Autism, MMR and 60 Minutes

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" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

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November 30, 2000

Autism, MMR and 60 Minutes

Another Pediatrician’s Perspective

[This is from F. Yazbak, MD, FAAP TL Autism Research in

Falmouth, Massachusetts.]

The recent 60 Minutes program on MMR vaccine was an excellent

awareness-raising report on the debate surrounding regressive autism and its

explosion. What struck me most are the following:

* The tragic pictures of the little boy who opened the show and his

parents’ heart-breaking pain and suffering;

* The beautiful mother, standing with her arm raised, like most of

the audience, because she believed her child was injured by the MMR

vaccine -- caught crying by the scanning camera; and

* Wakefield, sincere, truthful, principled, unassuming and

ready to sacrifice everything in the pursuit of the truth.

First, my background: I am trained in infectious diseases and

pediatrics. During my training I personally cared for children and adults

with serious and complicated contagious illnesses. I subsequently “really”

practiced pediatrics and was a school physician for 34 years. I personally

administered my own vaccines and enforced every Health Department mandate.

I also informed myself thoroughly about regressive or late onset autism.

Because of research I am now conducting, I strongly suspect that there is an

autism-vaccine connection (*below).

The following crucial facts were unfortunately not discussed in the 60

Minutes piece:

* The measles virus was isolated from the gut wall of children with

autism. It was further identified by very precise PCR techniques by O’Leary,

and was confirmed to be of vaccine origin by Kawashima and his group.

* Sixty new cases with autistic enterocolitis were reported by

Wakefield in the September 2000 issue of the American Journal of

Gastroenterology.

* Children with autism have statistically significant co-existing

high titers of MMR and Myelin Basic Protein antibodies (Singh).

The authorities like to repeat that Wakefield’s findings have not been

duplicated by other researchers. This may be true for the case of children

with autism but only because no one has tried to. Indeed after seeing the

onslaught of attacks on Dr. Wakefield because of his research, it is

unlikely that anyone would want to. Sabra et al at town University,

however, have described identical ileal lymphoid nodular hyperplasia in the

guts of children with ADHD.

Thousands of parents believe that the MMR vaccine has contributed to

their children’s autism. They have pictures and videos to prove the ‘before

’ and ‘after.’ They speak of the MMR being the only new event in their

child’s life in that period between normal development and autistic

regression. They point out their children’s marked immune system

dysfunction, something with which they were not born.

These parents certainly did not acquire their conviction from reading

about the twelve cases reported in Dr. Wakefield’s first paper. Nor would

they simply be looking for a scapegoat. Please remember, and always

remember, their children were normal and their disease is acquired.

Regardless of how often the authorities attest that the MMR vaccine is safe,

an increasing number of parents here and in Europe are refusing to believe

them. Safety trials not looking beyond 3 weeks post-vaccination convince no

one. Equally alarming to the parents is the fact that the infectious

disease specialists and epidemiologists who make decisions and mandate

vaccines have little knowledge of autism and its immune etiology.

It is inevitable that the present intransigent and unbending attitude

of the vaccine authorities will lead to measles, mumps and rubella

outbreaks. When these diseases return, and they will, the authorities-- and

the authorities alone-- will have to be held responsible. There is no

reasonable justification to tell a parent who is adamant about not using MMR

but who is willing to return three times for the monovalent vaccines, that

they are simply not available and/or illegal. Dr. Wakefield only asked that

more research be done into the triple live-virus vaccine. To intimate that

his research will cause epidemics is a flagrant distortion of the truth.

It took us a long time to perfect the single (monovalent) mumps,

measles and rubella vaccines. Most pediatricians and parents trusted them.

Epidemics stopped and few adverse vaccine reactions were reported.

When the MMR vaccine was licensed in 1971 and became available shortly

thereafter, many pediatricians refused to use it and continued vaccinating

with the monovalent products at 3-6 months intervals. These pediatricians

were concerned with the potential decreased efficacy and increased side

effects of the combination. Many of us were also aware that no long-term

safety studies of the MMR vaccine were available, on going or contemplated.

Two things happened simultaneously in the late seventies to change

things dramatically:

1.) HMOs arrived on the scene and cut down the number of “regular

check-ups” 2.) The State Health Departments started providing the vaccines

free of charge to the practicing pediatricians and GPs. The Health

Departments made it clear that it was cheaper to buy and easier to store and

distribute the 3 in 1 vaccine and, on that basis, simply mandated its use.

Pediatricians had no choice but to comply.

To say that we are not sure the parents will bring the child back for

subsequent shots is false. Certainly this argument could be made in a third

world country but certainly not in the West. Any “practicing” pediatrician

knows that a parent is much more likely to keep a doctor’s appointment if a

vaccine is due. One must be cautious not to insult parents’ intelligence.

Secondly, to say that added injections will cause pain and discomfort

to the child is ridiculous. I believe that the pain caused by an aqueous

injection administered sub-cutaneously by an experienced health professional

does not even come close to the living hell of Autism.

Interestingly, the only people who raise these two arguments are

members of vaccine boards and committees and rarely treat patients. Wouldn’

t it be more appropriate to have the parents make that important choice if

they have such marked reservations? After all it is their child. As well,

it seems hypocritical to mention pain when the vaccine authorities are

introducing new vaccines of questionable efficacy and safety all the time

It was intimated on 60 Minutes that a multitude of studies involving large

populations has proved that the MMR vaccine was perfectly safe and did not

cause autism. THIS IS NOT TRUE. There is NO long-term safety research

proving that MMR does not cause autism. There is a sole epidemiological

study by et al, often publicized as proving decisively that autism

did not increase in the UK after 1988, when MMR was introduced with great

fanfare. This study was financed and ordered by The Medicines Control

Agency and The Public Health Laboratory Service.

A noted British statistician whose specialty is medical research,

looked carefully at the study. He wrote: “A myth is being created

that the et al study shows that MMR is not triggering autism. The

evidence presented in their Lancet paper is [in fact] consistent with the

MMR triggering a substantial proportion of autism cases in this North London

population. The study does not find evidence to support an association

between MMR and autism onset because of a flaw in the study design. This

does not mean that such an association does not exist.”

The reason for this expert’s comments is that the “case series design”

used in the study is well known to be statistically unsatisfactory

for chronic conditions and inadequate for a small sample (293 confirmed

cases). Even the authors of the study themselves alluded to its

methodological problems.

At times, while figures clearly demonstrate an increase in autism,

this fact is denied in the written text. At others, contradictions are

evident:

* “There is uncertainty about whether the prevalence of autism is

increasing,” immediately followed by: “Our study is consistent with an

increase in the incidence of autism in recent birth cohorts.”

* " For age at first parental concern, no significant temporal

clustering was seen for cases of core autism and atypical autism, with the

exception of a single interval within 6 months of MMR vaccine associated

with a peak in reported age of parental concern at 18 months,” and “Our

results do not support the hypothesis that MMR vaccination is causally

related to autism. "

By far, however, the study’s most serious problem was to look

only at children born after 1987. This effectively excluded all children

born in 1986-87 and initially vaccinated in 1988 or later. It also excluded

all 2–5 year old children previously non- or partially immunized and who

received MMR boosters in 1988 or later. More importantly, this design flaw

added all excluded children to the opposite group. Last but not least, Dr.

has repeatedly refused to let anyone see his raw data, in the hopes

of replicating his findings, thus becoming probably the first author in the

history of the Lancet to do so.

The ‘authorities’ need to get away from rhetoric. They must look at

and commission real science to support their claims. Until the safety of

the MMR vaccine is proved conclusively, it will be wise to allow parents a

choice between the single vaccines and the trivalent MMR. All of us who

have been touched by the autism epidemic appreciate the efforts put forth by

CBS and 60 Minutes. We hope that numerous and more balanced, informative

programs will follow.

Take Some Mystery out of Autism

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