http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23560-2001May14.html

Endangering Public Health

Monday, May 14, 2001; Page A20

VACCINATION AGAINST deadly childhood diseases needs to be near-universal and widely accepted, or it will cease to be truly protective. Such wide acceptance is threatened by hearings being held on vaccine safety by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.). Mr. Burton has asserted, based on no reliable scientific evidence, that vaccines are harming some children. He has said that he believes his grandson, who is autistic, developed that condition as a result of receiving a routine childhood immunization for measles, mumps and rubella. That vaccine has eliminated untold suffering, but the idea that it can trigger autism has taken hold among a small number of parents, who proselytize energetically against vaccinating.

If there were any credible evidence of a risk, one could not blame parents for fearing to vaccinate or Mr. Burton for using his position to highlight the risk. But repeated large-scale studies have failed to find any link between the vaccine and autism. Most recently, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, at Mr.  Burton’s request, reviewed previous findings, and its panel found no grounds for changing the vaccination schedule, although it urged continued monitoring of that and other vaccine safety questions. Now Mr. Burton wants the National Institutes of Health to study the issue again.

Autism, a tragic neurological disorder that can render children unable to communicate or relate normally to others, appears to be on the rise. A small percentage of cases is attributed to genetics or to prenatal damage, but most cases are unexplained. Symptoms generally surface at about the age childhood immunizations are given. But the autism rate has not grown in tandem with immunization rates, and it is rising in places where rates of immunizations are holding steady.  Despite this, the link hypothesis has developed a sturdy life, especially on the Internet, to the point at which public health authorities fear holes could open in the immunization safety net. In Britain, where the vaccine hypothesis has had more press, experts are seeing a slight but worrying erosion in vaccination rates.

A loss of confidence in vaccines would be catastrophic for a society that has almost forgotten the horror of the many infectious diseases they have nearly eradicated—not just mumps, measles and rubella, but polio, diphtheria, whooping cough and others. Responsible government oversight of vaccine safety is essential; these hearings don’t fit in that category.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

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