Debate Rages Over Need For Vaccines

[Guest guest]

Debate Rages Over Need For Vaccines

By Greene, St. sburg Times, http://is.gd/8J28

One is a former Playboy Playmate of the Year. The other was once

voted one of People magazine's most beautiful people. They had a spat

this fall. Actor Peet used the word " parasites " to describe

people aligned with Playmate McCarthy. " She has a lot of nerve, "

McCarthy huffed in response. This would be a bit of celebrity fluff,

except that Peet was criticizing parents who don't vaccinate their

children. McCarthy took up for them because she's the most visible

person who claims childhood vaccines cause autism. As famous as they

are, Peet and McCarthy are merely two combatants in a national

controversy. The nation's most trusted scientific organizations,

including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the

American Academy of Pediatrics, have said there's no link between

childhood vaccines and autism.

Most parents believe them. More than 77 percent of children are

completely vaccinated.

But the number of autism cases keeps growing, and nobody can

explain why. Some people believe vaccines must be to blame. The

Internet teems with frightening stories about the harm they supposedly

do, and McCarthy's latest book is a bestseller.

Parents are peppering doctors with questions about vaccines, and

some are opting out completely. Even a small dropoff in vaccinations

can have a big effect. Earlier this year, a rare outbreak of measles

was attributed partly to parents who refuse to vaccinate their children.

This is no longer principally a debate about science. The real

question is whether Americans still believe in science — or at least,

in the nation's scientists.

Inside a small ranch house in Tampa's Town 'N Country

neighborhood, 9-year-old Nikki Mc pulled at the penny-sized raw

patch on her nose. Her mother — always alert to Nikki's attempts to

hurt herself — straddled the child on the family room floor, keeping

her hands from the scab. Nikki wailed.

" Are you going to be a good girl? " Janet Mc asked.

Eventually, Nikki relaxed. She has worse moments — sometimes she

bangs her head on the floor — but for her mother, every day is a trial.

Eight years ago, two of Janet's triplets, Nikki and Dougie, were

diagnosed with autism, a dis­order marked by difficulties

communicating and interacting. She blames vaccines. After their

15-month shots, she said, the children began to change.

She doesn't know how vaccines hurt them, and she is not sure why

the third triplet, , wasn't affected. But she is so certain

vaccines are harmful that she warns neighbors and friends not to

vaccinate.

" I could just kill somebody who did this to my kids, " she said,

her voice breaking.

Caring for the triplets takes all her time and energy. Her

husband died suddenly three years ago, leaving her struggling

emotionally and financially. She may not be able to hang on to the house.

Nikki stood nearby as her mother talked about her troubles, but

didn't seem to notice her mother was upset. Dougie can say a few

words. Nikki can't.

" How could they take a beautiful child and make her like

nobody's home? "

• • •

The debate about vaccines and autism exploded 10 years ago. A

British study of a dozen children found that children with autism also

had inflamed intestines. The measles vaccine was believed to have

caused the inflammation.

The lead researcher, Wakefield, theorized that after

these children received the MMR (for measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine,

the measles virus in the vaccine traveled to their intestines,

infecting and damaging them. An unknown protein then was able to

travel from there to the brain, causing autism. Wakefield suggested

separating MMR into three vaccines.

After the study came out, rates for MMR vaccination plunged

nearly 15 percent in some parts of Great Britain. In the United

States, fearful parents formed advocacy groups, and the controversy

captured headlines and research dollars. A U.S. representative whose

grandson had autism held a congressional hearing on the potential link.

Since then, the study has been harshly criticized. Most of the

researchers involved have retracted their results. In September,

researchers who conducted a similar study said they found no link

between measles virus and autism.

The antivaccine forces also suggested that thimerosal, a kind of

mercury used as a preservative in vaccines, could be to blame. Mercury

is toxic to the brain, but poison experts say symptoms don't mirror

autism, and no studies linked thimerosal to autism.

Still, by 2001, makers of vaccines removed thimerosal from most

vaccines — except for the flu vaccine — as a precaution. Autism rates

continue to climb.

Researchers say part of the rise comes from increased awareness

and diagnosis of autism. But research also is looking at a genetic

link — when one twin is autistic, the other is more likely to be — and

at possible environmental causes.

In 2004, an expert panel convened by the Institute of Medicine

issued what was meant to be the final word. The group said enough

study had been done to reject any link to autism for either MMR or

thimerosal.

What's more, the group said, money would be better spent

researching other possible causes.

End of story? Hardly.

Oregon financier J.B. Handley is a leading critic of vaccines.

Handley, 39, and his wife founded Generation Rescue after their son,

now 6, was diagnosed with autism. McCarthy is the group's most

public face.

Most pediatricians, Handley said, " are in denial and not wanting

to believe " the dangers of vaccines. He speaks harshly of vaccine

companies and vaccine scientists. He mentioned one scientist at the

CDC who " should go to jail " for covering up the truth.

Handley is not a scientist and acknowledges he is not sure how

vaccines lead to autism. Maybe it's the thimerosal that remains in flu

vaccines.

" I have no doubt that injecting a potent neurotoxin into babies

is a really, really bad idea, " Handley said of thimerosal. " Do I think

it's the only thing (that's unsafe)? I have no idea. "

• • •

The alarm that Handley and others is sounding reverberates

around the country.

On a recent morning, Tampa pediatrician Marcy Baker spent 15

minutes with a worried mother, explaining why a flu shot would protect

her child. Baker thought she had won her over, only to learn the

mother changed her mind and refused the shot.

Baker and her partners posted a letter to parents, trying to

dispel fears, which they hear more and more often. When Baker talks to

reluctant parents, she speaks of children she has seen hospitalized

with whooping cough, meningitis and rotavirus.

" I do feel my patients trust me, " Baker said. " But sometimes

they think that I'm duped by 'the man.' That the government and the

vaccine companies, they're all in on this big conspiracy. "

Some doubting parents make their way to Tampa pediatrician

Berger. He believes vaccines may be linked not only to autism, but to

asthma, allergies and other problems of the immune system.

About a third of his parents don't vaccinate, Berger said, and

most of the others delay their babies' shots.

" If parents educate themselves, and they feel it's not in the

best interest of their child, then who are we to tell them otherwise? "

he asked.

Berger knows most doctors disagree. He also says his patients

are less likely to be exposed to childhood diseases because the

parents tend to breast-feed, and since they're more affluent, they

keep their babies at home and out of day care for the first year.

But he thinks most government scientists aren't really listening

to legitimate questions.

" There's a big incentive at the government and industry level to

not let this get out, " he said.

• • •

Some in the antivaccine movement call Dr. Offit the

Antichrist. He laughs at the name.

" I'm just one of the devil's many humble servants. "

The joke might seem strange from a career pediatrician who

helped develop a vaccine that health officials say could save 2,000

lives a day worldwide.

But Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's

Hospital of Philadelphia, lives on the front lines of the vaccine

debate. Director of the hospital's Vaccine Education Center, he has

written two books on vaccines and pulls no punches. He has gotten

death threats.

Critics target Offit not only for his outspokenness, but also

because he's making money from a vaccine he helped develop to prevent

rotavirus, a disease that causes potentially fatal vomiting and diarrhea.

" I see myself as a champion of children. That's why I went into

pediatrics, " Offit said.

He knows parents dislike seeing children get painful shots.

" What really upsets people is that their child is pinned down

and injected with a biological agent that they don't really

understand, " Offit said. " But in many ways, they're safer than vitamins. "

So he sees why stories on the dangers of vaccines resonate with

parents.

" It's very easy to scare people, " Offit said. " It's very hard to

un­scare them. "

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