Autism Thoughts

I have never been 100% convinced that vaccines cause autism. This is no secret, everyone knows it. I was there in the room at the Senate hearings in 2000 and they just failed to convince me. Nor have I been convinced since.

Still, I see the possibility. I am not so single-minded that I discount it entirely. So I do try to keep with the debate.

I don't usually post the (gazillion) vaccine articles I read and/or get in my e-mail, but this was very compelling and, unlike others, it actually kept my attention. If this data is accurate (and it can be verified, I should think, should anyone care to verify it), then maybe there is something to this autism/vaccine debate after all.

Whether there is or not, below is an article which may well be a step in the right direction of finding out.
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America, Meet Our Unvaccinated Kids, Version 2.0
http://www.rescuepost.com/rescue_post/2007/09/america-meet-ou.html

By J.B. Handley

Back in June, we released what we felt was an astonishing data set for the first ever study
comparing the rates of ADHD, autism, and asthma between vaccinated children and
unvaccinated children. Our conclusion was weighty:

"We surveyed over 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys had a 155% greater chance of having a neurological disorder like ADHD or autism than unvaccinated boys."

And, the mainstream media wouldn't touch it.

Cynics will say this is because our survey was only a "phone survey" despite the fact that phone surveys are reported in the news every day, and despite the fact that the CDC uses
a phone survey to establish the prevalence of…autism!!

As the Director of the CDC's two phone surveys on autism noted: "the consistency of
prevalence estimates across the two surveys supports high reliability or reproducibility of
parental report of autism and reliability is one important component of validity."

Were we blacked out? Was our story too hot for the mainstream media to handle? Perhaps,
we'll never know for sure. That said, we got plenty of coverage and heard from places like
UPI reporter Dan Olmsted, Daily Kos, and NewsMax.com, to name a few.

Fast forward to September, and the climate for listening to the parents has changed, perhaps permanently, thanks to Jenny McCarthy.

So, we ran our Ad again today, the one describing the survey results, but this time we ran
it in USA Today.

With that as background, America please meet our unvaccinated kids:

For the first time ever, we know something about them that may help our kids.

Yup, they live right down the street from you, they are 5.6% of the population, and they
have less asthma, less ADHD, and less autism than our kids seem to have. At least
according to our survey.

Do we expect you to believe us? Not really. Not if you're a member of the mainstream media or the mainstream medical establishment. But, we really hope you will look at our data. Because today, unlike the CDC, we are making all of our data public simultaneously with the release of our survey. Crunch away, and decide for yourself.

We followed a very straightforward process, so anyone can retrace our steps. We told a market research firm what we wanted to know. They designed a questionnaire they felt would get us an answer. We approved the questionnaire. They ran the survey and sent us the data, which you can now access. Decide for yourself.

Some of the numbers really jump out, particularly amongst the boys. A "Risk Ratio" is a
way to compare prevalence, so that if 10% of vax kids and 5% of unvax kids have ADHD,
the Risk Ratio is 2.0, or a 100% difference. Risk Ratios above 2.0 tend to be allowed in a
court of law to show correlation. We found many Risk Ratios well in excess of 2.0, and
some higher than 4.0, the equivalent of a 300% difference.

Decide for yourself.

Have we proved anything today? Yes and no. We've proved that unvaccinated kids are easy
to find, and that a straightforward survey yielded some disturbing results. What we haven't
done is design a study with enough scale and controls to be published in a first-tier, peer-
reviewed journal. But, we've certainly highlighted the screaming need for such a study to
happen.

So, now what?

Everyone should send an email to Dan Olmsted and thank him for his Age of Autism series
from UPI. He's the one who asked about unvaccinated kids first, and asked it loudest. He
even asked Julie Gerberding, CDC Director. He just kept on asking it until we got so tired
thinking about what an obvious question it was that we did something about it.

Our data should be scrutinized, analyzed, challenged, and debated by any and everyone in
the autism community who cares to do so. (If you want a copy of the Excel spreadsheet
with the primary data in it, email us and we will send it to you.)

Everyone and their grandmother needs to cajole their Congressperson to jump on the bandwagon and support Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's bill to study unvaccinated children.

This incredibly brave Congresswoman from New York said in a press release in June: "What
is ultimately needed to resolve this issue one way or the other is a comprehensive national
study comparing outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. As the most
scientifically advanced country in the world, we should be jumping at the chance to conduct a comprehensive national study to resolve the questions that have been raised.

Parents deserve answers, and children deserve no less than absolutely certainty and safety."

The autism community should pull together and fund our own independent study, in addition to the Maloney bill, to gather as much data as quickly as possible. Autism Speaks, with the biggest war chest, should take this opportunity to fund or lead the funding for such a study, and help put this issue to rest once and for all. It would be a great opportunity for them to repair a badly burned bridge with many of us, and I hope they jump at the chance. The study must be run by researchers who have no history in this fight, on either side of the argument, and it must have the scale and controls
to achieve wide acceptance through journal publication.

As for me, nothing much changes. My son is getting better, and we think the road map drawn by considering him "vaccine injured" is why. Knowing cause is so incredibly important to figuring out how to help and treat our kids, and I'm grateful for the pioneers who have been demanding answers for years. My wife and I hope, in some small way, that this survey moves things forward, and creates a deafening demand from parents for more answers. Now.

J.B. Handley is co-founder of Generation Rescue.