Anonymous wrote:Now cases in MD and VA.

good luck to the anti-vaxxers

The case is from someone who traveled abroad. Explain to me what is different about this now than it was a year ago? there were no people who traveled abroad in every major metro area of the USA? there were no unvaxxed religious groups or did they just emerge in the last few months? I am trying to understand what is different in 2025 that was not here in 2024.. The same number of unvaxxed and vaxxed, the same travel policy, the same world. What gives other than politics?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study will be a real example of fraud waste and abuse since there are already dozens of studies showing there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The validity of these studies are in question. You cannot trust the manufacturers or those who directly financially benefit from the products to be able to do an unbiased study.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1124634/

No one serious is questioning the validity of those studies. At this point the only thing that we are sure doesn’t cause autism is the MMR vaccine.
- mother of a kid with autism

I'm not an antivaxxer, but let me play devil's advocate: the study you cited describes itself as a "retrospective cohort study" (rather than a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study like the kind you often see in the drug-approval process). It also seems like it doesn't test vaccinated vs. unvaccinated but instead tests kids who got one particular vaccine (MMR) against those who did not. You could imagine an RFK acolyte say, "show me a placebo-controlled test where some of the kids were vaccinated and the rest weren't." What's the answer to that? Is it that that study has already been done? Is it that it hasn't been done but it's not worth doing? Is it that that study could be informative but would be unethical? Is it that that's a good idea and we should do it if it'll allay concerns?

Who’s going to volunteer their infant to skip their MMR vax? come on. Totally unethical.

there are countries where it’s not mandated. We have communities where parents do not vaccinate, surely we can come up with some way to find “control group”..

Doctor in Texas pushing back on RFK, Jr.'s of Vitamin A for measles!



"One mother...told her she was giving her two children high doses of vitamin A to ward off measles, based on an article posted by Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nearly a decade before he became President Donald Trump's top health official."


https://www.yahoo.com/news/doctors-push-back-parents-embrace-120353827.html

As a doctor, I can accept people making poor choices. I can't accept people then wanting to jump to the front of the line when they change their minds. This isn't a vending machine process, and if the vaccines are short supply because they are going elsewhere, then that's what you signed up for.

I *hate* it that parents can do this to their children, but I can't stop it. I do expect those parents to step up and take responsibility for their actions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study will be a real example of fraud waste and abuse since there are already dozens of studies showing there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The validity of these studies are in question. You cannot trust the manufacturers or those who directly financially benefit from the products to be able to do an unbiased study.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1124634/

No one serious is questioning the validity of those studies. At this point the only thing that we are sure doesn’t cause autism is the MMR vaccine.
- mother of a kid with autism

I'm not an antivaxxer, but let me play devil's advocate: the study you cited describes itself as a "retrospective cohort study" (rather than a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study like the kind you often see in the drug-approval process). It also seems like it doesn't test vaccinated vs. unvaccinated but instead tests kids who got one particular vaccine (MMR) against those who did not. You could imagine an RFK acolyte say, "show me a placebo-controlled test where some of the kids were vaccinated and the rest weren't." What's the answer to that? Is it that that study has already been done? Is it that it hasn't been done but it's not worth doing? Is it that that study could be informative but would be unethical? Is it that that's a good idea and we should do it if it'll allay concerns?

It doesn’t appear that you are an expert in evidence based medicine. I don’t consider myself to be one either, but I did a residency in evidence based internal medicine at ucsf and there is way too much boring info I could spout about the merits and feasibility of different types of studies for different situations. I reviewed the “autism” link as a case study during my residency and I can tell you that many many smarter people than myself looked into it and agree that it’s a load of horses&$t and there is no need to squander more time or money on this. It deserves as much merit as the theory that has long prevented Pakistan from eradicating polio - that the polio vaccine was deployed by the CIA as a means to sterilize Muslim men. That theory resulted in 20k cases of polio a year in the 90’s.

And you can trust me, I’m an mit grad, and obviously a genius who is qualified to be an ATC. Actually only the first part is true.

I'm the poster you responded to. Thanks for the civil and interesting response. You're 100% correct that I'm not an expert in evidence-based medicine (or any kind of medicine), and, not to belabor the point, I'm also not an antivaxxer. But I think your message hits the nail on the head with what I'm grappling with: there are (I assume) as you point out a lot of ways to design a study. I certainly haven't read the autism-vaccine studies, and I'm definitely not questioning their conclusions. But is a foreign retrospective study without a vaccine-free control group really the most rigorous study we have that exists? (I'm not saying it is; I don't know!) If it is (or is at least close to it), then asking for a more rigorous study strikes me as... somewhat less crazy than I might have assumed?

I get your point that smart people have looked at this and said this has been conclusively proven. I'm not disputing that.

Here is a primer on evidence based medicine.

https://www.mwc.com.br/files/Williams%5BA769%5D%20-%20Understanding%20EBM.pdf

The PP who said it would be unethical to do the gold standard study, a double blind placebo controlled RCT, is correct. You cannot perform a double blind study in which half the babies are given placebo and half are given MMR for many reasons that I’m sure you understand. If you don’t, please reply and I will lay it out.

The loophole that doctors often used for this moral impasse, was to just pack their stuff and do the studies in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, where people were not so fussy about medical malfeasance and informed consent. In India, a trial came under scrutiny because infants were being randomized between groups that got placebo vs a proven safe rotavirus vaccine.

The original Wakefield study looked at 8 children with GI symptoms from intestinal inflammation, who were diagnosed with autism 1 month after MMR vaccine, and concluded that there was a link between autism and vaccination. However, since autism diagnoses often occur at the same age that kids are vaccinated, it would be impossible not to see a coincidence. The Wakefield study is akin to showing that the second dose of MMR, typically given between ages 4-6, causes children’s front teeth to fall out and new ones to grow in their places.

You can read more about the flaws in the 8 person Wakefield study here

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2908388/

One of the best ways to study if there is a link between an exposure and an outcome is to do a cohort study - a study that follows a cohort of patients and follows them over time for certain outcomes. By keeping track of other variables like maternal age, paternal age, ethnicity, birth weight, gestational age, ses status, siblings with autism, environmental exposures, vaccinations, childhood illnesses etc, you can control for those variables and see if any of them show correlation with the outcome. There have been many cohort studies involving a total of well over 1 million children that show no correlation.

Also, there was a meta-analysis, which is the gold standard of looking at multiple studies and using data analysis to create more accurate conclusions and stronger evidence by pooling the number of patients and reducing the margin of error.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24814559/

Here is a list of cohort and case control studies

https://www.autismspeaks.org/do-vaccines-cause-autism

The sheer number of studies on this topic that have been done to allay irrational fears is already wasteful. We didn’t need so many studies when one involving 500k kids as opposed to 8 should have been sufficient.

Something is causing autism. It’s not vaccines.

Now cases in MD and VA.

good luck to the anti-vaxxers

Anonymous wrote:Let’s not forget the original paper asserting the connection between vaccines and autism was a fraud and was retracted.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/02/lancet-retracts-mmr-paper

+1 And they revoked that guy’s medical license.

Let’s not forget the original paper asserting the connection between vaccines and autism was a fraud and was retracted.


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/02/lancet-retracts-mmr-paper

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study will be a real example of fraud waste and abuse since there are already dozens of studies showing there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The validity of these studies are in question. You cannot trust the manufacturers or those who directly financially benefit from the products to be able to do an unbiased study.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1124634/

No one serious is questioning the validity of those studies. At this point the only thing that we are sure doesn’t cause autism is the MMR vaccine.
- mother of a kid with autism

I'm not an antivaxxer, but let me play devil's advocate: the study you cited describes itself as a "retrospective cohort study" (rather than a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study like the kind you often see in the drug-approval process). It also seems like it doesn't test vaccinated vs. unvaccinated but instead tests kids who got one particular vaccine (MMR) against those who did not. You could imagine an RFK acolyte say, "show me a placebo-controlled test where some of the kids were vaccinated and the rest weren't." What's the answer to that? Is it that that study has already been done? Is it that it hasn't been done but it's not worth doing? Is it that that study could be informative but would be unethical? Is it that that's a good idea and we should do it if it'll allay concerns?

Who’s going to volunteer their infant to skip their MMR vax? come on. Totally unethical.

Well, antivaxxers for one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study will be a real example of fraud waste and abuse since there are already dozens of studies showing there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The validity of these studies are in question. You cannot trust the manufacturers or those who directly financially benefit from the products to be able to do an unbiased study.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1124634/

No one serious is questioning the validity of those studies. At this point the only thing that we are sure doesn’t cause autism is the MMR vaccine.
- mother of a kid with autism

I'm not an antivaxxer, but let me play devil's advocate: the study you cited describes itself as a "retrospective cohort study" (rather than a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study like the kind you often see in the drug-approval process). It also seems like it doesn't test vaccinated vs. unvaccinated but instead tests kids who got one particular vaccine (MMR) against those who did not. You could imagine an RFK acolyte say, "show me a placebo-controlled test where some of the kids were vaccinated and the rest weren't." What's the answer to that? Is it that that study has already been done? Is it that it hasn't been done but it's not worth doing? Is it that that study could be informative but would be unethical? Is it that that's a good idea and we should do it if it'll allay concerns?

Who’s going to volunteer their infant to skip their MMR vax? come on. Totally unethical.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study will be a real example of fraud waste and abuse since there are already dozens of studies showing there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The validity of these studies are in question. You cannot trust the manufacturers or those who directly financially benefit from the products to be able to do an unbiased study.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1124634/

No one serious is questioning the validity of those studies. At this point the only thing that we are sure doesn’t cause autism is the MMR vaccine.
- mother of a kid with autism

I'm not an antivaxxer, but let me play devil's advocate: the study you cited describes itself as a "retrospective cohort study" (rather than a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study like the kind you often see in the drug-approval process). It also seems like it doesn't test vaccinated vs. unvaccinated but instead tests kids who got one particular vaccine (MMR) against those who did not. You could imagine an RFK acolyte say, "show me a placebo-controlled test where some of the kids were vaccinated and the rest weren't." What's the answer to that? Is it that that study has already been done? Is it that it hasn't been done but it's not worth doing? Is it that that study could be informative but would be unethical? Is it that that's a good idea and we should do it if it'll allay concerns?

It doesn’t appear that you are an expert in evidence based medicine. I don’t consider myself to be one either, but I did a residency in evidence based internal medicine at ucsf and there is way too much boring info I could spout about the merits and feasibility of different types of studies for different situations. I reviewed the “autism” link as a case study during my residency and I can tell you that many many smarter people than myself looked into it and agree that it’s a load of horses&$t and there is no need to squander more time or money on this. It deserves as much merit as the theory that has long prevented Pakistan from eradicating polio - that the polio vaccine was deployed by the CIA as a means to sterilize Muslim men. That theory resulted in 20k cases of polio a year in the 90’s.

And you can trust me, I’m an mit grad, and obviously a genius who is qualified to be an ATC. Actually only the first part is true.

I'm the poster you responded to. Thanks for the civil and interesting response. You're 100% correct that I'm not an expert in evidence-based medicine (or any kind of medicine), and, not to belabor the point, I'm also not an antivaxxer. But I think your message hits the nail on the head with what I'm grappling with: there are (I assume) as you point out a lot of ways to design a study. I certainly haven't read the autism-vaccine studies, and I'm definitely not questioning their conclusions. But is a foreign retrospective study without a vaccine-free control group really the most rigorous study we have that exists? (I'm not saying it is; I don't know!) If it is (or is at least close to it), then asking for a more rigorous study strikes me as... somewhat less crazy than I might have assumed?

I get your point that smart people have looked at this and said this has been conclusively proven. I'm not disputing that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study will be a real example of fraud waste and abuse since there are already dozens of studies showing there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The validity of these studies are in question. You cannot trust the manufacturers or those who directly financially benefit from the products to be able to do an unbiased study.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1124634/

No one serious is questioning the validity of those studies. At this point the only thing that we are sure doesn’t cause autism is the MMR vaccine.
- mother of a kid with autism

I'm not an antivaxxer, but let me play devil's advocate: the study you cited describes itself as a "retrospective cohort study" (rather than a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study like the kind you often see in the drug-approval process). It also seems like it doesn't test vaccinated vs. unvaccinated but instead tests kids who got one particular vaccine (MMR) against those who did not. You could imagine an RFK acolyte say, "show me a placebo-controlled test where some of the kids were vaccinated and the rest weren't." What's the answer to that? Is it that that study has already been done? Is it that it hasn't been done but it's not worth doing? Is it that that study could be informative but would be unethical? Is it that that's a good idea and we should do it if it'll allay concerns?

It doesn’t appear that you are an expert in evidence based medicine. I don’t consider myself to be one either, but I did a residency in evidence based internal medicine at ucsf and there is way too much boring info I could spout about the merits and feasibility of different types of studies for different situations. I reviewed the “autism” link as a case study during my residency and I can tell you that many many smarter people than myself looked into it and agree that it’s a load of horses&$t and there is no need to squander more time or money on this. It deserves as much merit as the theory that has long prevented Pakistan from eradicating polio - that the polio vaccine was deployed by the CIA as a means to sterilize Muslim men. That theory resulted in 20k cases of polio a year in the 90’s.

And you can trust me, I’m an mit grad, and obviously a genius who is qualified to be an ATC. Actually only the first part is true.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study will be a real example of fraud waste and abuse since there are already dozens of studies showing there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The validity of these studies are in question. You cannot trust the manufacturers or those who directly financially benefit from the products to be able to do an unbiased study.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1124634/

No one serious is questioning the validity of those studies. At this point the only thing that we are sure doesn’t cause autism is the MMR vaccine.
- mother of a kid with autism

I'm not an antivaxxer, but let me play devil's advocate: the study you cited describes itself as a "retrospective cohort study" (rather than a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study like the kind you often see in the drug-approval process). It also seems like it doesn't test vaccinated vs. unvaccinated but instead tests kids who got one particular vaccine (MMR) against those who did not. You could imagine an RFK acolyte say, "show me a placebo-controlled test where some of the kids were vaccinated and the rest weren't." What's the answer to that? Is it that that study has already been done? Is it that it hasn't been done but it's not worth doing? Is it that that study could be informative but would be unethical? Is it that that's a good idea and we should do it if it'll allay concerns?

The only childhood disease I had was chicken pox.

My child has had none of them thanks to vaccines.

My parents' generation? My mom lost hearing in 1 year due to measles, my Dad newsmen sterile because of the mumps (I am adopted), polio crippled my aunt so she always hobbled and paralyzed my uncle.

I can't believe the dummies on here saying childhood disease are no big deal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This study will be a real example of fraud waste and abuse since there are already dozens of studies showing there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The validity of these studies are in question. You cannot trust the manufacturers or those who directly financially benefit from the products to be able to do an unbiased study.

Like we can trust RFK? lol.