David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Should You Refuse Vaccines?
By Robert Needlman, M.D.
Wed, Apr 02, 2008
A few days ago, the front page of the New York Times carried a sad story. More and more parents are refusing to give their children vaccines. They believe that vaccines can cause autism or other developmental problems. They feel that they need to protect their children from these dangers, even if it means exposing them to the risk of infections such as measles or meningitis.
There are not absolute truths in science. Parents are the best judges of what their children need. Pediatricians are in the business of helping parents make decisions; the parents are the deciders. I believe all of this, but I also believe that parents who refuse vaccines are misinformed and they are making a dangerous mistake.
Many, many studies have looked for a connection between vaccines and autism, and these studies have found no connection. Of course there are plenty of stories about children who were fine, who got vaccinated, and who then developed autism. But these stories do not mean that the vaccines caused the autism.
Many children get vaccines around ages 1 to 2, and many show signs of autism around the same time. Therefore, vaccines and autism are bound to happen together just by chance. And that is just what the science shows: The events happen together as often as one would expect based on chance alone, and no more often. There is no evidence that one thing causes the other.
And, even if vaccines did cause autism in a very small number of cases, you would still need to balance the risk of getting vaccines against the risk of not getting them. And that risk of not getting vaccines is high. Before there were vaccines, many thousands of children died each year, or were brain-damaged or paralyzed, by preventable illnesses.
I'm about as paranoid as most people. I do believe that drug companies are in business, first, to make money. I do believe that they often spend millions of dollars marketing unneeded or even dangerous drugs. But, vaccines are not a big profit item. In fact, many drug companies have dropped out of the vaccine business because there isn't much money in it. So, I don't believe that there is a conspiracy to push harmful vaccines on unsuspecting children.
I do think that autism is on the rise (some experts disagree), and I suspect that one of the main causes is pollution - heavy metals, insecticides, industrial byproducts, etc. There is an ongoing debate about this among scientists. But, if substances like mercury are causing autism, I think it is likely to be mercury in mothers, acting during pregnancy on their unborn babies' developing brains.
It is much less likely that a small amount of mercury, or other pollutants, would have profound effects on the brain of a 15-month-old, which is already mostly formed. So, my advice to mothers is, do watch what you eat, try to breathe clean air and drink clean water. And do get your children immunized.
By Robert Needlman, M.D.
Wed, Apr 02, 2008
A few days ago, the front page of the New York Times carried a sad story. More and more parents are refusing to give their children vaccines. They believe that vaccines can cause autism or other developmental problems. They feel that they need to protect their children from these dangers, even if it means exposing them to the risk of infections such as measles or meningitis.
There are not absolute truths in science. Parents are the best judges of what their children need. Pediatricians are in the business of helping parents make decisions; the parents are the deciders. I believe all of this, but I also believe that parents who refuse vaccines are misinformed and they are making a dangerous mistake.
Many, many studies have looked for a connection between vaccines and autism, and these studies have found no connection. Of course there are plenty of stories about children who were fine, who got vaccinated, and who then developed autism. But these stories do not mean that the vaccines caused the autism.
Many children get vaccines around ages 1 to 2, and many show signs of autism around the same time. Therefore, vaccines and autism are bound to happen together just by chance. And that is just what the science shows: The events happen together as often as one would expect based on chance alone, and no more often. There is no evidence that one thing causes the other.
And, even if vaccines did cause autism in a very small number of cases, you would still need to balance the risk of getting vaccines against the risk of not getting them. And that risk of not getting vaccines is high. Before there were vaccines, many thousands of children died each year, or were brain-damaged or paralyzed, by preventable illnesses.
I'm about as paranoid as most people. I do believe that drug companies are in business, first, to make money. I do believe that they often spend millions of dollars marketing unneeded or even dangerous drugs. But, vaccines are not a big profit item. In fact, many drug companies have dropped out of the vaccine business because there isn't much money in it. So, I don't believe that there is a conspiracy to push harmful vaccines on unsuspecting children.
I do think that autism is on the rise (some experts disagree), and I suspect that one of the main causes is pollution - heavy metals, insecticides, industrial byproducts, etc. There is an ongoing debate about this among scientists. But, if substances like mercury are causing autism, I think it is likely to be mercury in mothers, acting during pregnancy on their unborn babies' developing brains.
It is much less likely that a small amount of mercury, or other pollutants, would have profound effects on the brain of a 15-month-old, which is already mostly formed. So, my advice to mothers is, do watch what you eat, try to breathe clean air and drink clean water. And do get your children immunized.
