I have a friend whose daughter died at the age of 4 months from the DPT vaccine.
I have another friend whose baby boy went from a normal 4 month old to a severly distrubed, and ultimately autistic, child after the MMR vaccine. She is a nurse practitioner and obviously involved in the medical profession. She just attended a conference a couple of summers ago of parents whose children showed a very obvious link between their autism and their vaccines.
I wonder if there ought to be screening of some kind for families with history of allergies, asthma, etc. In Japan, they have a law against immunizing before the age of two, because of the vulnerability and immaturity of babies' immune system.
I take an exemption for my family because of my own medical history.
Insofar as studies are concerned, I always wonder who is sponsoring them-- the drug companies making a fortune from the vaccines?
If you ever get to read a book called "A Shot In The Dark" I think you will find it intriguing. Discusses a host of issues regarding mandatory vaccination.
The drug companies did not support any of the research--public health arms of the countries' did. Infants die--they always have. Sometimes they die after receiving an immunization--millions have the immunization and do just fine. That's why it has to be studied scientifically with a control group. In the abstract below, the authors are referring to the multiple studies that I had mentioned when they say "consistently negative:"
J Intellect Disabil Res. 2005 Apr;49(Pt 4):231-8. Related Articles, Links
Aetiology of autism: findings and questions.
Rutter M.
SGDP Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Denmark Hill, London, UK. j.wickham@iop.kcl.ac.uk
BACKGROUND: Although there is good evidence that autism is a multifactorial disorder, an adequate understanding of the genetic and non-genetic causes has yet to be achieved. METHODS: Empirical research findings and conceptual reviews are reviewed with respect to evidence on possible causal influences. RESULTS: Much the strongest evidence concerns the importance of susceptibility genes, but such genes have yet to be identified. Specific somatic conditions (such as tuberous sclerosis and the fragile X anomaly) account for a small proportion of cases. Over recent decades there has been a major rise in the rate of diagnosed autism. The main explanation for this rise is to be found in better ascertainment and a broadening of the diagnostic concept. Nevertheless, some degree of true rise cannot be firmly excluded. However, the epidemiological evidence on the main hypothesized environmental explanation, namely the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, is consistently negative. CONCLUSION: Progress on the elucidation of the causes of autism will be crucially dependent on the combination of epidemiology with more basic science laboratory studies.
The vaccine business has been a money-loser since Hillary got involved in the mid 90s. The result was a well-meaning but flawed piece of legislation that has caused a number of companies to leave the business and removed incentive for the rest to invest in research.
The Blue party has nerve to blame the President or the GOP for the current vaccine mess (read shortage). They brought it on with their red policies.
That said, I have to take exception to the idea that study results are a function of who sponsors them. Few scientists are that dishonest.