Study of over 95,000 children included 15,000 unvaccinated 2-to-5-year old’s
and nearly 2,000 kids already considered at high risk for autism.
It’s been nearly twenty years since medical researcher Andrew Wakefield destroyed his career by publishing a fraudulent research paper linking the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine to autism. The doctor’s claims have endangered children around the world and confused parents trying to make the right health choices for their children. In the largest-ever study of its kind, researchers again found that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine did not increase risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
This proved true even among children already considered at high risk for the disorder.
In all, the researchers analyzed the health records of 95,727 children, including more than 15,000 children unvaccinated at age 2 and more than 8,000 — still unvaccinated at age 5. Nearly 2,000 of these children were considered at risk for autism because they were born into families that already had a child with the disorder.
The report appears today in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“Consistent with studies in other populations, we observed no association between MMR vaccination and increased ASD risk,” the authors write. “We also found no evidence that receipt of either one or two doses of MMR vaccination was associated with an increased risk of ASD among children who had older siblings with ASD.”
The analysis looked at autism rates and MMR vaccination at ages 2, 3, 4 and 5 years.
It showed no increased risk of autism with immunization at any age. In fact, autism rates were lower in the vaccinated groups. However, this might be because parents who see early signs of autism were more likely to delay or avoid vaccination, the authors speculate.
Lower vaccination rates among families affected by autism
Some 15 year ago, a small, now-discredited study sparked concerns about a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Since then, a large and growing body of research has continued to find no association. Still, the continuing uncertainty around what does cause autism has left some people worried. Such concerns likely explain why vaccination rates have dropped in families that have an older child with the disorder.
In the new study, MMR vaccination rates for children without an affected older sibling were 84 percent at 2 years and 92 percent by age 5 years. Vaccination rates for children with an older sibling affected by autism were significantly lower: 73 percent at 2 years
and 86 percent at age 5 years.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Bryan King, director of the Seattle Children’s Autism Center, writes: “Taken together, some dozen studies have now shown that the age of onset of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, the severity or course of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, and now the risk of ASD recurrence in families does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.”
Study made possible by large database
The investigators performed their analysis using the claims records from a large
US health plan database (the Optum Research Database). Participants included children continuously enrolled in an associated health plan from birth to at least 5 years of age between 2001 and 2012. All had an older sibling.
Of the 95,727 children in the study, around 1 percent (994) were diagnosed with autism during the study’s follow-up period. Among those who had an older sibling with autism (1,929), approximately 7 percent (134) developed the disorder. This difference in autism prevalence – between children with or without an older sibling affected by autism –
is consistent with earlier studies.
A world-renowned pro-vaccine medical expert is the newest voice adding to the body of evidence suggesting that vaccines can cause autism in certain susceptible children.
Did the Government Censor an Expert Witness Who Changed His View on Vaccines?
Pediatric neurologist Dr. Andrew Zimmerman originally served as the expert medical witness for the government, which defends vaccines in federal vaccine court.
He had testified that vaccines do not cause autism in specific patients.
Dr. Zimmerman now has signed a bombshell sworn affidavit. He says that, during a group of 5,000 vaccine-autism cases being heard — in court on June 15, 2007, he took aside the Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers he worked for defending vaccines and told them he’d discovered “exceptions in which vaccinations could cause autism.”
“It explained that in a subset of children, vaccine-induced fever and immune stimulation did cause regressive brain disease with features of autism spectrum disorder,”
Dr. Zimmerman now states. He said his opinion was based on “scientific advances”
as well as his own experience with patients.
For the government and vaccine industry’s own pro-vaccine expert to have this scientific opinion stood to change everything about the vaccine-autism debate — if people were to find out.
But they didn’t.
Dr. Zimmerman goes on to say that once the DOJ lawyers learned of his position,
they quickly fired him as an expert witness and kept his opinion secret from other
parents and the rest of the public.
What’s worse, he says the DOJ went on to misrepresent his opinion in federal vaccine court to continue to debunk vaccine-autism claims.
Records show that on June 18, 2007, a DOJ attorney to whom Dr. Zimmerman
spoke told the vaccine court: “We know [Dr. Zimmerman’s] views on the issue. …
There is no scientific basis for a connection” between vaccines and autism.
Dr. Zimmerman now calls that “highly misleading” and says he’d told them the opposite.
Vaccine safety advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of Children’s Health Defense, describes the DOJ attorneys’ alleged cover-up and misrepresentations as “one of the most consequential frauds, arguably in human history.” He has filed a fraud complaint with the DOJ inspector general against the DOJ attorneys involved. (The inspector general’s office said it cannot comment on investigations or potential investigations.)
As a backdrop, it helps to understand how vaccine injury claims
are handled in the United States.
Congress created the special vaccine court in 1988, in consultation with the pharmaceutical industry. In this special court, hearings are private and vaccine makers don’t defend their products — the federal government does it for them, using DOJ lawyers. Money for victims comes from us, not from the pharmaceutical industry, through patient fees added to every vaccine given.
Rolf Hazlehurst is the parent of one autistic child whom Dr. Zimmerman states
got autism from vaccination. A criminal prosecutor, Hazlehurst told congressional staffers at a briefing in 2013 that “if I did to a criminal in a court of law what the United States Department of Justice did to vaccine-injured children, I would be disbarred and I would be facing criminal charges. I think that scared the hell out of them.” An upcoming House Oversight hearing on the topic was abruptly cancelled.
Dr. Zimmerman’s opinion mirrors that of another pro-vaccine medical expert —
the late Dr. Bernadine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health.
And it lines up with what the head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
Immunization Safety, Dr. Frank DeStefano, told in 2014.
When asked about vaccines triggering autism in certain susceptible children, DeStefano acknowledged it as possible.
“I guess that ~ that is a possibility,” said DeStefano. “It’s hard to predict who those children might be, but certainly, individual cases can be studied to look at those possibilities.”
No known studies have been attempted. However, vaccine court cases show that
some children whose autism was triggered by the vaccine had unknown pre-existing susceptibilities including Tuberous Sclerosis (TS) and mitochondrial disorder.
The U.S. vaccine court has paid $4 billion to date, including for injuries in which children ended up with autism but when the plaintiff’s alleged the brain injury
using the term “encephalopathy” rather than “autism.”
When asked, the DOJ, the CDC and the pharmaceutical lobby group PhRMA.
had no comment about Dr. Zimmerman’s affidavit. The primary attorney named in
Dr. Zimmerman’s affidavit as having misrepresented his opinion no longer works for
the Justice Department and did not answer repeated requests for comment for that
January 6, 2019 “Full Measure” program on the controversy.
The CDC website currently makes no mention of Dr. Zimmerman’s opinion, his published findings or similar studies, or numerous cases in which the government has paid damages in vaccine court to children who — according to the vaccine court and medical experts — got autism as a result of their vaccine injuries.
The CDC states unequivocally that “vaccines do not cause autism.”
Scientists say it’s entirely possible to identify conditions most likely to make children susceptible to vaccine injury and to devise a safer vaccination policy to protect them,
while continuing a robust vaccine program for the rest. For also the sake of children,
Congress should re-examine both sides of the medical science in this case.
WATCH: FULL MEASURE: January 6, 2019 – The Vaccination Debate.