The ‘lost generation’ of unvaccinated kids

Earlier this month, in the small coastal city of Swansea, Wales, a 25-year-old man with measles was found dead in his flat. It was the first measles fatality in Britain in five years, and a bleak development in an epidemic caused by a health scare that began here more than a decade and a half ago.

Almost 900 people, mostly children and adolescents, have contracted the disease in recent weeks. Health officials say it’s the result of a “lost generation” of children, now roughly 10-18 years old, who did not receive their vaccinations as infants in the 1990s. Back then, there were widely publicized concerns about a link between bowel disease, the MMR vaccine—which protects children against measles, mumps and rubella—and autism. While the link was later disproved and the 1998 paper that promoted it exposed as fraudulent, many parents, particularly in the Swansea area where the local media took up the story, still failed to get their children immunized. Why this legacy of mistrust took hold in south Wales more strongly than the rest of the country is not entirely known, though most put it down to those early reports, combined with a relatively inward-looking culture. What’s certain is that consequences could be dire.

The Swansea epidemic shows no signs of ending; 121 new cases appeared in the last week. Epidemiologists expect the outbreak could last until the summer holidays and beyond. And there are serious concerns it could spread to other parts of Wales, due to low vaccination rates across that region—as well as across the entire country. It is estimated at least 40,000 children across Wales are currently not vaccinated.

The former surgeon and medical researcher at the centre of the controversy is Andrew Wakefield, who was a senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine. In 1998, he published a now-infamous paper in the medical journal The Lancet that linked “behavioural symptoms” with MMR, reporting that the onset of autism began two weeks after infants received their first round of jabs. (His theory was that the measles portion of the vaccine damaged the children’s intestines and eventually their brains.) The paper claimed to have identified a new syndrome, which Wakefield and his co-authors dubbed “autistic enterocolitis”—a behavioural disorder supposedly brought on by MMR and linked to bowel disease.

Many parents of autistic children hailed the research as a breakthrough; not only did it offer a cause for a mysterious and debilitating disorder, it offered a solution, too: a gluten- and dairy-free diet that proponents claimed alleviated symptoms.

Celebrity proponents of the MMR-autism link, most notably Jenny McCarthy, went public promoting the research. But despite 14 major public health studies in countries such as the U.K., U.S., Denmark and Finland, which studied more than 600,000 autistic children, no researchers were able to replicate the link. In fact, the rate of autism was exactly the same in children who had received MMR as those who had not. Wakeﬁeld’s theory was obliterated.

The U.K.’s General Medical Council launched an inquiry into allegations of misconduct and, in 2010, found that Wakefield had “failed in his duties as a responsible consultant.” He was struck off the Medical Register and barred from practising medicine. The Lancet, which published the original paper, issued a full and immediate retraction, and the Sunday Times declared Wakefield’s autism link “an elaborate fraud” perpetrated for the personal gain of Andrew Wakefield himself.

Amazingly, none of this has given Wakefield a moment of pause. He has consistently maintained his innocence and the veracity of his findings and continues to promote the idea of an MMR link to autism. Indeed, he took to YouTube earlier this month to defend himself against the latest claims that the outbreak in south Wales was his fault. His bizarre argument is that the government was actually to blame, as it showed more interest in protecting the MMR vaccine than at-risk children and did not heed his advice to administer separate vaccines. The Independent newspaper ran a link to Wakefield’s screed on the front page of its website and was roundly excoriated for giving him a platform.

Meanwhile, as the media focus on Wakefield, public health workers in south Wales are desperately trying to make sure all unvaccinated children receive their jabs. The “lost generation” is still at risk. As one Welsh epidemiologist told the BBC, “Nowhere in Wales is safe from measles, and I think that is true of the U.K. as a whole.” Unrepentant though he is, Andrew Wakefield has a lot to answer for.

“I’m curious as to why you call them”ignorant”? Parents trying to protect their children and they don’t trust the government agencies are ignorant?”
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I characterized Jim Carrey & Jenny McCarthy as ignorant (meaning not aware of certain facts) because they appeared completely unaware that a sturdy they based much of their actions/behaviour on has been totally debunked. See link:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1960277,00.html

This debunked study, in essence, stated that there was a causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Parents trying to protect their children = GOOD.

Parents not trusting government agencies = GOOD (there have been and are many things that government does wrong).

Parents who are misled by folks such as Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy = NOT GOOD.

There may be some good and rationale reasons why parents may choose not to have their kids get the MMR vaccine — basing that decision on a mistaken belief that it is a proven fact that it can cause autism is not a good reason.

There have been numerous “studies” that have been proven to be entirely bogus and intended merely to advance the beliefs of certain agendanistas (almost exclusively liberal/progressive such as “global warming”). I just caution people to have a “trust, but verify” attitude.

I’m unaware of the “quackery” of which you write. I simply observe others and make up my own mind. I don’t need a liberal elitist like you throwing around a fancy title, whether they exist or not, to compel me to do things. I keep telling you that my kids arent endangering anybody. If others are vaccinated then they are, according to you, safe.I don’t take my kids around immunocompromised people. Nobody should, whether they are vaccinated or Unvaccinated! Why do you think hospitals regulate ICU visitors, respiritory visitors, etc. according to age? They aren’t regulated according to vaccine schedules. Right now the government will have you believe that gun owners are quacks. I’m not getting rid of any of my guns. Society is telling me that my religion is quackery, yet I’m not giving that up either. I noticed that you didn’t address the gubmint funded research. Maybe something is sinking into your oh-so-better-than-everybody-else’s brain because I have XYZ diploma and you don’t.

The quackery is rampant on the internet--sites like Age of Autism, whale.to, mercola, "Natural news" (Mike Adams), etc., are all anti-science anti-vax websites. Since many of the things you have said sound like they were lifted directly out of one or more of those sites, I'm certain you are familiar with them. The purveyors of those sites know exactly how to manipulate people. They promise perfect health. They promise fantastic cures for uncurable diseases. They pretend to care deeply about your health. They try to convince you that they're all about defending you against all the greedy pharmaceutical companies and the government and all those others who just want your money. They count on you being scientifically illiterate, so that they can snow you with big words and really convince you they know what they're talking about. They can claim to reference peer-reviewed literature, because their intended audience has no clue where to find peer-reviewed literature, much less how to read it to see what it *really* says. And, despite the strength of their cries against "greedy big pharma", they seem to really want your money, always selling useless stuff or soliciting donations.

By not having your kids vaccinated, you endanger them, you endanger kids of other misguided parents, you endanger kids who are too young to receive the full set of vaccines, and you endanger anyone who has an immune system variant that prevents them from responding adequately to vaccines. Some diseases are more dangerous at certain ages. Pertussis might manifest as an annoying cough in your teenager, but if your teen visits the neighbor's new baby, that baby could die. The immune compromised are not just confined to hospitals--they might not even know they are immune compromised until they're exposed to a disease.

Back when my son was born, there was no meningitis vaccine. One of my friends, who gave birth a few months before I did, went to get her post-partum check and mentioned to the doctor that the baby would not wake up. The doctor told her to bring the baby in immediately, which she did. Because we were military stationed in Europe, the doctor arranged to have a MedEvac flight come to pick up the baby to take her to a hospital in Germany. She died while the plane was coming to get her. She was a month old. If she had lived, it is very likely that the meningitis would have left her with permanent brain damage.

Clearly, you don't take the threat of disease seriously, and you fall hard for quackery. Yes, I know that quacks have a knack for making people think they really care--sociopaths are *very* good at manipulating people through emotional appeals. I know that I don't put on a big show of caring the way they do; I stick with the facts and present them as objectively as possible. I also do not say anything that I haven't fact-checked. And, as I've said before, you are perfectly free to peruse the medical literature for yourself and prove me wrong. I can't help but notice that while you keep calling me names, you have yet to actually find any evidence to refute a single thing I've said. BTW, the medical research database can be accessed at www.pubmed.org--just type in a few key words and hit enter, it's almost as easy as Google. Many of the articles are free to download and read.

Consider this: if I were merely trying to brag about my education to try to make everyone think I'm better than them, I wouldn't bother taking the time to fact check and explain things in language that I attempt to make understandable. I try to teach people, because I think it's horrible the way quacks exploit and use people with no regard for their health. Quacks cannot hoodwink people who understand the scientific method.

As for government funding of research--there is actually a constitutional case to be made for it. The Constitution does specifically say that the government should protect intellectual property so as to advance the arts and sciences. For the most part, government funds basic research that does not have an immediate commercial application. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies probably spend more on research than the government, but they are looking for a return on their investment, so they don't fund much basic research. Private organizations often give grants to people for studying very specific topics. Since I'm a basic researcher (that is, I study life processes at the molecular level), my work is funded by the government. In my experience, research--even basic research--is typically funded through a variety of sources.

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