccines have done so much good, but I also feel that they do harm... SO - all that to say, my husband and I have decided to NOT vaccinate our son (or our future children), and that they may make the decision when they are old enough to understand it themselves (or when they are 18 or something, we haven't fully decided - we'll know when we get to that point). We just read a LOT of scary stuff about vaccines, so we just don't feel comfortable. The government makes it seem like vaccines are a requirement, but legally they can't make it that way - most states have a way you can opt out (like religious beliefs, etc.) if your sister so chooses. Anyway, congrats for your sister and also for you becoming an aunt. I hope that whatever she chooses works out for her and that she has good vibes about her choice.

Answer 3

Autism is 4 times more likely in boys than girls. But before you get too scared, you should know the stats are misleading. When people hear "autism" they think of people like "Rainman." Most people on the autism spectrum are much higher functioning than him. (Except for counting cards - that is just Hollywood fiction) Many believe Bill Gates has Asperger's. And I bet you a big portion of engineers & computer programers are high functioning autism.

While the vaccination scare is unsubstantiated, I would still agree that it is OK to err on the side of caution & delay giving a baby the shots (unless a baby is exposed to many unvaccinated people). I think the standard vaccination schedule is too aggressive. Many of the shots are combination shots. Some can be divided & given on different days so it is less of a shock to a child's system.

But I have a portrait of a 4 year old girl (my grandfather's sister) who died in 1914 of diptheria, unheard of in these days due to vaccinations. So I would not skip shots, just postpone them until the child is more developed.

Answer 4

It isn't a fact, but it hasn't been completely disproven either. A recent study "proved" that thermisol doesn't cause autism. That of course means that if vaccines cause autism nothing has been done to fix the problem.

Personally after much researc h into vaccinations, particularly what they do in other countries and their rates of autism, SIDS, allergies, and death of infants from vaccine preventable illness I decided that I will not do any vaccines until age two. And even then I will think long and hard on which ones are necessary.

Answer 5

I don't know if vaccines cause asd, but I do know that my daughter got an MMR at 15 months old and began to have seizures. She lost her speech as well. She was diagnosed with ASD later. (1 in 3 people with ASD have epilepsy). I do know for sure that she was different before the vaccine. Government science or not, it can't take away what I know for sure she was before and after that vax. Maybe a coincidence, maybe not? I am not anti-vaccine, but I would be very selective of which vaccines I'd allow and I'd greatly extend the schedule to be safe.

Answer 6

You should check out these sites:

www.shotinthedark.com
www.thinktwice.com

You'll then see where the non-vaxing parents fears are stemed from.

One must wonder....if some of these so-called vaccine prevented diseases are re-occuring, I would question the efficacy of the vaccines themselves. There is much more to worry about on the vaccine ingredient list then just Thimerisol. Things like aborted human fetal tissues, chicken embryo tissues, formeldahyde and so on. Not all of the aforementioned are in every vaccine, they're all different, and all require different stems from which to cultivate the disease itself.

For me, I believe very strongly that my childrens healthy un-vaccinated bodies can better withstand a case of the mumps then they could withstand a hard-core dose of known human-carcinogens injected directly into their bloodstreams.
I too know of an old friend who's daughter turned into a non-verbal screamer days after her MMR shots ( she was a great talker before...). I also have another dear friend who's baby died of "SIDS" 4 days after his 2mo shots...

Answer 7

There's no strong correlation between vaccinations and autism. In any case, most or even all of the vaccines do not contain thimerosol anymore (which is what people suspect causes autism). I have all the vaccinations done for DD, including optional ones. I would lean towards vaccination, as the risk of getting a disease increases with no vaccination. And these are preventable diseases too.

Answer 8

Vaccines do not cause autism. Your sister should find a pediatrician she trusts and work out a vaccination schedule according to the doctors recommendations.

Answer 9

I have heard this. There may be some validity to it... but realistically, I don't think it's a safe practice to not vaccinate kids. Especially in this day and age when things like small pox and such are popping up again...

I think your sister should sit down with an expert on both sides of this argument and then make the decision for herself.

Good luck and congratulations on becoming an Auntie.

Answer 10

There is a theory (rumor, really) that the low-levels of mercury in some vaccines cause children to develop autism. However, there is no credible research proving that there is a link. As of right now, we don't know what causes autism. If it were true that vaccines cause problems, doctors wouldn't give them.

Only 1 in 166 children is diagnosed with autism; the baby's risk of developing life threatening diseases if not vaccinated is much higher than that. In most places, the child will have to have his shots in order to be enrolled in school, anyway.

Also, autism in general occurs at a much higher rate among boys. They are not sure why, but for some reason more boys have autism than girls. That's not to say that girls cannot develop it, but they do so at a much lower rate.

If I were your sister, I'd be much more worried about my baby developing childhood illnesses than autism. Tell her not to worry too much, and to take her doctor's advice regarding her child's vaccinations.

Answer 11

No Scientific Proof-Period.