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Stick This in Your Vaccines-Autism Conspiracy Theory
By Patricia Ludwig
Some anti-vaccine zealots have stubbornly clung to the discredited theory that children's vaccines are somehow responsible for the increased rate of autism over the past decade or so. However, the latest article on the subject of girls with autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) gives data that further undercuts the vaccine-autism "theory."
The article discusses at length the imbalanced ratio of boys to girls who have autism. Boys are three or four times more likely than girls to have classic autism and are twelve times as likely as girls to be diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome -- high-function autism in which the diagnosed have normal intelligence but have social and communication deficiencies and restricted interests. These imbalanced autism ratios are one more piece of information (added to many studies on this subject) that seems to refute the connection between vaccines and autism. If vaccines were the cause of autism, one would expect the ratio of children with autism to be even, since the ratio of children who receive vaccinations is even.
For more information on the relationship between vaccines and autism, please see ACSH's publication The Promise of Vaccines: The Science and the Controversy by David Smith.
Patricia Ludwig is a research intern at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
Mark Land (August 6, 2007)
Not exciting this one. Boyd Haley and others have shown that testosterone acts as a synergistic agent when combined with mercury and that is why you see more boys (80%) on the spectrum than girls (estrogen is a protector). Lots of research on this if you bother to look.
John Blackwell (August 7, 2007)
How about this for a parallel argument?
Conspiracy theorists have suggested that fatal idiopathic internal bleeding is caused by bruising. If that were true, one would expect equal numbers of boys and girls to die from this condition, but in fact, several times as many boys do as girls. Therefore bruising has nothing to do with this condition.
(In fact, we know that haemophilia makes some boys very likely to die from bruising.)
I do not believe that vaccination is a likely factor in autism. I do believe that a website's credibility is not enhanced by publishing illogical arguments, however good the cause.
Maurine Meleck (August 7, 2007)
It is very disconcerting to go on this website and find statements that are so unscientifically incorrect. Please get your facts straight before calling these facts.More boys have autism because their higher levels of testosterone make it more difficult for them to excrete the toxins and heavy metals(including mercury) from the vaccines they had. Girls are protected in most instances by their higher levels of estrogen. Please do not make any more vaccine conspiracy comments until you do your homeowrk.
Pat Johnson (August 7, 2007)
I was very disappointed in this piece. I don't disagree that the autism/vaccination link is a spurious one, however to suggest that because boys and girls do not develop the disease equally has any relevance to either side of the argument is silly. As we know, boys and girls are different and could respond to vaccines differently, which could be argued to account for differences in autism rates.
This piece makes it look like you don't have a good argument and are grasping at straws to make your point, which gives fuel to the opposition. Vaccines are important and there are plenty of good arguments in favor of their use. It is a bad idea to abandon critical thinking even if the cause for doing so is a just one.
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