The New England Journal of Medicine recently published yet another study confirming that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is almost certainly not a cause of autism and neurological problems in vaccinated children.
One theory of how the disease might cause autism and other problems in vaccinated children related to rare seizures that occur in an extremely small number of children who are vaccinated. Such children experience very high fevers after being vaccinated which causes febrile seizures that can last as long as 15 minutes. There had been speculation that the high fevers and seizures might predispose children to autism and other neurological problems later in life.
Out of the 639,000 children whose medical records were examined, only 63 experience febrile seizures after being vaccinated. In contrast 521 experienced febrile seizures as the result of an illness unrelated to vaccination. According to the New York Times, even in children who are not vaccinated, about 4 percent will experience such seizures sometime before adolescence.
Were the 63 children who experience febrile seizures more likely to be autistic or suffer from neurological problems? In a word, no. The study found that children who had such seizures were no more likely to experience additional seizures or neurological problems than were children who didn’t experience such seizures after being vaccinated.
Meanwhile, as many parents in Great Britain have abandoned the combined MMR vaccine for separate or no vaccinations, the number of mumps cases has started to take off. In Bradford, England, for example, there were only 5 cases of the mumps in the first three months of 2000, but 153 cases in the first three months of this year.
One of the main problems has been that there is a shortage of the mumps vaccine which means children who had a separate shot for mumps are often not able to get the booster shot for the disease.
The scary part is that according to the BBC, about one-third of the mumps cases have been in children over the age of 15. In children that age, mumps can cause serious complications including inflammation of the brain or pancreas. As Dr. Martin Schweiger of the Leeds Health Authority told the BBC, “If parents do not ensure their children are protected then there will be a real price to pay later.”
As an example of just how bad things can get without vaccination, consider the late 1970s outbreak of whooping cough in the United Kingdom. After massive media coverage claiming that the whooping cough vaccine was unsafe, the vaccination rate fell from 80 percent in 1974 to a mere 31 percent in 1978.
By 1977, Great Britain had a full blown whooping cough epidemic on its hands. By the time it was over, 100,000 cases of the disease were reported at there were at least 34 deaths
Sources:
Pertussis Vaccination and Serious Central Nervous System Disorders: Early Case Series Evidence and Public Reaction Margaret Ann Goetz, Harvard School of Public Health, 1997.
Study clears two vaccines of any long-lasting harm. Philip J. Hilts, The New York Times, August 30, 2001.
Fears grow as mumps cases rise. The BBC, August 30, 2001.
The case for vaccination. The BBC, August 29, 2001.
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mumps is a very painfull infection. i got it when i was in high school.