| ||||
|
Arts & Entertainment
Books Comics  Health & BodyMedia Mothers Who Think News People Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon Health & Body stories, go to the
Health & Body home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon Health & Body Urge: Naked World Urge: Naked World Urge: Naked World Urge Complete archives for Health & Body - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
Inoculated into oblivion | page 1, 2
By some odd and tragic coincidence, both
Burton and Helen Chenoweth,
another fire-breathing, anti-government
Republican on the committee, are
both grandparents of autistic boys who
appeared to be developing normally
until they received
measles-mumps-rubella and other
combination vaccines when they were
15 months old. The annals of autism research make it
clear that a subset of autistic children
suddenly regressed at this age long
before the measles vaccine became
available. But tell that to a parent
whose kid goes from bubbly chatmeister
to howling mute. "I and my daughter truly believe this,"
Burton said at Thursday's hearing.
"I just can't believe it wasn't related
to the vaccine. When people tell
me it's a genetic problem, I'll tell you
-- that's just nuts." "This hearing was called to establish
the point of view of the chairman
who believes there's a connection
between autism and vaccination,"
countered Henry Waxman of California,
the lead Democrat on the committee.
"But why should we scare people about
immunization until we know the
facts?" Burton's first witnesses were Andrew
Wakefield of Scotland and John O'Leary
of Ireland, who believe they have shown
that autistic children
suffering from gastrointestinal
problems have measles viruses colonizing
immune cells in
their guts. Wakefield, a gastroenterologist, said
this suggests that a subset of
autistic people may suffer brain
inflammation resulting from infections
that
began in their intestines after they
were inoculated with the
measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. The vaccine community bitterly contests
Wakefield's measles claims. Brent
Taylor, who, like Wakefield, serves at
the Royal Free Hospital in London,
completed a study this year that showed
no epidemiological evidence for a
measles vaccine-autism link. Wakefield's studies of the measles
vaccine, which appeared in the Lancet,
have received enormous press attention
in the United Kingdom. Frightened
Britons have kept their kids away from
the measles "jab," and rates of
vaccination against the highly
contagious disease fell to about 85
percent
last year. Epidemiologists have been predicting a
measles epidemic to result and this
week got some confirmation: Ireland
reported an outbreak of 300 measles
cases, compared to only 30 in all of
1999. Two of the new cases were
infants who had to be hospitalized with
pneumonia complications. "My fear," says Benjamin Schwartz of the
CDC's immunization program, "is
that we could get the same thing here." Wakefield acknowledges that his is a
hypothesis. But he and other
researchers believe the public health
bureaucracy is circling the wagons
around the vaccination program -- a
priority of the Clinton
administration -- and should put some
research money into the question. Government scientists are skeptical.
Wakefield has refused to share his
tissue samples with the CDC and "we
don't see a credible hypothesis to
test," says Schwartz. Noting that most
of the data presented by Wakefield
and O'Leary is unpublished, he added,
"There's a danger in reporting
scientific findings at a congressional
hearing." For Schwartz and many others, the fact
that a significant portion of
autistic kids regress into silence
shortly after their MMR shots is just a
sad coincidence. "That's not a very easy
explanation for a parent
devastated by this disease, and I think
it points out the importance of us
finding a scientific reason why children
are autistic," he says. A small group of scientists hypothesize
that low-grade infections caused by
live viruses in MMR and other vaccines
may overwhelm the immune systems of
a small percentage of toddlers. Proving
this requires complex experiments
in an arcane field called
neuroimmunology. Neurologist Candace Pert and her
virologist husband Michael Ruff,
co-directors of Georgetown University's
Institute For New Medicine, are
members of this cutting edge, or fringe,
as the case may be. They step
lively where most scientists fear to
tread. The idea that vaccines, arguably the top
public health achievement of the
past half century, are damaging children
"is such a horrible possibility,
or in my eyes a high probability, that
no one wants to be associated with
it," Pert says. "And that's tragic
because it's all been done in the name
of good. But it has to be pinned down.
It's too important to be just a
philosophical debate."
- - - - - - - - - - - - Sound off - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon | |||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
