Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism

Paper instructions:
Carry on an article critique of the article “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism” of the viewpoints made by Kelly King Heyworth

Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism
Epidemics, 2011
“We have to move forward and be willing to accept what science tells us: Vaccines do
not cause autism.”
In the following viewpoint, KelleyKingHeyworth reports that the medical community is
overwhelmingly supportive of childhood vaccinations. Heyworth believes that despite a
growing movement that insists on a causal connection between vaccinations and autism,
evidence refutes this claim. As one doctor explains in Heyworth’s viewpoint, there is more
likely a coincidental link between immunization schedules and diagnoses of autism because
the disease tends to arise when children are young—around the same ages that they are
receiving vaccinations. Heyworth warns that refusing vaccination for fear of autism endangers
the unvaccinated child and the whole community because formerly controlled diseases such
as measles and whooping cough have reemerged in unvaccinated populations. KelleyKing
Heyworth is a writer who has written for Parents and Sports Illustrated magazines. She is
married to a medical researcher.
As you read, consider the following questions:
As Heyworth writes, what mercury-containing preservative in vaccines did Andrew 1.
Wakefield argue might push infants’ mercury exposure beyond safe limits?
According to the author, what happened to Wakefield’s notorious publication in February 2.
2010?

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As Heyworth reports, why did the drug manufacturer Merck recall certain lots of the Hib 3.
vaccine distributed in 2007?
As Summer Estall approached her first birthday, her mom, Lisa, had more on her mind than party
plans. Summer was about to receive not only cake, and presents, but also—surprise!—her fourth
round of shots in ten months. “Her last vaccinations had been tough,” says Estall, of Grand Forks,
North Dakota. “She was her usual happy self after being examined by the doctor, but then we were
called into a room where two nurses were both holding long needles. They told me to lay Summer on
the table, pull her pants down, and pin down her arms. Of course, she started to scream, and it felt
like I was preparing her for torture. By the time the nurses got the Band-Aids on, Summer seemed to
be okay—but I was a wreck.”
However, it wasn’t just the painful pricks that worried Estall about her daughter’s 12-month shots.
“Everywhere I go, someone’s talking about the danger of vaccines,” she says. “There are moms
posting about their kids’ side effects on just about every online parenting forum. The other day I had
coffee with two friends, and one of them said she wasn’t vaccinating her kids. I can’t help but wonder:
Should I really be injecting a healthy child with these things?”
Medical Community Supports Vaccination
The answer from the vast majority of medical experts is a resounding “yes.” The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend that
healthy children get vaccinated against 14 diseases by age 2 (with boosters later for some), along
with an annual inoculation against the flu. In fact, the government supports vaccines so strongly that
any uninsured child can walk into a clinic and get his or her shots for free. “Immunizations are simply
one of the greatest public-health achievements,” says Mary Glodé, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the
University of Colorado in Denver.
And yet, despite doctors’ reassurances and mounting evidence that underscores the safety and value
of vaccination, many educated, dedicated parents are still wary of vaccines—or passionately
opposed to them. Although the national immunization rate has remained stable over the past decade
(76 percent of children aged 19 to 35 months were up-to-date on all of their shots in 2008), that’s still
short of the government’s goal of 80 percent. In some pockets of the country, a rising number of
parents are delaying shots for their kids or skipping certain ones altogether, citing religious or
philosophical exemptions from state laws that require kids to be vaccinated in order to attend school.
As a result, there have been recent outbreaks of serious diseases that vaccines had virtually wiped
out in the U.S., including measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), and haemophilus influenzae
type b (Hib), which was once the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in kids under 5.
Infectious-disease specialists say these cases are due to a breakdown of what’s known as “herd
immunity.” In order for a community to be fully protected against a disease, 80 to 90 percent of its
population needs to have been vaccinated, says pediatrician Lance Rodewald, M.D., director of the
Immunization Services Division of the CDC. Whenever coverage drops significantly below that level,
a school, a church, or a neighborhood becomes susceptible to the disease. Babies who aren’t old
enough to get the shot yet are at the greatest risk of becoming sick.
Most of the recent measles outbreaks have been traced to individuals who visited a country where
vaccine-preventable diseases still flourish. “The fact is, all of these diseases still exist—some
circulate in this country and others are only a plane ride away.” says Dr. Rodewald. “They could
easily become widespread again if more people refuse vaccines.”
Refuting Autism-Vaccination Link
Ask parents what scares them most about the shots, and you’ll likely get one answer: autism. Many
people believe that the increased number of vaccines—children now get twice as many as they did in
1980 and can receive up to 20 injections by their first birthday—are to blame for the rise in kids with
autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The idea first made headlines in 1998, when Andrew Wakefield,
M.D., a British gastroenterologist, published a study of 12 children in The Lancet that linked the
measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) combination vaccine with intestinal problems that he believed
led to autism. The following year, the AAP issued a warning about thimerosal, the mercury-containing
preservative that was found in most vaccines. Though it didn’t mention autism specifically, it
suggested that the use of vaccines with thimerosal could theoretically push an infant’s total exposure
of mercury, a neurotoxin, above safe limits, and it recommended that the preservative be removed
from shots. The vaccine-autism hypothesis was solidly in the mainstream by the time actress Jenny
McCarthy went public with her belief that vaccines caused her son’s autism, describing in
heartbreaking detail how “the soul left his eyes” on a 2007 segment of the The Oprah Show. “It was
enough to scare any mother,” says Eileen Pike, of West Palm Beach, Florida, who has chosen to
delay certain vaccines for her son, now 23 months.
However, at least seven large studies in major medical journals have now found no association
between the MMR vaccine and ASD—and this February [2010], The Lancet officially retracted Dr.
Wakefield’s original paper. (Revelations that he had failed to disclose connections to lawyers involved
in vaccine litigation also emerged.) In March, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Office of Special
Masters, a group of judges appointed to handle cases of families who believe immunizations were
responsible for their child’s autism, ruled that thimerosal in vaccines does not increase the risk of the
disorder. (In 2008, a federal judge did award compensation to the family of Hannah Poling, a child
with mitochondrial disorder, a rare condition that can show symptoms of autism, which she was
diagnosed with shortly after receiving five vaccines.) Several demographic analyses have also found
that autism rates continued to rise even after thimerosal was removed from all vaccines except some
flu shots.
So why are there so many stories of children developing autism shortly after immunizations—not just
in the media, but also in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, the federally cosponsored
program that collects reports of suspected vaccine-related injury or illness? Experts believe that the
association is almost certainly coincidental. Children get their first dose of the MMR vaccine at 12 to
15 months, the age at which autism symptoms typically become noticeable, says Paul Offit, M.D.,
director of the vaccine education center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the author of
Autism’s False Profits: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. “It’s the same reason
why there are reports of SIDS [sudden infant death syndrome] deaths after DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus,
and pertussis) immunizations,” says Dr. Offit. “Infants start the DTaP vaccine between 2 and 6
months, which is the time they’re also most likely to die from SIDS.” In fact, some autism activists now
believe that we should’t even do more studies about a possible vaccine connection because they take
attention and money away from important research that is investigating other potential causes of the
disorder. “We have to move forward and be willing to accept what science tells us: Vaccines do not
cause autism,” says Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation and the mother of a
child with autism.
Weighing the Risks
That doesn’t mean that vaccines aren’t capable of causing adverse effects beyond a sore arm and a
slight fever. In 1986, the government created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to
reimburse families whose children had serious side effects, and it has awarded nearly $2 billion on
2,398 claims. But most doctors say that the odds of experiencing a vaccine-related injury are greatly
outweighed by the dangers of catching a vaccine-preventable disease. The measles vaccine, for
instance, can cause a temporary reduction in platelets (which control bleeding after an injury) in 1 in
30,000 children, but 1 in 2,000 will die if they get measles itself. The DTaP vaccine can cause
seizures or a temporary “shocklike” state in 1 in 14,000 people, and acute encephalitis (brain
swelling) in 11 in 1 million. But the diseases it prevents—diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis—are fatal
in 1 in 20 cases, 1 in 10 cases, and 1 in 1,500 cases, respectively.
If the FDA determines that a vaccine poses a real risk to more than a tiny percentage of children, the
agency won’t let it be used. “Before a new vaccine is approved, it goes through a prospective,
placebo-controlled trial involving tens of thousands of children,” says Dr. Offit, who was a cocreator of
RotaTeq, one of two current rotavirus gastroenteritis vaccines. Once a vaccine is in use, side-effect
reports are analyzed by the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a program that collects patient information from
managed-care organizations. In 2001, government scientists concluded that Wyeth’s Rotashield, an
earlier vaccine against rotavirus, could cause one extra case of bowel obstruction for every 10,000
babies who were immunized each year, and they halted its use in the U.S. Sometimes vaccines are
pulled from shelves as a precaution: In 2007, certain lots of Merck’s Hib vaccine were recalled after
the company found bacteria on manufacturing equipment, even though the vaccines themselves
tested negative for contamination.
Finding a Middle Ground
Not all parents are reassured by facts like these. After all, most have met a child with autism; probably
few have seen one who has crippling polio. Moms want to eliminate even a remote chance that their
child will experience side effects from a vaccine, and they may fear that multiple injections could
overwhelm the immune system. In fact, a national survey of parents published in Pediatrics [in April
2010] (although conducted in 2009, before the retraction of Dr. Wakefield’s study), found that 54
percent of parents were concerned about the serious adverse effects of vaccines, and 25 percent
believed that some vaccines cause autism.
Enter Robert Sears, M.D., author of The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child.
Published in 2007, it includes a different immunization schedule that delays or spaces out several
vaccines so that children never receive more than two shots at a time—and it has become a bible for
many parents. Dr. Sears says that his main purpose is to make sure that children whose parents
would otherwise opt out of immunizations get at least some protection. His top concern is aluminum,
an ingredient that is added to half of all vaccines to boost their effectiveness. “Most experts believe
the amount of aluminum contained in vaccines is safe, but studies in human infants haven’t proven
that,” says Dr. Sears. “Spacing them out seems like the best way to limit overexposure.”
Research has shown, however, that kids are exposed to more aluminum in breast milk or infant
formula than through vaccines. And in 2004, The Cochrane Collaboration, an international not-for-profit health-care research organization, analyzed five studies on the effects of aluminum-containing
vaccines and concluded that children who receive them are no more likely to experience any serious
or long-lasting health problems than those who don’t. For parents who are concerned about
overburdening their child’s immune system with multiple vaccines, Dr. Offit points out that young
children are exposed to more antigens—bacteria, viruses, toxins, and other substances that can
stimulate disease-fighting antibodies—in a single day of eating, playing and breathing than they are
through immunizations.
While popular with some parents, Dr. Sears’s alternative schedule has been criticized by the AAP.
“Vaccines protect babies’ immature immune system,” says Margaret Fisher, M.D., a pediatrician at
The Children’s Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center, in New Jersey, and chair of the AAP section on
infectious diseases. “When you delay vaccines, you leave children unprotected against dangerous
diseases at the time when they’re most vulnerable.” In 2008, for example, three of the five kids in
Minnesota who developed invasive Hib disease (one of whom died) had parents who’d chosen to
postpone vaccination. “People always ask me, ‘Which shot can I skip?'” says Dr. Fisher. “Honestly, I
can’t think of one I’d wait on.”
Protecting Children and Community
At the heart of the vaccine debate is the idea that when you immunize your children you don’t just
protect them—you help shield your entire community. Since some kids can’t get certain vaccines
because they are allergic to ingredients like eggs, or because they have immune-system deficiencies
that prevent vaccines from working (such as those with cancer who are undergoing chemotherapy),
many people feel that it’s up to healthy children to keep vaccination rates at a level that protects the
“herd” as much as possible.
This argument isn’t just pitting parents against parents—it’s also turning parents against their
pediatricians. “Parents often have a hard time reasonably assessing the risks involved because
they’ve never had any experience with many of the diseases that vaccines prevent,” says Parents
advisor Ari Brown, M.D., a pediatrician in Austin, Texas, and author of Baby 411. “But I’ve seen
children with serious cases of measles, mumps, and whooping cough, and I have seen a child die
from chicken pox. I promise you that these are diseases you don’t want your child to get.”
Although some doctors are refusing to take on patients whose families don’t plan to immunize, it’s
important for parents and pediatricians to have respectful conversations. In the end, many doctors
say that the strongest statement they can make in favor of vaccinating kids is to point to the family
photos on their office walls. “Sometimes the only way that I can get through to nervous parents is by
telling them that I don’t do anything different for my own two children,” says Dr. Brown. “Fortunately,
most parents do decide to vaccinate.”
That was the case [in 2009] when Lisa Estall overcame her fears and celebrated Summer’s first
birthday with a round of immunizations. And it was the case when Alison Singer brought her 12-year-old daughter, Jodie, who has autism, in for an H1N1 shot. “Kids were dying all across the country
from this flu. Just because my daughter has autism doesn’t mean she should be denied a potentially
lifesaving vaccine,” she says. “On the contrary, I wanted her to be protected.”
Further Readings
Books
Arthur Allen Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver. New York: Norton,
2007.
Tony Barnett and Alan Whiteside AIDS in the Twenty-First Century: Disease and Globalization.
2nd ed.; fully revised and updated. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
John M. Barry The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. New York:
Penguin, 2005.
David P. Clark Germs, Genes, & Civilization: How Epidemics Shaped Who We Are Today. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2010.
Madeline Drexler Emerging Epidemics: The Menace of New Infections. New York: Penguin, 2003.
Helen Epstein The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa. New York:
Picador, 2007.
Laurie Garrett Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. New York: Hyperion, 2001.
John Iliffe The African AIDS Epidemic: A History. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006.
Maryn McKenna Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA. New York: Free Press, 2010.
Joseph Mercola with Pat Killeen The Great Bird Flu Hoax: The Truth They Don’t Want You to
Know About the “Next Big Pandemic.” Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009.
Neil Z. Miller Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective? Santa Fe, NM: New Atlantean, 2008.
Richard E. Neustadt and Harvey Fineberg The Epidemic That Never Was: Policy-Making and the
Swine Flu Scare. New York: Vintage, 1983.
Gary Null AIDS: A Second Opinion. New York: Seven Stories, 2002.
Michael B.A. Oldstone Viruses, Plagues, and History: Past, Present, and Future. Rev. ed. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxil The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic.
New York: Thomas Dunne, 2010.
Abigail A. Salyers and Dixie D. Whitt Revenge of the Microbes: How Bacterial Resistance Is
Undermining the Antibiotic Miracle. Washington, DC: ASM, 2005.
Jessica Snyder Sachs Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World. New
York: Hill and Wang, 2007.
Alan Sipress The Fatal Strain: On the Trail of Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic. New York:
Viking, 2009.
Michael Specter Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the
Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. New York: Penguin, 2009.
Brad Spellberg Rising Plague: The Global Threat from Deadly Bacteria and Our Dwindling
Arsenal to Fight Them. New York: Prometheus, 2009.
Sherri J. Tenpenny Saying No to Vaccines. Middleburg Heights, OH: NMA Media, 2008.
Barry E. Zimmerman and David J. Zimmerman Killer Germs. Chicago: Contemporary Books,
2003.
Periodicals
Sharon Begley and Jeneen Interlandi “Anatomy of a Scare,” Newsweek, March 2, 2009.
Neil Genzlinger “Vaccinations: A Hot Debate Still Burning,” New York Times, April 27, 2010.
Andrew Grant “Vaccine Phobia Becomes a Public-Health Threat,” Discover, January/February
2010.
Harriet Hall “Vaccines and Autism,” Skeptic, June 3, 2009.
Claudia Kalb “Stomping Through a Medical Minefield,” Newsweek, November 3, 2008.
Deborah Kotz “A Closer Look at Vaccines,” U.S. News & World Report, February 2009.
Chris Mooney “Vaccination Nation,” Discover, June 2009.
Alice Park “How Safe Are Vaccines?” Time, June 2, 2008.
Joel Stein “The Vaccination War,” Time, September 28, 2009.
Elizabeth Weise “Doctors: Letting Kids ‘Get’ the Flu Is Not a Good Idea,” USA Today, October 21,
2009.
Keith J. Winstein “Fear of Vaccines Spurs Outbreaks, Study Says,” Wall Street Journal, May 7,
2009.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2011 Greenhaven Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning.
Source Citation
Heyworth, Kelley King. “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism.” Epidemics. Ed. David
Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing
Viewpoints. Rpt. from “Vaccines: The Reality Behind the Debate.” Parents (May
2010). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 21 July 2014.
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