It's a helluva choice for parents - no studies show definitively that vaccines cause autism, none show definitively that it doesn't. The groups claiming that 'science says the vaccines are safe' are the groups who approved them in the first place - and finding them to be the cause now would open the floodgates on lawsuits.
But autism diagnoses rose nearly 300% from 1987 to 1998, and studies don't show that to be a problem with the numbers or a matter of new awareness.
Mothers believed doctors who said DES was safe, only to see their daughters die of cancer before their 30s; thalidimide (sp) was supposed to be safe - except it caused babies to be born without limbs.

It is very frustrating that no studies give a definitive answer on this question. My pediatrician follows a modified schedule for giving vaccines so that so many are not given at once (I know some people think that sometimes can cause autism). The only child I know that is autistic WASN'T vaccinated, because his mother was terrified of that possibility....it's sad. It is also scary that by not vaccinating your child, you can leave them open to getting some pretty scary diseases that could kill them. It is too bad that the government doesn't feel that it is important enough to devote more resources into studying this issue.

Such a scary decision to have to make, I don't envy parents' position at all. I hope that by the time I have children there will be an answer. Of couse, there will probably be something new to have to worry about by then...

Yeah, this is just one of many scary decisions parents have to make. Personally, I think I'd give my children the vaccinations. The diseases they protect children from have been proven dangerous and potentially deadly, but the autism link hasn't been proven. I can respect somebody who might make a different decision, though. Certainly nobody should be forced to give their child medication.

Parents should be able to make whatever decision they want. Like Stephley was talking about, doctors/science have been wrong in the past. Nobody should ever be able to tell a parent they have to vaccinate their children, it's beyond unconstitutional. Measles is curable anyway.

I personally don't vaccinate my children, but there are numerous reasons, not just the autism debate.

i know that there's been endless debate on vaccines being the cause of autism, or at least contributing to the instances where children have it - but the opposite side is that there are diseases that have been relatively dormant that are coming back. i don't know what the result is going to be. i think that we need to have more information before final calls are made on this one.

it's great that jenny mccarthy and other celebs are trying to raise awareness because then maybe we'll get the real information and not heresay

it just THRILLS me to read these posts! my oldest daughter has autism, which we believe was caused by vaccines. only a couple of years ago there would have been zero support for parents making their own choices on this matter. people were accepting whatever theur doctors told them.

it turns my stomach to think of giving my youngest the mmr vaccine, and yet i know there is a risk in not doing so. i feel strongly that for our family's gene pool the risks vaccines create do not out weigh the risk of the diseases vaccines help guard against.

(btw, it was something like 138 cases, so still a small number of cases. 15 were hospitalized and none died.)

One thing my doctor does is only offer aluminum and mercury free vaccines. And he isn't on such a strict schedule. No four shot visits. They are all spread out. I think that is easily something that every doctor could do. In the long run, not vaccinating your kids can hurt more than just their health. While you can get a waiver for school citing reasons for not vaccinating, sports aren't included in the protective umbrella. Your child can be refused into all sports and other extracurricular school related activities. On a side not, I debated heavily about whether to vaccinate my daughter. I stayed on the phone for 5 hours with my pediatrician uncle in Montana while he read to me medical studies on the vaccines that had me worried.

I also want to say, my childhood best friend's mother was completly deaf due to a measles mumps combo sickness when she was younger. It nearly killed her.

There are a lot of states that are trying to mandate the HPV vaccine for girls along with all the other required vaccinations. It worries me because the study the FDA based their approval on only followed patients for five years after getting the vaccinations. How is that satisfactory to mandate a vaccine for all girls?

lol, Texas sure shot that down, didn't we?

Yeah, but I'm afraid it might have been for the wrong reasons.

Don't forget the study was actually funded by the drug company, Michelin.

For my family, it goes beyond the ingredients in the vaccine. Chicken Pox vaccine? Hepatitis B vaccine? Why do you need those? We believe in our bodies' immune system to work the way it was intended, not to be interfered with.

It's all in whose information you trust. If I ask my mother, a nurse, if I should vaccinate, she will obviously say yes. I don't trust an HPV vaccine study funded by the drug company trying to get it on the market. And the fact that any state wants to mandate a medical decision just makes me SICK.

My twin brother is autistic and I am not. All four of my parents children had vaccines. It just all seems to be a crap shoot. Its just scary overall that they cant figure out definitively what causes autism.

Oh by all means other parents right to choose what to do for THEIR CHILD far outweighs the importance of like, not having outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases.

I just don't get it. There is no link between vaccination and autism, but there is a link between not vaccinating for polio and, say, getting polio. Which people can die from. Common sense is just not popular amongst a certain set of uber-mommies in America...

It has nothing to do with uber-parenting and everything to do with how trust has been destroyed between many Americans and the medical/scientific community. We have been told a number of times that a product is safe, only to discover - when children have been deformed or died - that the product was not safe and that often companies and the government knew that the product was not safe.
In ten years the rate of autism jumped nearly 300% - which strongly suggests something other than a natural cause.
If all parents agree to vaccinate their children so that there are no measles outbreaks, will everyone agree to help financially and emotionally support the families with children who are diagnosed with autism? Or are we just asking people to risk their kids for the team?

Snowbunny, the beauty of choice is that people who feel the way you do can get their child vaccinated. That way if there is an outbreak, their children won't be affected.

There are some members of our society who cannot be vaccinated because of reactions to vaccines; so if you don't vaccinate your children you are decreasing herd immunity. So really, it's a public health issue.

Also, I am not sure parents should have the right to subject their children to a life-threatening virus. Pro-lifers argue that potential parents don't have the right to destroy a fetus before the it is even born, I don't get why in the event of a breakout of say, smallpox, parents would be allowed to deny their children vaccines. I think the govt. does have an interest to protect life. Even though there is no outbreak now, that's a good thing, we need to prevent one from occurring.

Stephley- A rise in autism diagnoses the past ten years could be linked to a huge number of causes. Most likely, it just means it is being diagnosed more, whereas before these children were thought to have hyperactivity disorder, or to simply be disruptive. I mean, the use of thimoserol was discontinued nearly a decade ago, I thought THAT was supposed to be the cause of autism...I guess not. Maybe it is the metal of the needle? Sometimes things happen, people get illnesses or have disorders they can't control, and it's sad, but we don't get to be the gods of everything, we just can't control everything.

Thimoserol is a mercury based preservative IN vaccines. Researchers say the number of increased diagnoses doesn't support the notion that it's more awareness or a new definition of autism. We can't control natural occurrences, but if there's evidence, even a strong suggestion, that the cause of a problem is manmade parents have the obligation, not just the right, to do all they can to protect their children. If the government and science can't get together on whether something is safe or not, they can't force parents to inject it into their children.

A neighbor happens to subscribe to Redbook magazine and they have a feature where they are following a family dealing with autism. It was really very interesting to read. They had a section called "Do vaccines cause autism?" which stated something I have never heard before. Families who feel that vaccines have harmed their child can file a petition with HRSA to receive compensation for medical expenses, education costs and therapy. (Their web site is www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation) While not specifically autism-related, this program has had 5000 autism-related claims filed in the past 10 years.

While the article says that no autism claims have been awarded, there was a case last November where the family of an autistic girl was awarded compensation because vaccines aggravated an underlying disorder that she already had which the government says lead to "brain disease with symptoms of autism." So maybe there is something to the claims? Maybe there are some individuals that are genetically prone to autism and something in the vaccines or the way they are administered tips them over the edge and without them , they wouldn't have developed the disease?

I do think that part of the rise in autism is that physicians are much more aware of it now and that they do diagnose more often. Also, I think the range of autism that is diagnosed now is larger, they are seeing more cases where the symptoms are not as bad,whereas before they may not have called it autism except if it was severe. My friend has an autistic son and she has seen such improvement in him through therapy and special programs in the public schools here. He wasn't vaccinated, so I think that we can't say EVERY case of autism is caused by vaccines, but I do think there is enough of a question that we should be pressuring the government to provide more funding to independent researchers who can objectively study the question.

I just googled vaccines and autism, but added 'history' for the first time, and Hannah's story was the first thing that popped up - it's interesting that with Jenny McCarthy being all over the place recently that this story hasn't gotten more play. I wonder why the documents are sealed, considering the potential importance. It probably helped that her father is a neurologist and her mother's a lawyer. Since not all children who get vaccines develop autism, it seems very possible that something in the vaccines triggers something in the affected children.

"It is too bad that the government doesn't feel that it is important enough to devote more resources into studying this issue."

i agree with this. i think everyone would feel better if they were doing all they could to prevent problems related to vaccines. I vaccinated my son, and he had no side effects whatsoever, but I was apprehensive and stressed out each time.

Stephley-Thimoserol was removed from vaccines in 2001. So if diagnoses are still rising...?

And just because a very vocal minority believes that autism is caused by vaccines does not mean that it's based on proof. The government and scientists do NOT believe that autism is caused by vaccines. The fact that some really uneducated people do not agree does not mean that there is some confusion!

If you need some info on this, check out wikipedia. While of course it is not an authority, it links to the various studies.

The thing is, people believe that vaccines cause autism the way that they believe that evolution did not happen; no amount of proof will change their minds because they are MOMS so they KNOW.

Funny, I just looked at a table of Thimoserol content in vaccines from 2006...

While the official line is vaccines are safe, without a formal hearing, the federal government reccently conceded vaccines significantly aggravated Hannah Poling's underlying medical condition. This predisposed Hannah "to deficits in cellular energy metabolism and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder."

By admitting that, while refusing to acknowledge or address vaccine safety issues, the government fuels parents' concerns.

In an interview on the subject, former NIH Director Bernadine Healy said the scientific community should never turn its back on a hypothesis out of fear for what it might reveal: If you know there is a susceptible group, "you can save those children. If you turn your back on the notion there is a susceptible group ... what can I say?" Wouldn't she know if scientists had absolute proof that the vaccines are safe?

And I would NOT turn to wikipedia for this - I'd rather wade through the studies and papers myself.

Snowbunny is correct in saying that the last childhood vaccines containing thimerosal were manufactured in 2001 and expired in 2003. The only recommended childhood vaccine that still contains mercury is the flu vaccine, for which thimerosal-free versions are available. Stephley, the table you saw from 2006 may be for all vaccines, which includes those given to adults which still contain thimerosal.

I agree that no scientist should ever turn his or her back on a hypothesis due to fear. That's why when the idea that vaccines may be related to autism appeared, scientists began to look into it. Over and over again, no link could be found. Many people accuse scientists in this country of being crooked big pharma shills and do not believe the results, but that totally discounts all of the studies done in other countries- Sweden, Denmark, England, Japan, and Canada to name a few- that also have not found a link.

Yes, the official line is that vaccines are safe. Just like penicillin or acetaminophen, occasionally somebody has a bad reaction. It is quite unfortunate when that occurs, but the difference between a rare event (like an underlying mitochondrial disorder) and thousands of children becoming autistic is the question. The latter has been shown in study after study to not be related to vaccinations.

If parents want to delay or space out vaccines, that's fine. Not because there's any science involved in that direction, but because those choices seem to increase the public's trust in vaccination. But overall, kids should still be getting vaccinated.

So the debate has turned into -are vaccines safe or not-. The original question was basically do parents have the right to decline vaccines or not?

If someone thinks that all people should be vaccinated in order to protect the entire public from catching diseases, please move to China. In America we still have the right to choose.

facin8me- what a nice way to put that.

Stephley- I said the studies were linked from wikipedia and that wikipedia should not be an authority. I genuinely do not get how you got so confused by what I said?

Lilruck44- people have been prosecuted for knowingly spreading the AIDS virus, people are prosecuted for child neglect and abuse, for feeding their children improper diets. I'm sorry, but no matter what side of the vaccination debate you're on, it's a little silly to say the government doesn't have the authority and responsibility to care about public health concerns. The government does have the responsibility to prevent the spread of disease. And honestly, there are many, many things that citizens do not have the right to do, and the government frequently prevents people from hurting each other. And I don't think parents should have the right to knowingly allow their children to catch infectious diseases that could be prevented. Fine, so measles isn't a huge deal, what about smallpox?

Umm.. I think there is a slight difference between purposefully infecting (murdering) some one by giving them the AIDS virus and choosing not to vaccinate your child due to autism concerns. Since most of the general population is vaccinated, I don't think it is reasonable to expect a huge deadly outbreak of smallpox. This isn't going to be "Black Plague: The American Version."

I was trying to search for a statistic on how many parents choose not to vaccinate their children. You would think this would be realtively easy information to find, since parents have been given the right not to vaccinate their children for a variety of reasons already (such as religious objections). Alas, I found nothing, but I found something very interesting on the ABC News web site:

"As researchers from the March of Dimes put it, "improvements in detection and changes in diagnosis account for the observed increase in autism." Their data on autism rates in California showed that the increase in autism diagnoses almost exactly matched a decline in cases of retardation: autism prevalence increased by 9.1 cases per 10,000 children, while mental retardation dropped by 9.3 per 10,000.

"People that we once called quirky or geeky or nerdy are now called autistic," said Offit. "Because when you give that label of say, autistic spectrum disorder, you allow that child then to qualify for services which otherwise they wouldn't be qualified to get."

I just thought this was very interesting. I still think it is a parent's choice, since we don't know anything definitively, but this tidbit of information gave me pause.

Snowbunny, if the government held themselves responsible to prevent the spread of disease, than grocery stores wouldn't be allowed to carry any products with hydrogenated oils or refined, bleached white flour. How about all those cigarettes! Measles isn't a huge deal, neither is chicken pox, rotavirus, whooping cough, Hepatitis B, where would you draw the line? Sure people could die from these things, but you can also die from dehydration, and you don't see the government mandating people to drink water.

Lilruck44, dehydration, obesity, heart disease and cancer (which are the main diseases you get from the things you list above) are definitely deadly, but are not contagious. You are comparing apples and oranges here. But, if you want to use that as an example, what about local governments that have stepped in and banned trans fats?

Grrrr....I tried to post something and it got flagged!! I wasn't swearing and didn't insert a link...

The things I listed offer the human body zero nutrition, stripping your immune system of what it needs to protect you against the contagious diseases we're talking about.

I think the banning of trans fats is a good step in the right direction. Hopefully they'll start eliminating the chemicals next.

I don't want to upset anyone MartiniLush!

Oh, LilRuck, you didn't upset anyone --- I am just annoyed that I found this really interesting tidbit to share with everyone and it got flagged, for no apparent reason. I am hoping it shows up soon....

I agree that it is a parent's decision on whether to vaccinate or not, I just didn't understand where you were going with your last comment. But parents have been given exceptions from vaccinating their children for many years for a variety of reasons. I don't know why an exception based on vaccine safety would cause such consternation....let me see if I can repost my flagged comment in a different way...

GRRR flagged again! Oh, well....maybe they will show up someday! LOL!

I couldn't agree with you more, that it's a parent's decision

lilruck, I know you feel strongly about the vaccination issue, but I take issue with your minimization of communicable diseases. Dehydration, heart disease- these aren't things we pass on from one person to another. Measles, mumps, pertussis- these are things that can be passed around so the government has the right to regulate this. In one of your previous comments, you wrote that you felt mandatory vaccinations were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has held that the right of the states to regulate public health is particularly strong. After all, there is no liberty without life. The right of states to control public health is one that predates the constitution and is part of the police powers that each state holds. The freedom from restraint is not absolute.

So to answer the original question: no, I do not think parents have the right to decline vaccines.

MartiniLush is right about the link between changing definitions and increased diagnoses, and I very much agree with facin8me about government regulation of vaccines. Communicable disease is a safety issue, and not one necessarily related to a person's own actions. Your neighbor with the weak immune system can't catch bad nutrition from you, but they can catch measles or polio (which are more dangerous than many seem to think.) Additionally, not everyone's immune system produces antibodies to the vaccine; a very small percentage of the population won't react with long-lasting antibodies to every vaccine, and those people are relying on the immunity of everyone else to not come into contact with the disease. When someone doesn't vaccinate their children, they aren't just increasing the risk of those diseases to their own children, but to others around them.

I knew a family that was really against a lot of preventative medicine because they didn't trust the government. They were against vaccines (they got to cite religious beliefs but I believe they thought they were a government conspiracy), dental x-rays, and in some cases going to the hospital. I was friends with their son and in college he had a tooth ache and it ended up being a huge cavity that could have been prevented if he had allowed them to take x-rays.

I know parents are choosing what they think is best protecting their child, but sometimes they could be doing more harm than good.

In a book by a neuroscientist, The Brain that Changes Itself, the author has done research on autism and brain development in infants that has led him to believe that environmental factors as simple as constant loud construction noise affects the developing brain and can lead to autism.

Hey, my flagged post finally showed up! LOL!

"Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine." Thimerosal was removed starting in 1999. My step mother told me about a professor her daughter had who was against vaccination and did not have his children vaccinated. His son has severe autism. I don't see a link. But I also am not 100% comfortable with the government forcing parents to do something to there children that they are not comfortable doing. I am torn on this issue.

I talk to older people who say that these parents not vaccinating there children would think twice if they lived through the polio epidemic. We have never experienced first hand a disease ravaging so many young children. When that vaccine became available there was no question that parents would get their children vaccinated as many of them had lost a child already.

In a previous post someone on here said that there have only been like 167 cases of measles reported and it has been around 431 in the first 7 months this year, three times what it was last year.Four of those cases being infants younger than six months who would not have been innoculated yet. At the height of measles, it was killing some 400 children a year. That may not sound huge compared to other diseases, but I would hate to think of my child being in that group.

Most articles on the causes of Autism fail to discuss how recent MMR vaccines also include the Chicken Pox vaccine, often given at 'much higher' dosages than if given separately. Until more is known, parents who choose to give their children the MMR and Chicken Pox vaccines should opt for safety and make sure these vaccines are broken up and given separately over a longer period of time.