Vaccines are Linked With Autism Essay

There is a range of conditions in the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) which affects people from the time they are babies. Conditions considered ASD are usually not fully diagnosed in that clinicians do not know the real cause of the autism. In most cases, doctors and experts on autism put the cause of autism to genetic reasons, but since the truth is not known for real, it could be some cases the government healthcare vaccines may be culpable. Research has proven that some vaccines and vaccination procedures could have a direct link to a greater possibility for autism development. Other research and studies say that there is no scientific link between vaccination and autism. This trend is especially more noticeable in children nine months old and older, who start showing some signs of growth and development such as coherent babbling and recognizing their parents and siblings such as calling them repeated names, only for all that information to go away. This paper will examine the number of ways in which vaccines could be linked with autism in young children, using relevant examples. This is not to say that vaccines are caused by autism, but rather there is a link.

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The debate on the link between autism and vaccination can be traced back to 1998 when some parents and experts started claiming that the MMR vaccine for Measles, Mumps and Rubella was responsible for their children developing autism. The CDC recommends vaccination to be between 12 and 15 months after birth, for the first shot and the second one be between 4 and 6 years. One shot is usually enough to develop immunity. A British gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield, published a scientific paper in the "Lancet" highlighting the lives of 8 children who started developing ASD signs one month after being vaccinated with the MMR vaccination. All the eight children, upon being subjected to endoscopic testing, showed signs of nodular lymphoid hyperplasia and gastrointestinal symptoms. Wakefield argued his theory that the MMR vaccine components were too strong, hence damaging the lining of the children's intestinal wall, making it susceptible to penetration by encephalopathic proteins. Wakefield suggested that these peptides would make their way into the bloodstream and into the brain of the babies, which could cause ASD and other brain-linked conditions. There was a correlation between the two events, and even though that does not mean there is a causation, a big possibility still exists. However, later studies on the same revealed a lot of flaws in Wakefield's theory starting from the fact that his study had no control experiment and secondly the use of only eight children was not enough to provide conclusive evidence (Plotkin et al., 457).

The second link between autism and vaccination is Thimerosal which is an antibacterial compound which has been widely used for more than 50 years in children vaccinations that require multiple doses. Thimerosal is composed of ethylmercury which makes up half of its weight. In 1997, the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) postulated that children could be getting as much as 187 micrograms of mercury within only the first six months of their lives (Mandell et al., 17). Some experts and stakeholders proposed that mercury poisoning could cause autism. Indeed, children with mercury poisoning show sensory, motor, speech, psychiatric and visual adjustments, some of which are consistent with ASD. In 1992, thimerosal removal was done in many countries across Europe, and the United States followed suit in 2001. Again, the studies that followed failed to give any conclusive evidence of causality between thimerosal and autism development, although the removal of thimerosal from vaccinations show governments showing cautions. Majority of the studies done in countries which have removed thimerosal from their vaccines such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the United States majorly publish findings that show that ASD trends are not affected by the removal of thimerosal. However, it should be noted that each child's immune system and sensibilities to allergies and pathogens vary. Some children are more susceptible to mercury and, research is not always done a hundred percent. Thimerosal research gives us clues but not all the answers.

The third reason given for autism being caused by vaccinations is the fact that children are required to be vaccinated a lot. A 2-year-old child will have been vaccinated six to 12 times, being vaccinated for 14 different vaccines. Most vaccines are made in such a way that the majority of the population do not reject it. Like the MMR vaccine and thimerosal, too many vaccinations could be a cause for the onset of autism even though, again, research generally deduces otherwise (Ecker et al., 188). In the USA 1 in 59 children has ASD, which makes autistic people 1.7% of the population represents a minority. In the United States, the prevalence rate used to be lower at 1.5%. However, scientific research does not account for actual conditions while vaccination. Clinicians could make errors in administering vaccines such as high or low dosage, contamination, and other human errors. Parents are encouraged to vaccinate their children. It is not that autism is caused by vaccination, but, scientifically speaking some instances could be.

Works Cited

Ecker, Ullrich KH, Joshua L. Hogan, and Stephan Lewandowsky. "Reminders and repetition of misinformation: Helping or hindering its retraction?." Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 6.2 (2017): 185-192.

Mandell, David S., and Colleen L. Barry. "Care for Autism and Other Disabilities-A Future in Jeopardy." New England Journal of Medicine 376.10 (2017): e15.

Plotkin, Stanley, Jeffrey S. Gerber, and Paul A. Offit. "Vaccines and autism: a tale of shifting hypotheses." Clinical Infectious Diseases 48.4 (2009): 456-461.