Jim Carrey Blogs A Blog About Vaccines

Will he still care after she curb kicks him?

Seandi1

My son has autism. He had ezcema as a baby, had difficulty with breastfeeding, and other 'warnings signs' of a child who is genetically predispositioned to ASDs. After his 15 month vaccine (MMR) he lost the ability to walk, would only crawl around in circles, and lost his ability to talk. All the therapists that work with us, tell us that other parents whose children they are treating report similar reactions to the vaccines. So, while maybe vaccines don't make a difference to a regular child...to a child who is genetically predisposed -they are the 'perfect storm'. Unless you have more than one child on the spectrum, or work extensively with children with ASDs...then it is wise to keep your mouths shut on a subject you clearly know very little about...this last comment is for the writer of this sad and judge-y article.

TroySeagull

It's probably cell phones. I have no justification for that, but doesn't it feel right?

AvenueOfTheStrongest

Has anyone ever heard that This American Life episode where some outdated and life-threatening disease spreads through a small town because some parents wouldn't give their kids vaccines? That's what I always think of when I hear about these anti-vaccine people. They're not just potentially endangering their child; they're potentially endangering other children as well.

eatsshootsleaves

For the record, while I 1000% disagree with the "vaccines cause autism" theory, I find it so hard to get angry at the people who subscribe to it based on their own experiences. I mean yes, it's idiotic--the number of people who've gotten vaccinated without any sign of autism should be telling enough--but these must be some of the most frustrated people in the world, just looking for an answer to why this happened to their child. (Or, in Jim's case, girlfriend's child.)

News sources that propagate this crap and discourage others from getting vaccinated, however? Totally irresponsible and inexcusable.

DahlELama

He was The Mask. I couldn't get through his article because I just kept thinking, this man, talking about vaccine safety and court rulings and scientific logic, was The Mask.

Moff - If memory serves, he is boning Jenny McCarthy, but he isn't the father to her autistic kid. Or something like that.

The-Littlest-Hobo

Question to the lawyers here:

If vaccination increases the chances of autism, is that a lot harder to prove than say Celebrex or Vioxx increasing the chances of stroke/heart attack?

In other words, from a litigation standpoint, is it safer for pharmaceutical companies to sell vaccines rather than drugs ?

well in fairness, he heard it from jenny mccarthy who is totally a trustworthy medical source. most soft-core porn models are!

Personality-driven echo chambers are at least superior to traditional mediums because their lack of editorial discretion or objectivity leads to higher volumes and shrillness in criticism of the single most evil force on Earth: rich people.

Does Jim Carrey actually have kids with autism, or does he just want to bone Jenny McCarthy?

It's massive denial: "My kid has this terrible disorder that has robbed his ability to relate to the world. Medicine can't help, so medicine must be the cause." I feel terrible for the parents, and I understand their impulse, but they're clinging to a self-created reality to explain their family predicament. And God help science, they're gaining traction.

Sproing

It's easier to blame vaccines than admit it may have to do with his defective sperm.

I'm autistic, so allow me to speak for autistics everywhere when we say that 9 out of 10 autistics agree that vaccines do NOT cause autism.

Autism has multiple etiologies: mercury in the environment, genetics, blood-brain barrier food allergy/immune system problems, you name it. The vaccine theory sounds good becuase it's neat and packageable. It just doesn't hold water.

Plus if you're listening to Jim Carrey for medicsl advice you're fucked. Who are you going to turn to next? Tom Cruise? Jenny McFuckingCarthy?

The only celebrity I take medical advice from is Hugh Laurie.

@Smitros: Dunno, the hip-hop ferocity and lyrical innovations of MC Rove came as no surprise to me.

souldecirce

Anyone else see this episode of Private Practice? Heartbreaking.

DahlELama

I have two children with autism and I do not believe vaccines caused either of them to get it. However, I do know some parents whose children had horrible reactions, like seizures, and the subsequently were diagnosed on the spectrum.

As an interesting aside, children with eczema are much more likely to have vaccine rxns. Children w/autism also have a lot more eczema than typical children.

Reading the Huffington Post gave me AIDs.

lolgreg

Celebrities analyze policy just as well as policy analysts would be to expected to sing and act.

AHH KILL IT KILL IT AHHHHHHHHHH

Huff Po is proof positive that internet "journalism" will be as bad or worse than anything the MSM could produce.

The entire site is one big name-drop and glitterati circle jerk.

atlasspanked

The doctor who started the "vaccines cause autism" movement was found to have cooked the books rather blatantly. That really ought to have put an end to the matter, but of course it hasn't.

[www.timesonline.co.uk]

Did vaccines also cause him to have zero bulge in that picture even though he is wearing spandex?

@Moff: They have been boning for years.

eleusiswalks

@TroySeagull: ugh god. there is NO SCIENTIFIC LINK between vaccines and autism. i'm sorry about your kid, and i bet it's really, really hard to have to consider that your genetics are fucked up and created a fucked up kid, and it's easier to blame whatever coincidental normal thing happened when the diagnosis occurred, but spreading fucking misinformation via sad little tales is dangerous to society at large. you're worse than the intelligent design people because their dumb beliefs don't have the potential to KILL children.

also why can't i just reply directly to anyone today??

Foul. How many infants have to die of outmoded, curable diseases before these people shut their mouths? Jenny McCarthy is so deep in denial she's hitting Cairo sand.

eleusiswalks

@eatsshootsleaves: also adults with compromised immune systems.

That picture of him as the riddler should accompany any statements he makes of a scientific nature.

steampoweredboy

many vaccines are preserved with mercury - last time I checked...

@TroySeagull: Pareene is deferring to the MANY scientists who have said again and again that there is no reasonable evidence to conclude that vaccines contribute to autism. They're the ones who have worked extensively with children with ASDs. There's an overwhelming consensus among researchers on this point.

The fact that vaccines-cause-autism is still an issue is because it's become a cause célèbre. That's what Pareene has every right to criticize and judge, because these bozos are keeping a scientifically dead issue afloat.

Jenny was on Oprah going on and on about how fabulous botox is. I find that odd giving her vaccine stance.

Queen of the Passive Aggressives

As an adult who is starting to believe that most FDA approved manufactured chemicals are poison, I don't totally disagree with the theory that vaccines and Autism could be related. I think there are just enough unexplained things that result from our dependence on pharmaceuticals that I couldn't completely rule anything out. I mean, have you listened to any of those field-in-the-valley, we'll distract you from all the horrible side effects this drug causes with shots of smiling people bicycling, lately? Scary stuff. So ultimately, I say never say it couldn't be, until you've walked in that person's shoes, heard all the evidence, and read some data on what crap this country allows us to imbibe, inject, or radiate unto ourselves in the form of "medicine".

I also believe we never went to the moon, but that's a conspiracy theory for another day.

Spirit Fingers

@HiredGoons: They've actually taken the Thiomersol out of many mandatory vaccines--I want to say all, but I'm not 100% certain.

sciencerules

My nephew has autism and had an adverse reaction to vaccination as well, he lost all of his speech. And if the writer of this post had bothered to actually read up on what Jim Carrey has said in the past, said writer would realize that they do not advocate stopping all vacines, just scaling back the stupid ones and giving them at a later date. And while I might be a "non-doctors with absolutely no understanding of the scientific method or medical research" I understand what I see with my own two fucking eyes. The medical community offers next to nothing for treating these children, doctors refuse to see them, and insurance companies are bastards when it comes to alternative therapies. So, if the medical community can be so close minded to what parents are seeing, then those parents should become activists. I find it sad that a site like this, that promotes free-thinking of women, would shut out a huge group of mothers who are fighting daily for their familes, because some study dissproved what Carrey is claiming. Last time I checked studies, and the data involved, could be manipulated to suit whatever answer a scientist want.

CurtCole

As a general rule people are full of shit. He may be right, he may be wrong. None of you know, if you are basing your facts on reports from companies with vested interests in the use if certain products. Or what is more on the word of the gov. Because there is certainly no proof that we have ever been lied to by the gov or large corporations. No not one lil shred of evidence. Unless, you say have a functioning brain and actually look into who is connected and the many conflicts of interest, that should give any person pause. Though panning any possibility of further investigation is certainly the right way to go. Simply dismiss the message because you find the messenger lacking. How very wise. I personally have no great interest in the subject at hand. More the nature of the post and the majority of the replies. So typical to attack the point or the messenger with trite and so well worn tactics rather then consider the very unpleasant implications of there being truth to that which we would prefer to be a lie or at best confusion.

TruthBeTold

Yes let's just believe the reports that the drug companies put out there shall we? Everyone believed the tobacco company reports and the big oil reports on global warming right? Corporate America will never lie to you citizens, never will they?

eatsshootsleaves: It wasn't a small town in the TAL episode, if I remember correctly it was San Diego.

@Tmoney02: Babies in utero, too.

green_ipod

@Spirit Fingers: I think you're right. Yes, let's just let the parents decide what's fucking up their children and then legislate the shit out of it. Clearly the correct medical procedure for identifying the cause of a disorder is to let non-scientifically trained people confuse correlation with causation and then point wildly at whatever happens to jump into their head. Then we should let everyone get on that blame bandwagon and raise a big stink over it. That's exactly what we should fucking do.

@CurtCole: "I understand what I see with my own two fucking eyes."

No. You don't. That's what people don't understand. The human brain is extremely susceptible to misidentifying causation. There are some very good reasons for why that is, but it remains true. That's why we leave it to scientists to rigorously examine an issue and do double-blind tests and explore multiple variables. The medical community is anything but close-minded to what parents are seeing. They work with these parents. Hell, several scientists who work with autism do so specifically because their own children or family members have autism. So they listen to parents' claims. And then they test those claims scientifically. But you can't magically make the results fit. And the results have unambiguously pointed to the lack of a connection between autism and vaccines. We're not talking about a handful of scientists bankrolled by Big Pharma. We're talking about every single reputable scientist who's studied it.

@AvenueOfTheStrongest: Television is probably a more likely cause than vaccines.

johnva

@Wrapitup: Lawyers don't have to "prove" anything scientifically in these medical cases. They just have to convince courts that they are right, regardless of what the real scientific consensus is.

johnva

@CurtCole: Well, that's exactly what happened, actually. A doctor falsified results to PROVE a link between Autism and vaccines. No one could replicate his work. And he got caught. Statistics can be manipulated to tell many different stories. Real science cannot. The truth comes out in the end.

green_ipod

Yes, they've taken the mercury out of most of the vaccines, which seems to me is common sense.

You know what is NOT common sense? Giving a baby a total of 21 (or more) doses, shots and vaccines in the first few years of life. I am not advocating elimination of things like polio shots, but babies today get way too much crap these days.

PandoraSpocks

@CurtCole: And, hey, if you happen to be right, the scientists will be able to prove that, too. Many people are working on that. And if you are right, fine, but I resent the fact that people are turning a scientific/medical issue into a faith one, where you advocate for things based on what you believe, not what you can prove. I think it is a dangerous way to make policy, particularly when this belief is going to impact everyone's children and families.

green_ipod

@DahlELama: The reasons why I get angry about it are that
a) they are letting their uninformed speculation endanger their childrens' health; and
b) they are endangering the health of other children and immunocompromised people (HIV, cancer, transplant patients, etc) by reducing herd immunity.

It would be one thing if these were adults making a choice that only affected them. But that's simply not the case. That's why I think vaccines should be compulsory with no exceptions for any reason other than medical contraindications.

johnva

The Western world is funny. Many childhood diseases there have been mostly eliminated due to vaccination, and now people are rebelling against it. Those people can get away with this because other kids have been vaccinated. If everyone stopped, many kids (including theirs) will catch preventable diseases and possibly die. Like someone wrote on another site, this is a debate stemming from luxury.

This is not even a debate where I live.

@Spirit Fingers: Yes, it is super scary that drug companies now make a concerted effort to let you know about potential side effects beforehand.

Wait.

eleusiswalks

@bytememehard: not his sperm. those are her kids.

cmd

@TroySeagull: After his 15 month vaccine (MMR) he lost the ability to walk, would only crawl around in circles, and lost his ability to talk.

Assuming your blaming the vaccines only because of the timing, that in now way proves the vaccine did it. Most likely his condition was going to appear whether he got his shots or not. That is like saying the applesauce/babyfood/milk/water you gave him caused his condition. Why aren't they held suspect? After all his conditions appeared after feeding him.

@mbprice: The impact of ethyl mercury exposure on neurodevelopment is far from a "dead issue," as you call it. That being said, I think everyone would rather hear from doctors concerned about thimerosa containing vaccines and autism...not celebrities. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=ethyl%20mercury%20neurodevelopment&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7SUNA&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws

AliyaBabasaur

@Saxon 212: I'm not sure anyone's suggesting we do this, pudding pop.

Gonkette

@CurtCole: My nephew likely has a genetic predisposition that was triggered by something in the vaccine, as well as other external factors.

So if there are other external factors in play how can you blame vaccines and be so against them? It would be impossible for you to say what factors if any played a role and vaccines could have nothing to do with your nephews condition.

What reasoning or preferably evidence do you have that his genetic predisposition wouldn't appear if he wasn't vaccinated, especially when you say other factors caused it as well?

Autism is a terrible affliction; my cousin was diagnosed at age eight after some terrible years. The natural response of a parent is to protect their kid, and try to keep it from happening to other people's kids.

But you can't do it at the expense of science. These parents don't seem to understand the years and decades and centuries of scientific research underpinning what doctors do.

For my money, if I were trying to look for a cause of autism, I'd look elsewhere. Kids don't have fully developed immune systems until four or five years old, and we're dumping enough complex chemicals into our environment to, for example, make fish grow tits.

Just like with evolution, this is a dangerous intersection of belief and science. The more you try to keep traffic moving along, the more likely you are to get run over.

AndPreciousLittleofThat

I know Gawker readers (I am one of them) like to get their knives into celebrities but you and your readers need to do your homework, Pareene. I want to know: What medical journalist did any of you consult before forming your own opinion about vaccinations and autism? What literature did you consult before any of you formed an opinion about the nature of vaccines? You all seem to have an opinion about an actor.

I do not have an autistic child but I am well aware of the investigations reputable scientists and medical journalists have carried out in order to discover a link between vaccines and illness.

Most you get your information from conventional sources, namely the local and cable news stations. You are not gonna see or read an in depth investigation about how harmful vaccines are. If you want to learn something new instead of regurgitating reverb from pharmaceuticals who buy advertising on TV stations, I suggest all of you start with the Vaccine Nation documentary by Gary Null. There you will learn about the true nature of how vaccines are made and how they can harm people [www.vaccinenation.net]

Cacy Forgenie

@CurtCole: And I hope this that this whole debate is moot soon and we know what this happens and we can develop some real help for all the families like yours that are suffering with this.

green_ipod

@PandoraSpocks: Do you understand what a vaccine is? And do you understand that it's not really any different from all the other pathogens that babies are naturally exposed to (except that it's safer)?

I often hear this junk about how it's "too soon" to give "so many" vaccines, but I never hear any actual scientific evidence about how that increases any risk, much less increases it to the point that it outweighs the risk of having an unvaccinated child. It's always just "common sense". No, it's not "common sense". It's just an emotional decision not based on anything.

johnva

@mbprice: "No. You don't. "

Yes, I do. I am not saying that vaccines cause autism. My nephew likely has a genetic predisposition that was triggered by something in the vaccine, as well as other external factors. I respect the scientific method, but to have a child that can greet you, and look at you, and tell you that he loves you one day--and not the next-makes me want to look at what happened specifically that day. I was not a big advocate for the connection between autism and vaccines until that day. Sometimes you see things that make you sit up and take notice, despite what scientific evidence is starring you in the face. All this having been said, I truly hope it never happens to you.

CurtCole

@CurtCole:
Anecdotal evidence is not data. It doesn't prove anything in isolation.

Also, the mothers who are "fighting" for this cause are actually harming autism research by diverting attention and funding from efforts to find REAL causes of autism. This issue has been looked at, repeatedly, and found to not be the cause. The most famous study finding a correlation is most likely a scientific fraud.

johnva

@mbprice: Oh god I love you so hard.

Also: immunizations are perhaps the most "natural" pharmaceuticals, since they are generally deactivated/killed viruses that we would otherwise likely be exposed to throughout the course of our lives, were everyone not pretty well protected due to herd immunity. They aren't "FDA approved manufactured chemicals," in any case.

I think I must have been vaccinated against whatever it is that ever made people think Jim Carrey was funny.

@bytememehard: That's not his biological kid.

missnicolec

Thank you! At least with the 9/11 "truthers" their nonsense isn't actually hurting anyone -- these anti-science wackjobs are putting us all at risk. It's a new low for Arianna (a tough bar to lower) to give a platform to this dangerous and counterfactual idiocy. Should I listen to the worldwide scientific community, or to Jenny freaking McCarthy? hm...

BrookeDinosaur

@ADismalScience: It's rich people who are funding the "race for a cure"/blame the victim/blame healthcare vitriol. The whole Autism Speaks campaign from a few years' back was funded by the founder of Home Depot. Other rich folks have their hands in equally dubious and dangerous autism cures like chelation.

So: rich people suck. Unless you can get one as a sugar daddy.

@allyzay: Actually, while genetics is probably a factor is some autistic cases, the increase in prevalence points to an environmental factor.

But by all means, continue spewing uninformed bile to people suffering tragedies in their personal lives.

deeemer

@[scienceblogs.com]. He documents just how wrong the anti-vax crowd is in excruciating detail.

johnva

I agree with most of this post and 90 percent of the comments supporting it, but still have a nagging thought:

What about the scientists and doctors from the 20th century "proving" the health benefits of cigarettes (vitalizes the body, protects from cough, is in no way dangerous) in the face of questioning from much less qualified, but observant "average people"?

I can just see the quiet, page 16 (if we still have newspapers) Oops! story in about a decade.

I think it's imperative to protect kids from disease (and from a global epidemic of both measles and stupidity), but also have researches test the specific ingredients in vaccines -- whether or not they could be updated or improved upon. It's just not worth it to me if some corporate interest or elitism or celeb-hate caused valuable research to stall out.

@nonce: uh, "medical."

@Tmoney02:

@Tmoney02: Nail on head there. People don't want to hear from us, but I actually am autistic and I didn't "withdraw" until I was around 4. It's different for everybody.

You can cite stastical norms, but the hard truth is that autism is unique to the person who has it. It's only a resemblance between the symptoms that has created the particular disorder spectrum we sort of know. And it's a disorder because it's listed in the DSM, and the DSM has a dirty politicized history, as does autism.

I'll never forget the autism conference I attended during which someone gave a powerpoint the first slide of which was "Autism is a Business."

@CurtCole: You have no way of knowing whether the vaccine had anything to do with it at all. None.

johnva

@TroySeagull: My husband has Asperger's. His mom said it was obvious the moment he came out of the womb that something was different about him. He use to stim in the crib, for fuck's sake. He and his siblings are all fully vaccinated and all very intelligent.

It's genetics. Period. His father has it, he has it, and his sister has it.

jurisenpai

@steampoweredboy: Agree, forever.

Gonkette

@Sproing: I'll stop responding to just about every comment here but it makes my flesh crawl when people feel terrible for the parents. Oh, poor parents having to put up with a child who's not normal.

What about some empathy for the person with the actual disorder?

@Cacy Forgenie: Yes, that paranoid website exists only to make money off of people like you that have no concept of scientific research. Go ahead, buy his e-book. If I had fewer scruples, I'd milk crazies like you for all it's worth just like these snake-oil salesmen.

VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM. Period.

jurisenpai

@eatsshootsleaves: That's what I was thinking about while reading this. Also, it wasn't a small town in the middle of nowhere. It was in Hillcrest which is in fucking San Diego!

@LetsHaveAKeithParty: In 1949, Richard Doll, a researcher working for the Medical Research Council, and Bradford Hill, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene, began looking at lung cancer patients in London hospitals. The patients were asked about family history, diet and previous diseases. In 649 cases of lung cancer, two were non-smokers. Doll immediately gave up his own five cigarettes a day habit.

Thanks Google!

AndPreciousLittleofThat

@AvenueOfTheStrongest: It's actually the internet's fault. That feels righter.

@sciencerules: The only ones that continue to bear traces of the metal are some flu vaccines.

The rest have been stabilized with aluminum. And don't get anyone started on that information. Aluminum has suddenly become the next Evil Thing In Vaccines, even though interaction with the environment contains more aluminum than in all the doses of vaccines combined.

deeemer

@Cacy Forgenie: Wait. You're actually believing what Gary Null is telling you? He didn't even study Medicine. He's some quack with questionable credentials and has a poor understanding of the human body. YOU ARE BEING SCAMMED!

@kimsama: Weeeeeelllll. . that's not entirely true. Vaccines are viruses, some dead, some modified and alive. And all need to be grown and stabilized on some type of media, using proteins and metals. And while vaccines are safe, there are averse reactions to some, which is why there is a pool of money to compensate the 1% that have severe allergic reactions to the vaccine.

And while we would naturally be exposed to these viruses, mostly, over the course of our lives, we wouldn't be exposed to them all at once. Which is what some parents argue. And while I disagree that the media should be spewing this ridiculous, unscientific idea that MMR causes autism, I wonder at the dramatic increase in the amount of vaccines given. You, for example, have been given half the amount of vaccines that current children are given. You turned out fine, so then why the increase?

This is the argument currently being circulated by parents of autistic children.

deeemer

@Wrapitup: In other words, from a litigation standpoint, is it safer for pharmaceutical companies to sell vaccines rather than drugs ?

Yes--this is why Gardisil for 12-year-old girls was such a huge issue. The company pumping for state-by-state legislation to "cure cervical cancer" (now largely disproven to be even remotely effective in changing the trajectory of cervical cancer cases/deaths) was because medications given as innoculations in childhood are protected by a federal law preventing the company from being accountable for reactions to the vaccine. Merck, the company that was trying to get their Gardisil vaccine mandated for 12-year-old girls was in the midst of 10s of thousands of lawsuits over other drugs (Vioxx and Celebrex, as a matter of fact) and were looking at financial ruin in the potential outcome.

Big Pharma is a big political fiasco. Reading labels won't protect you as a consumer. Unfortunately, these stories repeat themselves as the FDA bumbles along.

@eleusiswalks: You're beautiful.

@mbprice: I agree with the totality of your argument, but you can't say that there has never been an aversive reaction to vaccines.

To say vaccines cause autism? False. To say that a small percentage of the population have a severe reaction to a vaccine? True. Nowadays, autism is a large umbrella, enough to enclose different types of mental retardation. Perhaps this is what she's referring to.

deeemer

@LetsHaveAKeithParty: For a decade, there has been intense scrutiny on vaccines and autism. They know its not the vaccine.

The "doctors reccomending ciggarettes" thing isn't the same. Those were often personal reccomendations or came from the ciggarette company's internal research. This isn't at all comparable to dozens of NIH funded, national studies.

Every penny we spend on vaccine research foir autism is a penny that isn'rt spent on enviromental and genetic factors.

Plus, a lot of companies have left the vaccine business since the 80s. If we continue to focus them, some might throw in the towel, which could leave us with no vaccine.

clevernamehere

@eatsshootsleaves: Yes, this is why things like Whooping Cough are once again on the rise.

I work with kids with autism and I think my favorite quote about that is: "If you've worked with one kid with autism, then you've worked with one kid with autism." That is, no two are alike. Though I'm not a scientist, I wouldn't be surprised if that related to the pathology that led there. As far as I've heard from researchers in the field, they see autism as a combination of genetic and environmental factors, many of which occur in utero and as a result of the mother's sensitivities to environmental factors. Not necessarily eating fish with mercury but having a predisposed sensitivity to mercury that, when eating fish with mercury in it, leads to an adverse reaction to the fetus. Stuff well beyond our control, unless we live in a vacuum.

Interesting to note that the guy who started the whole "autism caused by vaccines!" theory has recently been accused of faking his evidence as none of it--NONE of it--could be replicated. So then it wasn't very surprising to know that he was on the board of a company with an alternative to traditional vaccines. Fancy that--someone with a vested financial interest in denigrating traditional vaccinations comes up with a theory supported by his own research that no one else can replicate. Want to talk fishy? Let's start there.

I'm not saying vaccines don't act as a trigger for someone who was likely to end up on the spectrum anyway but there's more than the injection to blame.

Also heard recently of a family in Denver who didn't vaccinate their kids against measels, traveled to Europe where they contracted it, and, while they were in the waiting room at their dr's office, passed it on to infants who were too young for immunization. A couple babies died. Don't want to vaccinate your kid? Fine. Then keep them locked up and away from other people. Sacrifice your own kid's health but don't sacrifice mine.

ides

@PandoraSpocks: Babies are given so many vaccines because the idea is to PREVENT actual illnesses. Delaying or staggering vaccines unnecessarily just leaves kids susceptible longer.

@CurtCole: WHY, WHY, WHY do people believe that scientists are on the payroll of the mysterious "big pharma?" Coming from a family of doctors, I know FOR A FACT that the vast majority of doctors are in it FOR the children, not to make a quick buck! It's stupid shit spewing from the mouths of uneducated celebrities (and political scions like RFK, Jr) that could cause my unborn baby to be harmed by an un-inoculated child.

ameliabedelia

@Cacy Forgenie: As someone with medical training who has actually read the primary research articles, I call BS. There are much better sources than biased websites.

Wait-- what did I miss? I didn't see where he said that people shouldn't vaccinate their kids. He says we should examine the vaccine schedules and combinations in which these vaccinations are given, but he doesn't say stop vaccinating your kids. He questions whether each and every one of them is necessary, but he isn't throwing the baby out with the bath water. That said, I hope to God there isn't a link between vaccines and autism, but can we definitively say-- with what we know right now-- that there isn't? From purely a philosophical perspective, it's impossible to prove a negative. Maybe the cause is a perfect storm of biological predisposition, vaccine timing and other factors. Doesn't it just make sense to continue to study vaccines IN ADDITION to many other factors as a possible culprit?

pooks

@onydchic: Seriously. Only mothers who think infectious disease can't kill their child are anti-vaccine.

They should all have to sit down with a mother over 90 or a mother from the developing world.

clevernamehere

@CurtCole: Okay, but here's what the problem with trusting your eyes is.

It makes you want to look at what happened specifically that day.

Okay, good. Except, what if what you're talking about is a threshold event? Like, your child can't greet you today as the result of a process that has been occurring, unnoticed, over the course of the last six weeks? How do you know that there weren't small changes that you didn't notice, before this big change occurred?

And you want to say, yes, it was the vaccine that caused it--but was it? What was in the vaccine that caused it? How did it cause it? How long does it take for a vaccine to take effect? Is this a question of mercury poisoning? How long does it take mercury to get into the brain? How much mercury does it take? Does that vaccine even have mercury in it? (Odds are, actually, "no," since hardly any vaccines are made with mercury anymore.)

You can see WHAT happened, yes, but you CANNOT SEE WHY IT HAPPENED. "Why" is invisible, and only made apparent through rigorous experiment. No matter what you think you saw, you are, at some point, going to have to accept the fact that you only think you saw it.

How dare you assume I'm old! ^_~

@TruthBeTold: Why do you assume that no one who reads Gawker is a scientist?

Robin Schmidt

@Queen of the Passive Aggressives: I'm glad you mentioned that, since I'm never home when Oprah's on.

In addition to the Botox craziness, I think privileging "natural" medicine over synthetic pharmaceuticals is often ridiculous: plant-derived or not, you are still altering your body with foreign substances.

Robin Schmidt

I was talking to a pediatrician who often has to talk parents about vaccinating their children. She told me that she's many couples who have a child with autism who they vaccinated. Their next child, they didn't vaccinated but still ended up being diagnosed with autism. Autism is so diverse and there is so much more to autism that needs to be studied! I hope that more information will be found in the future years.

spartachick

@pooks: Sure. Now you give us a bajillion dollars to study every possible cause, and we will look into it right after we study whether autism is related to viewing pictures of Obama or living next to women with bangs.

ArmCandy

oh btw this picture illustrating this article is cracking me up imo

@Cacy Forgenie: Well I suggest you read a book called 'Austism's False Prophets', by Paul A. Offit, M.D. He's an actual scientist who knows what he's talking about.

@pooks: no, it doesn't, because it's a tremendous waste of money spent on, you know, PROVING A NEGATIVE which you just said yourself is impossible. there's been a lot of time and money already wasted on this topic and the en masse conclusion from the entire medical community is that vaccines do not cause autism. the only thing that has ever even remotely been considered a possible link was a preservative that has not been in use in many, many years! seriously! doctors and scientists have studied this, a lot! why the fuck should they continue throwing away time and money that could be spent on actual research that might actually be helpful in the field of autism because some internet person called "pook" and jenny mccarthy are just not quite satisfied with the answers?

@ameliabedelia: I call it "pseudoskepticism". It's being skeptical of things that disagree with what you "know", but without actually anchoring your skepticism in empirical reality like real scientists do. It's super common among conspiracy theorists of all types. I think it's mainly a symptom of our deeply cynical culture, in which people are losing confidence in all our institutions (often for good reason, but not always). People have felt screwed over by forces outside their control so many times that they now just incorrectly assume that anything bad that happens to them is a conspiracy to get them.

johnva

You're dead wrong. Docs used to advertise cigs for their health benefit. Don't be so quick to drink the pharma Kook Aid.

TroisFilles

@ides: LOVE YOU. I am scared shitless for my baby, who is due in June-- so much so, in fact, that I deliberately avoided a walk for autism because I was so concerned about unvaccinated kids spreading disease.

ameliabedelia

@LetsHaveAKeithParty: One of the really important things to remember is that science gets better over the years. People doing bad science seventy years ago doesn't discredit science now--in fact, their bad science seventy years ago only makes it more likely that scientists today are probably right. They could be wrong, sure--there's always room for error. But the better we get at science, the smaller that margin gets.

It's not like science is a single body of knowledge that encompasses all scientific ideas, ever, and that the preponderance of terrible ideas in the past discredits current scientific thinking.

A lot of folks try and use the "Scientists used to think that the world was getting too COLD!" argument to try and discredit Global Warming. That scientists were wrong thirty years ago doesn't really matter--that's not how science works.

@eatsshootsleaves: I heard that as well. I also heard Ira Flato(sp?) on a Science Friday ask a anti-vaccine, after she said she wanted studies done, "what evidence would you accept that vaccines are safe?". Her answer? There isn't any.

I'm the father of an autistic child and I'm not getting a kick out of this. Jim Carrey needs to simply shut his mouth and go back to talking out of his butthole for money.

Thank you for calling b.s. on the many-times disproven link between vaccines and autism.

@AliyaBabasaur: Thimerosal was removed from vaccines in the early 2000's.

@mbprice: Oh, whatever, that's not what I'm saying. Obviously you didn't read my comment, so caught up in your own feelings and desire to disagree with anyone not lambasting the parents, are you. All I'm saying is that there's a lot we don't know about the drugs we take on a daily basis. Hell, you take enough over-the-counter pain relievers and you could end up with digestive issues, kidney problems etc. What's to say vaccines don't cause problems? Are you a medical doctor or a scientist, since we're all playing hospital here? All I'm saying is it's possible. Much like most things are possible and I wouldn't rule it out without more information from the parents and the scientists. I mean can we have a number of how many things "scientists" have said will cause cancer, but don't, and those that won't but do? Can't live in absolutes, people. It's not realistic.

@eleusiswalks: Yes, it is. Ask that question again to someone who desperately needed one of these medications because there were very little other options and then the side effects were just as debilitating if not more. Think that's fair?

Spirit Fingers

@allyzay: What a visceral, unnecessary and personal attack in response to a hypothetical question. Reading comprehension must not be your strong suit, Allzay (clever name, by the way). What I was merely posing was the possibility that vaccines could play a role in addition to many other things. But, since you are clearly much more sophisticated and informed than I am, and apparently speak on behalf of the entire medical community, I defer to your infinite wisdom.

pooks

@pooks: Research dollars are precious and in short supply. They should only be spent on researching hypotheses that have actual credibility and a chance of being correct. The vaccine issue has been studied very extensively and can now be put to rest.

Remember that every dollar that gets spent researching a discredited theory like this one is a dollar that isn't going to some other research that could actually benefit humanity much more.

johnva

I made a new term recently. It's "Science-tits". It's when someone uses a woman to pass along dubious claims, but people don't care b/c she looks pretty.

@Saxon 212: Double blind peer reviewed studies tend to be correct, no matter who funds them.

@deeemer: They have also expanded the term "Autistic" to cover many disorders that were not previously categorized/diagnosed as such. So if what was called/known as the common cold is thrown under the umbrella of the "flu", more cases of "the flu" will be shown.

@deeemer: No one ever said that vaccines are 100% risk-free. They aren't, and scientists openly acknowledge that. It's just that the risks are very greatly outweighed by the risks of not doing it, except in cases where there is a specific medical contraindication against vaccination.

johnva

@ADismalScience: If you have autism, you better hope and pray that you are born into the lucky sperm club. It is very expensive to fund even mainstream treatments as health insurance... there was a time our family was forking out over $7k a month of unreimbursable expenses for my two ASD kids -- nothing crazy like chelation-- just not covered by insurance.

Best money I have ever spent in my life. My two ASD kids are completely mainstreamed, healthy, social and happy. Phew.

@HiredGoons: have you checked since the early 90s?

Carrey/McCarthy are not opposed to vaccines, but rather the chemicals added by the pharmaceutical companies to extend shelf life. The debate is as simple as that. The article here seems more of an attempt to drag down Huffington Post rather than Carrey's assertion.

@RandomLunatic: this is what upsets me the most about this subject is that, besides spreading misinformation and causing illness epidemics, these people are taking $$/time/energy away from research to help figure out what actually causes autism and how we can prevent it from occurring.

@TruthBeTold: If the studies are conducted using established protocols, are double blinded, and peer reviewed, it usually doesn't matter who funds them. Peer Review means that people NOT involved in the studies review the data and conclusions and check for errors.

Also, Jenny and her crew have shown classic logical fallacies, the least of which is Correlation is not Causation, but their most common is "moving the goal post". They blamed Thimerisol. Thimerisol was removed and yet rates continued to rise. Then then dismissed their own claim/facts, and said it was aluminum in the vaccines. When that was shown not to be too bad, they said it was the frequency/amounts of the vaccines.

@TroisFilles: oh my fucking god seriously?

@PaisleyPajamas: So you're saying that there's actually a law in place that protects pharmaceutical companies from getting sued for any problems with their childhood inoculation products?

This fact seems very pertinent to the discussion. Why isn't it brought up more?

@nonce: I would go even further than you Nonce. I suspect what we are talking about are multiple conditions let alone causes. Just like a splitting headache can be from that cheeky sauvingon blanc I had last night, it can also be dehydration, brain aneurysm, brain cancer and a nasty bump on the noggin. These collection of symptoms are similar but there is hardly a typical autistic person. Nothing neat and packaged about autism. That is the sticky wicket of it all.

IMHO, my kids have an immune problem which is being managed along with some sort of genetic thing going on (on my husband side of the family 4 of 8 grandchildren are on part of the autism spectrum). Interestingly, their symptoms become much more prevalent on antibiotics, so I avoid them as much as I can.

@CurtCole: I find it sad that a site like this, that promotes free-thinking of women,

i find it sad that jezebel commenters, nearly without fail, never seem to understand cross-posting and that they've fucking left jezebel, despite the huge logo that says defamer AND the (gawker) note next to the headline!

also: what everyone else said. i'm sorry your kid can't speak but did it occur to you ever in your fucking life that it was bound to happen anyway?

@Wrapitup: Well, since vaccines DON'T cause autism or increase the chance of a child getting autism, it's all moot, isn't it?

nakedscience

@Spirit Fingers: well your point is all well and good except that haranging about the chemicals we put into our body has literally nothing to do with the discussion at hand, which is vaccines.

@Saxon 212: I believe in the scientific method because I don't wear tinfoil hats.

nakedscience

@BrookeDinosaur: Also the parents who don't vaccinate their kids are relying on the fact that all the other children are getting vaccinated. When kids get all those childhood diseases and and start dropping like flies who will they blame then?

Lauren Milner

@Spirit Fingers: "What's to say vaccines don't cause problems? Are you a medical doctor or a scientist, since we're all playing hospital here?"

Well, considering there have been scientific studies that have proven vaccines don't cause autism....

nakedscience

@Wrapitup: Actually, the law that is in place says that money goes into a government-run injury compensation fund that pays out settlements to people who are verifiable victims of vaccine-related injuries. The reason for this system is that vaccines DO hurt a small percentage of the people they are administered to, who have a legitimate right to compensation. But allowing unrestricted litigation against the vaccine makers would just kill off vaccine manufacturing and harm public health drastically.

The reason this has become an issue lately is that lots of autism parents, egged on by greedy class action attorneys, want the government or vaccine makers to pay them for "injuries" for which there is no scientific evidence that vaccines are the cause. A lot of the anti-vaccine propaganda is put out by groups connected to this sort of litigation who stand to profit from it. But we would all lose if the lawyers were allowed to bankrupt vaccine makers.

johnva

@Cacy Forgenie: jesus fucking christ. you are aware that the one -- yes ONE -- actual study that was done actively linking these two things was just retracted by the lancet because some of the researchers were involved with an anti-vaccine "alternative therapy" group and the faked their evidence? where the fuck are YOU getting your information? cos it sure as shit isn't from any kind of reputable "medical journalist"

@deeemer: Maybe if these people would stop promoting ignorance through their idoiocy, we'd stop calling them idiots. THEY ARE ENDANGERING PEOPLES' LIVES. Period. End of discussion.

Not vaccinating your children is DANGEROUS and stupid, and demands ridicule.

nakedscience

@johnva: no one here understands what a vaccine is -- you've got one idiot moaning about the # of "chemicals" we are putting into our bodies, another claiming that a polio shot can somehow rob a baby of speech, and yet another talking about big pharma as if vaccines aren't, effectively, given away for free by these companies. seriously!

@When'sUranusDay?_GitEmSteveDave:

@taraniso: the chemicals in question are no longer in vaccines, and yes, they are against vaccines.

@jurisenpai: One of my children with ASD was a bit off since birth. My son was completely fine and in the course of one week was 'gone.'

@ArmCandy: If I had a 2 year old son that was happy and talkative one day and utterly non-communicative the next, and doctors couldn't tell me why, I would leave no stone unturned. And yeah, as pathetic and desperate as it may sound, if my son looked at pictures of Obama (since you feel it's just as arbitrary as a vaccine connection) one day, and lost his ability to speak the next, and then one day, I read about some parents of other children with the same symptoms, whose only common experience (at least to their knowledge) was that their children viewed pictures of Obama immediately before starting to withdraw or become incommunicative, you can bet I'd want researchers to take a closer look at what happens to toddlers when they view pictures of Obama (again, your example, not mine). Knowing of course that plenty of children have viewed pictures of Obama with no ill effects, I would take the possibility that there is a relationship between something so benign and my son's condition with a grain of salt, but I certainly wouldn't cross it off the list entirely... forever. But I guess that would lump me in with all those silly, ignorant, emotion driven parents incapable of evaluating my child with the same cold detachment of the medical research community.

pooks

@braak: not to mention that the studies or science weren't done in the cases this person is referencing -- comparing fucking cigarette ads with people playing doctors in them to actual NIH research is at best grossly irresponsible trolling. the internet needs to stop with this particular rumor because just a tiny bit more research into the topic would reveal that no, people were saying that cigarettes were unhealthy for a while.

@[briandeer.com]

@allyzay: You would think that people would take the time to inform themselves at least a little bit before taking a position and spouting off about it.

...but then I remember that most people aren't really capable of sorting credible information out from propaganda, misinformation, or even opinion. Sigh.

johnva

@McMurphy: That's cuz your an idiot. It's Lupus!

@allyzay: I think that some of them seize on these "external" causes like vaccines as an emotional defense mechanism, because it makes them feel guilty to think that it might be genetics. I think that kind of thinking is weird (it's not your fault that you unknowingly passed on genes for something) but prevalent for some reason, maybe because a lot of people's only real exposure to the idea of genetic causality is in the context of "disease".

johnva

@allyzay: Nope. If man is interfering than it can be manipulated like anything else. Newborns aren't naturally walking into a world of toxins and viruses we supposedly eradicated decades ago are they? The kid is becoming exposed to many of them all at once. Not saying vaccines can't help, and haven't been beneficial over the years, but the response of one child may not be the same for another. I'd say that's still pretty risky, so, yes, perhaps more research needs to be done. Scientists can be wrong. Imagine that, eh? Again, nothing is absolute.

Spirit Fingers

@pooks: Well, yes. It's a lot harder to be emotionally detached and objective when it's your own child. That does mean that your opinion is less valid than people who have actually researched the issue for a living (not to mention that they have a lot more knowledge than you, too). And you're still forgetting that we HAVE already done quite a few studies on this issue, without finding any evidence of vaccines causing autism. At what point has enough research been done to satisfy you? Should we still be researching all scientific issues ever raised? It doesn't work like that. Science builds on itself cumulatively.

johnva

Everyone knows that autism is caused by FLOURIDE IN TEH WATERS

Just wait. Someday some un-vaccinated child will give someone pertussis or some other disease and that person will die, and THEN that person's family must sue the parent that did not vaccinate their child and then people will be so scared of law suits that they'll vaccinate anyway.

@ameliabedelia:

haha. It's a funny anecdote, but it makes a valid point.

Vaccines exist for a reason, and we give them to kids for a reason. Before the whole vaccine-autism debate, it seemed reckless and irresponsible to not vaccinate your children, because they not only can DIE from these diseases, they can pass it on to others who can also die from the disease.

It would be really shitty if vaccines caused autism, it would certainly put us all in a pickle (hmm, do I want my child to be autistic, or do I want them to have polio?), but for now there's no actual scientific evidence supporting the link, so why are we even putting our children and our community at risk of deadly diseases?

parafilm

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