The first question I have been asked by anyone who hears my daughter has autism is, " do you think it is from vaccinations?" I have been asked this questions by daycares, teachers, nurses, and nearly anyone I have come in contact with! My answer is always a resounding NO! I feel very strongly about this, and so here is my stand on the vaccination issue. If someone chooses not to vaccinate their child, that is fine, however, my response when I hear this, it make sure you are doing it for the right reasons! SO many people are making this decision based on false information. I would like to address these issues, and show you some research and hopefully share some information that will be useful!
The first thing to address, is when did people start believing vaccinations caused autism (specifically it is the MMR vaccine that is thought to be the culprit). The MMR vaccine was introduced in the United States in the early 70's. It was not until the Wakefield study was published in 1998 that people connected the vaccine and autism. The study involved 12 children. 12 children and the world changed their minds! In 2010 it was proven that Wakefield faslified his study (several studies have tried to recreate his findings and been unable to, this is the test of a hypothesis, can it be recreated?). The study actually stated that the MMR vaccine had a correlation between a bowel disease and autism. The MMR allegedly caused both. People picked up on the autism part of it (not even the bowel part that was included in the study.) People began to be paranoid we had an autism epidemic! The reality is, there has not been an increase in autism. What has increased is the criteria that needed to be met.
It used to be that autism a diagnoses only given to severe cases (I am using this info from a lecture with a woman who has worked with autism for over 30 years. She has her Ph.D. and is an educational psychologist) such as kids unable to communicate who had severe autism the image you get of kids who rock and handflap all the time. It was then changed in the 40's when Aspergers was first diagnosed. It was not added to the DSM (diagnostic and statistical manual) until the DSM IV came out. Then later, PDD-NOS was also added. We havent increased the number of kids with autism, we have simply increased the circle of kids who fall in it. This is not a bad thing. Children with autism simply come from a different mold, why force them into a mold they dont fit into! If changing your parenting style can solve a lot of kids behavioral problems, why not do it? Why force a kid in a mold they dont fit?
So how do we know a kid with autism didnt get it from a vaccine? The brain of an autistic person is different from birth. They have more white matter, more short connections (within one hemisphere of the brain) and fewer long connections (which connect the two hemisphere and share information to each other) without making this even longer, this explains a lot behavior we see in autistic kids. Most likely a child with autims shows signs from birth, but we dont recognize them until we realize the social factors (which start to show between ages 1-3 also when they receive the MMR vaccine). You may notice your childs gross motor skills (why yes, my child sits alone, crawle, etc) but we often dont look at social skills in young children. I can look back at my daughter now, and realize there were problems before she was even a year old!
I feel very strongly on this topic. I beleive every person needs to make the decision to vaccinate their child based on their own study and beliefs. We dont answer to people, we answer to God. It is my desire, though, for peopel to find accurate information to back up their decision! We did spread out our vaccinations with Grace, but mostly because she doesnt have a strong immune system and was often sick. With Emma, she got them all at the scheduled times. What are your views on vaccinations?
websites used for this:
www.wikipedia.com
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro98/202s98-paper1/Taverna.html
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20060816/autism-affects-childs-entire-brain
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