Agreed. I've never bought into vaccines causing Autism. 

Unless they are causing the problems... then maybe you'd better not!!

Don't be a sheep!

@Liquid_Pain_523@xanga - For one thing, you can know results by reputation.  For instance I know several people, personally, who have children that have had bad reactions/results that could only be attributed to immunizations.  If you study it out, there is as much or more bad stories from reputable sources about immunization results as there are good.  That's not good odds in my opinion.

I wish people educated themselves before making comments or posts like this one.  The article that everyone is calling "fraud" never any once said there was a link between autism and vaccines.  If you read the actual study and results it can't be fraud because there was no link specifically found.  The patients that where in the study have medical records showing things where not made up and have never been in question.    I don't think we know that answer to what is causing autism but I do think vaccines can play a part and that has already been proven.  The cdc and the government have already admitted that yes it certain cases, although a smaller amount, the vaccines where proven to have caused their autism and they received money from the government. 

Um... You have no proof that it's NOT vaccines. It could be SO many things. Vaccines do a lot of things. I'm educated on my own disease. Which is autoimmune, Narcolepsy and in finland they had to pull a H1N1 vaccine from the market, because 37 children, compared to 3 in recent years developed narcolepsy. All of them received the H1N1 vaccine batch that was pulled. It could be anything. So don't sound so sure of yourself. 

okay, for your information vaccines in america CONTAIN MERCURY
and Mercury is known to cause brain neuron degeneration and to disturb the central nervous system, and many of these injections contain Thimerosal, a preservative added to the shots, made of 49% mercury.
Plus: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html read it

@tlsmom - actually, the rise in diagnoses explains it quite well.   First of all, it used to be that in order to be diagnosed with autism, one needed to meet 6 of 6 criteria, now it's 8 out of a whopping 16 potential symptoms for a diagnosis.   There are also now 5 forms of autism in the DSM, where as there used to be only 2.

additionally, it seems autism has become the more choice diagnosis: as autism diagnosis rates have gone up, diagnoses of  mental retardation and other learning disabilities have decreased at an equal rate.   It's not that there are more autistic kids than before, it's that we now know they are autistic rather than learning disabled or mentally retarded.

When the prevalence rates year by year are examined in places and across years where the diagnostic criteria have not changed there is no rise in prevalence detected.

Finally, people are more aware now, so a child exhibiting symptoms is much more likely to be taken to specialists and diagnosed than simply brushed off as strange or mentally retarded as in the past.

@xxdaydreamerxx75@xanga - Following a mob mentality is what makes one a sheep. Doing one's research and cross-referencing multiple sources is the safest and smartest course of action. The Wakefield study is a definitive outlier among other studies done on vaccines, and as such, is statistically invalid, saying nothing of its fraudulent nature.

Ah yes.....vaccines, the modern day sacred cow.  Nuf said.

@jenessa1889@xanga - Actually, if you look at the CDCs report on Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders based on the findings by the CDC Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, it finds that the average prevalence of ASDs identified among children aged 8 years increased 57% in 10 sites from the 2002 to the 2006.  The report noted that the same diagnostic criteria was used in 2002 and 2006. The changes are NOT due to differences in diagnostic criteria.
The report also indicated that increases in prevalence was NOT due to
increases in children diagnosed with PPD-NOS. That is, they found
increases in the use of pure autism diagnoses too.
So while some may still believe that it's just a matter of diagnosis criteria, the science does not back up that viewpoint. 

Haloed, you are ignorant, as are the people who believe that vaccines are not related to autism. You're citing lies as if they're fact, and you're flat out wrong.  Educate yourself.  Scence does not know enough to say vaccines are or are not related to autism. 

GO BEYOND THE MEDIA HEADLINES.

http://www.naturalnews.com/031116_Dr_Andrew_Wakefield_British_Medical_Journal.html

It's understandable that families with autistic children will be wary, even when medical evidence proves this is not true. It's of course difficult to accept the medical truth when there are a lot of other people saying things left right and centre. When you have an autistic child, I can only imagine how hard it is to ignore the possibility of damage.

That said, from a scientific point of view, this reasearch paper was a fraud. And I'm not talking about the manipulation or whatever.

Regardless of whether there is a connection or not, there is not enough evidence to make a decisive conclusion. Until evidence is surmount, without a wide range of error, then this will always be rejected. Such is the way research works to avoid messes like this. Anyone with a basic understanding in research methods and statistics could understand from the first page, that this article was not suppose to have gotten the attention it aquired.

A pilot study is one that shows potential for further research. You cannot make conclusion, especiall causal from cor relational data, especially when it's with 13 people. The amount of confounds-those other factors that effect what is being measured was astoundingly high.

But because of this, now there is suddenly an out pour of  for and against vaccinations. It's like hearing on the radio, a glass of wine a day lowers blood pressure, and people believe it. People don't get into extreme territories about it, the research continues and people believe what the media provides. What's so different here?

@xxdaydreamerxx75@xangaMaking relationships between two things is never simple, especially when its something like autism. It would be foolish to say "I know someone who had a reaction and were autistic, therefore it is bad". There are so many other variables that go into account. In the world of medicine and neurological conditions, reputation means absolutely nothing significantly.

@Liquid_Pain_523@xanga - Nice way of putting it :)

Like someone else said, it's technically correct to put the maybe until it is proven definitively that vaccines do not affect autism. While they definitely aren't the direct cause people are trying to say they are, the main group for Autism did admit that possibly getting a vaccine sets off a genetic predisposition in some people.

I don't know. All I know is I know no one who has issues with vaccines in any way. No one who's trying to blame their autism on vaccines (I have an autistic cousin) and I don't even know any of the rare people who are allergic or have other negative reactions. If vaccines were so terrible, I would know more of these people. I believe a lot of it is simply age: you get your first vaccines around the same time symptoms of autism become prominent. I think the article I read on this study being "fraud" pointed out that most of his patients that developed autism showed some signs before he studied them...meaning it most likely would have happened anyway. I think we just want a scapegoat so badly instead of simply having a condition that isn't understood very much that people are drawing links out of nothing out of desperation.