Tuesday, 06 December 2011
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The Amish Don’t Get Autism, and They Aren’t Vaccinated
Bloggers are talking about the autism-vaccine link these days, and some of them have brought up a little investigation done in 2005 by United Press International reporter Dan Olmsted. Olmsted wanted to know whether the Amish, who largely don’t vaccinate their children, suffer autism at the same rates as everybody else.
Olmstead took a trip to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and embarked on looking for people with autism. If the prevailing theory that autism is genetic was correct, there should have been 1 in 166 people in that population with autism, he figured. (One in 166 was the accepted figure at the time. Now it’s more like 1 in 100.)
He figured there would be about 130 people in the Amish community there with autism, based on 1 in 166. About half of those would have easily identifiable classic autism, he said. So, upwards of 50 with classic autism. And he started asking around to find them.
He found only three.
Coincidentally or not, at least two of the three had been vaccinated. One had been adopted from China and had received all her vaccinations on the same day.
Now, there are other variables too. Amish eat a far-different diet from most Americans. They’re mostly from the same gene pool. And so on. So this isn’t conclusive evidence. What’s needed is a study matching vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals and comparing autism rates. No one with any money is willing to do this, at least so far. Since it would settle the question, I do wonder why not.
And what about the headlines a while back about a polio outbreak in an Amish community? According to the HealthWyze blog, it turns out that was a strain of polio that came from a five-year-old vaccine. It didn’t sicken the children, but was found in their stools only. Odd that this made headlines, isn’t it?
UPI report: http://www.putchildrenfirst.org/media/e.4.pdf
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Comments (57)
That is very interesting.
Huh. Interesting.
The amish get autism- they just don't get diagnosed.
I'm not sure I believe the autism-vaccine relationship. Do we have reliable statistics on autism from before vaccines were used? When I was a kid, I think some of the kids that were thought of as "mentally challenged" were autistic. Sure, we were vaccinated, but it's my belief that doctors are just more aware of the diagnosis now. It's like celiacs. Until recently, people who had it were just "sick."
Trust Me they do. They just don't believe the child has a problem.
@Absleydale - so agree with you since My relatives are Amish.
This is idiotic. I don't know why people so desperately cling to this particularly brand of insanity. No study that found a relationship between autism and vaccinations has held up to scrutiny.
They also probably aren't exposed to much radiation. Who knows.
249,000 Amish of whom about 116000 are children but.. they are from a limited gene pool. plus they have far more problems than just autism to worry about and some of those are severe defects resulting from this very limited gene pool. other of the probs are pedophilia, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, retardation of the learning process by limiting all those children's schooling to just the 8th grade. and the list goes on and on...
They are also a substantially smaller population.
Also, are we positive they are simply just not being diagnosed?
Amish people, I assume, also get married at younger ages & have children at younger ages as well. I seriously think the age of the mother is a giant factor in the development of autism and I'm really surprised not many people think of it.
Mercury is a known cause of cognitive impairment and although there is a trace amount of mercury in vaccines, it may not be enough to cause actual autism. That is what has to be taken in consideration. I tend to go with Ikwa, in that cloistered communities, like the Amish, do have the "nothing is wrong" attitude. Before Dawn has some good points as well.
Diet may be a factor in some respect and up to about 35 years ago, most ate like the Amish still do today. Now, it's pretty much fast food, in the drive-up or the frozen food section. Nutrition has taken a low place on the list of important things to be aware of.
I think autism has always existed. It's just a part of the genetic code of the human being. I can think of at least two kids in my class during elementary school that would most likely be diagnosed as having some form of autism today.
Umm. the way to know is to see whether there are the same rates of autism there were just before the story about the supposed link between autism and mmr vax came out. Because ppl stopped letting their children have it, but the autism rate should have remained the same - dunno what the stats r, but the original study is the only one that supported the link. Since then, numerous studies have been done that show no relationship at all.
This information isn't beneficial in anyway.
This is how fanatical beliefs work. One study is proof, and no amount of studies that contradict the desired conclusion will ever mean anything.
Please, people, stop providing a platform for vaccine paranoia.
No no no no NO. I'm going to just say that previous commenters have stated all I had to say.
In an epidemiological analysis in which one is trying to determine causation, you look at several different ratios. You look at those exposed to a factor who are ill, those exposed who are not ill, those who are ill but were never exposed, and those who are not ill and were never exposed. When you look at autism and vaccination through epidemiological processes, there is absolutely no reason to suggest causation.
The fact that the scientific "study" that resulted in the paper (that should never have been published and was since rescinded) was incredibly flawed to begin with, it's interesting that people still believe this. :/
I am Mennonite, I wasn't vaccinated until later on in my childhood, at least 3rd grade, and I have had Asperger's since birth. I have made extensives posts on Autisble about this in the past. Asperger's seems to be prevalent in my Dad's family, very noticeable social deficits, very brilliant inventions, etc, and he never had a vaccination in his life. I'm really tired of people blaming autism on vaccinations. I had a really hard time figuring things out growing up, I've been told my IQ is through the ceiling, and there is no history at all connecting my autistic behaviors with vaccinations. I do, however (to once again repeat) have a cousin who suffered irreversible retardation from a rather severe case of measles, since his family didn't believe in shots. So stop saying entire groups of people don't have autism, you don't know, and it sounds stupid to say it.
This is horseshit.
First, I love how the media blew a single study claimed single vaccine caused autism way out of proportion, and everyone took it seriously. But few people heard about the multiple studies that discredited that first one as biased, unethical and flat-out inaccurate. And to this day people hold to the ridiculous claim that vaccines cause autism. Now this doesn't mean that there is no correlation between autism and vaccine - there have been other studies that have shown there is, and statistics have indicated an increase in vaccines corresponded to an increase in autism rates. However, in real science, correlation does not equal causation. There is simply not enough scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism to risk not vaccinating children against fatal diseases and losing our populations herd immunity.
Second, this Olmsted guy, and the author of this blog post clearly have little understanding of genetics. Yes, it is widely believed that autism is genetic. However, autism, like most traits and diseases, is believed to be multi-factorial. That means that both genetic and environmental factors are involved. Very few heritable things actually follow the model of simple inheritance we all learn in high school biology. Since the Amish are exposed to a multitude of environmental factors, medical and otherwise, from the general population, it is ridiculous to assume the Amish will portray the same rates of any disease as the rest of the population. Especially since they do have a very limited gene pool, which the author of this post only bothered to mention briefly.
It is infuriating when people who have little understanding of science or medicine make biased, false claims and present "evidence" that causes panic among others with little understanding of science or medicine. Leave it to the people who actually know what they're talking about.
Vaccines aren't the one difference between Amish people and the rest of the US.
do you know who else doesn't get vacinated... kids who get malaria
@eligio@xanga - It seems obvious to me that the rate of autism has rose because of the fact mothers are having their children much older than they ever have in the past. Not too long ago, it was completely normal to have a kid in your early twenties (and autism wasn't as common as it is now). Now, however, a lot of women go to college and usually want to have their career path down pact before they have kids. So most women are having children in their late twenties and throughout their 30s. Sometimes, even in their 40s.
Vaccines, however, have been around for a WHILE. And think about. The majority of children get vaccines. And yet the majority of children obviously don't have autism, so I don't see why people are still trying to make this vague connection. Correlation does not equal causation. You will hear this over and over and over again if you take any science class in college, especially in Psychology.
He, "asked around"?? Sounds like a less than scientific sample collection. In a community who typically try to stay away from anything mainstream, invasive, or exposing their personal privacy I doubt they would jump in and readily provide family ailments to someone outside their community. I doubt they'd out a family member to an outsider for research purposes. Having spent less time invested in mainstream medicine news I doubt they have a lot of awareness about the finite details of autism. It's not to say that vax or less chemical interaction couldn't be a player here, I'm simply saying that it seems the sample pool isn't large enough to make such a generalization nor does this article give any examples that would indicate his research practices were even mildly accurate.
it's a myth. http://autism-news-beat.com/archives/29