Fw: Upping the Autism Ante

[Guest guest]

" Deborah A Delp "

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 22:41:09 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)

Fw: Upping the Autism Ante

 

 

;Upping the Autism Ante

 

 

Upping the Autism Ante

 

[by Neil Munro for the National Journal - Washington, DC. Available

online only through subscription or fee.]

http://nationaljournal.com/pubs/nj/

 

Record numbers of children have been diagnosed with severe autism over

the past few years, and many parents suspect that mercury-based

preservatives in vaccines are the cause. Officials at the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, which sets vaccination policies, have just

released partial details of anew analysis that seems to exonerate the

preservative.

But parents and some scientists were quick to criticize the analysis.

The details provided by the CDC are too vague, said Mark Blaxill, a board

member of one parents' advocacy group, Safe Minds. “The thing we need is to

get the right answer, not the answer that either side wants.â€

The stakes in this debate are high. If the parents' claims are

correct, the CDC's vaccine policies over the past decade have caused autism

in tens of thousands of children. Many thousands more may have suffered

less-severe brain damage, the parents say. If their argument is

scientifically validated, the careers of many vaccine professionals will be

damaged, as will the financial health of some vaccine makers. If the parents

and their allies are wrong, they are diverting attention from other,

potentially better avenues of research.

The growth in autism rates is difficult to track, but California’s

Department of Developmental Services has the most-detailed data. In the

first quarter of 2004, the state added 795 severely autistic children to its

treatment program; the number of new patients was 173 during the same period

in1994. That kind of growth has boosted the number of severely autistic

children in the California system from 5,281 in 1994 to 24,297 in 2004.

The severely autistic have a normal lifespan but require lifetime

support costing more than $1 million. According to the parents and some

scientists, a mercury preservative, Thimerosal, which is used in many

vaccines, has increased the incidence of autism.

Thimerosal is still in use, and many infants received extra doses of

it after 1990, when CDC officials recommended additional vaccinations.

In response to growing concerns, CDC officials in June 1999asked

companies to stop using Thimerosal in vaccines. They also conducted a study,

results of which were published in the November 2003 issue of Pediatrics;

the article said “no consistent significant associations were found†between

the Thimerosal-containing vaccines and disorders such as autism. The study

was based on a huge database maintained by HMOs on the West Coast.

But the lead author of the article, Thomas Verstraeten, said recently

that the article “does not state that we found evidence against an

association,and he also recommended additional study. Also, Mark Geier, a

vaccine specialist in private practice who provides expert testimony for

plaintiffs suing vaccine makers, conducted a study of the same database at

the request of Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla. Geier's study tested the hypothesis

that children who had received Thimerosal in all four shots of the combined

diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine were more likely to be autistic

than those who got no Thimerosal in their four shots. Geier said his study

revealed 10 times as many cases of autism among children given Thimerosal.

“That's a very nice hypothesis ... [and the result] was very

concerning to us,researcher Robert Davis told a February meeting of the

National Academy of Sciences. Davis is aco-author of the CDC's article in

Pediatrics. He is employed at the Center for Health Studies, a commercial

research center that has contracted with the CDC to study vaccine safety.

The research center also receives funding from vaccine makers. It is owned

by Group Health Cooperative, an HMO that provided part of the database for

the CDC study. Davis is also an untenured research professor at the

University of Washington in Seattle.

We attempted to replicate [Geier's] analysis using the exact same

data,Davis told the NAS audience, and discovered a rate of autism among

children given Thimerosal 18 times greater than among those who received

none. But because the children in Geier study were of various ages, he

said, “we reanalyzed the data to compensate for the differing ages. The new

analysis showed “no statistical association between Thimerosal and autism,

Davis said.

But Blaxill says that Davis's analysis “is dramatically different

from the Geier study, partly because it includes many children too young to

be identified as autistic. Children can be diagnosed as autistic before

turning 3, but most diagnoses aren't made until after age 3.

Davis declined to provide National Journal with a detailed description

of his analysis, but the CDC e-mailed additional information about it

showing that a high percentage of children in the analysis were underage 2.

Geier said his study had already compensated for age differences by

examining children who had gotten all four of their DTP shots. This

selection ensured that all the children in his study were at least 18 months

old, he said. All the children were under age 3, he said, because he was not

allowed to examine post-2000 data.

If the parents' claims are true, Blaxill said, the reduced use of

Thimerosal after 2000 will reduce the number of new autism diagnoses within

a few years. This month, Rick Rollens, a California autism activist, combed

through state data and reported that the number of new autism cases over the

past six months, as compared with the same period 12 months ago, dipped 6

percent, from 1,560 to 1,471. A few more quarters are needed to confirm the

trend, Blaxill said, but that's the acid test.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at HotJobs