Debate continues over vaccination needs, risks
Thursday, October 18, 2001
It
is a question I hear from readers throughout the year: Should I be
worried about getting my child vaccinated against childhood diseases? Do
I risk triggering some latent tendency to autism in my child?
At the very least, is it safer to stagger my child's vaccinations, to
give him single doses of the vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella,
rather than giving him the combination MMR?
I have heard no less an authority than Dr. James Oleske, the famed
pediatric AIDS expert from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey, say that parents who are jittery might want to consider
getting individual shots of the vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella
(although, between the initial shots and the boosters, that means a lot
more needle jabs and a lot more visits to the doctor).
Last month, however, British doctors said there's nothing to fear
about the safety of the triple MMR vaccine because of mounting evidence
that it is not linked to autism or bowel disorders. Professor David
Elliman of St. George's Hospital in London and his colleague Dr Helen
Bedford, of the Institute of Child Health in London, said the original
1998 study that caused the concern was flawed and follow-up research had
confirmed the safety of the triple vaccine.
Dr. Jeffrey Boscamp, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at
Children's Hospital of Hackensack University Medical Center, said,
"An English doctor, Andrew Wakefield, published a paper in the
medical journal The Lancet and it was only about 12 kids — a tiny number.
But based on those 12 kids, he thought there was an association between
the MMR vaccine and the onset of autism. Because of that one article, the
notion of a link between MMR and autism just took on a life of its own.
There have been numerous studies since, involving huge numbers of
children — the biggest one in Finland followed 1.8 million individuals
given 3 million doses of vaccine over 14 years — and absolutely no
linkage has been found.
"Then there have been a number of other epidemiological studies
done to see whether there was an increase in autism when the MMR was
introduced. While there has been an increase in the number of autism
cases over the years, there was not a sudden jump-up in cases when the
MMR vaccine was introduced. There have been probably five or six
different ways this has been looked at, and the fact of the matter is,
there is no connection.''
Still, Ray Gallup of Lake Hiawatha, father of an autistic son and
president of the Autism Autoimmunity Project, which aims to bring more
funding to research into the causes of autism, is not convinced. He and
many other parents feel that their children began to regress into autism
— losing language, withdrawing, failing to make eye contact — around the
time they received their MMR vaccine at about 15 months of age
"The frustration I have is that the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the federal Food and
Drug Administration, and the Institute of Medicine, are covering up,
while more children get autism because of the MMR vaccine,'' he said.
"We could spend time reversing the damage and preventing more cases,
but the vaccine companies and federal health agencies are not interested.
It comes down to money they want to make and any legal obligation they
can avoid regarding safety aspects.''
He is working on a class-action lawsuit involving autistic children
whose parents feel they were harmed by vaccines.
Boscamp believes parents need to understand the risks of not having
your child vaccinated.
"It's easy to lose sight of what kind of disease measles was,''
said the pediatrician. "People forget that during the last big
outbreak, between 1989 and 1991, there were 55,000 cases of measles,
11,000 children were hospitalized, and 125 children died.''
Children who are not vaccinated against measles are 35 times more
likely than immunized children to catch the disease, according to one
report I read.
And what about having your child vaccinated using single doses for
each disease, staggered over time, rather than the triple MMR?
"Nobody has ever tasted the safety of doing them individually,''
Boscamp said. "You're going to a regimen more untested than the
combination vaccine."
According to the doctor, a downside of this method is the time factor.
"If you leave gaps of time between each vaccination, you just really
leave kids at risk during those gaps.'
You can reach Mary Amoroso in care of The Record, 150 River St.,
Hackensack, N.J. 07601, by fax at (201) 646-4047, or by e-mail at
amoroso@northjersey.com. Please give your name and number so she can talk
to you. She will not use your name in print, if you would prefer that.
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