Tag: MMR

MMR-Autism Association in DeStefano 2004 Study

William Thompson is the CDC whistleblower who revealed that he had been involved in a cover-up of a key result in the vaccine-autism debate.

He was referring to the DeStefano 2004 study of MMR and autism, on which Thompson was a co-author, conducting the statistical analysis. Thompson claimed that an association between MMR and autism in African American boys was identified in the data, but that the finding was omitted from the final paper. He cited the pressure to show no association between MMR and autism, and explained how they tried various statistical techniques to try to hide the association.

The infographic above presents the data behind the debate. Brian Hooker’s 2014 re-analysis of the data shows there is indeed an association between MMR and autism in African American boys in the data.

Forget the politics; the science here is telling us there is an association between a vaccine and autism.

Sources:

Vaccine Autism Studies are Inadequate

In 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a comprehensive evidence review entitled “Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality”.

They looked at 8 different vaccines and 76 different adverse events. One of these adverse events was autism.

  • For 1 vaccine (MMR), the IOM favored rejection of a causal relationship.
  • For 1 vaccine (DTaP), the IOM declared the evidence inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship.
  • For the other 6 vaccines in the review, the IOM did not look for any evidence regarding a causal relationship.

Clearly then, the correct conclusion of this evidence is NOT that “vaccines do not cause autism”. There is not enough evidence to make that conclusion.

Even if a causal relationship between MMR and autism is rejected, it does not follow that “vaccine do not cause autism” because MMR is only one of 8 or more vaccines, and the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship for them. There have also been no studies looking for associations between cumulative vaccinations, or different timings, or different combinations of vaccines, and autism.

The CDC cites this IOM report for its claim that “vaccines do not cause autism” and yet this report does not support this claim.