Professor Who Claims Vaccines Linked To Autism Funded Through University Portal
Chris Exley, who says aluminium in vaccines may cause autism, has raised more than £22,000
A British professor who has claimed that aluminium in vaccines is linked to autism has raised more than £22,000 to support his work through a Keele University online donations portal, the Guardian can reveal.
Prof Chris Exley angered health experts for claiming that tiny amounts of aluminium in inactivated vaccines, such as the HPV and whooping cough inoculations, may cause the more severe and disabling form of autism.
In 2017, the professor of bioinorganic chemistry published a paper on aluminium found in the brain tissue of five autistic patients that has been shared tens of thousands of times by vaccine skeptics online despite criticism from health experts over its lack of controls and small sample size.
The research was part-funded by a grant from the Childrens Medical Safety Research Institute, a US-based organisation that challenges vaccine safety.
A Freedom of Information Act request by the Guardian has found that Exley received £22,173.88 in donations since October 2015 to help support his work, ranging from £2 to £5,000. More than £11,000 of contributions were made between January and April 2019. The majority of donations are less than £100.
Exley told the Guardian: support basic running costs of my lab and are not associated with any specific project. This is the nature of a donation as compared to a grant.
Reassuring Data For Skeptical Parents
The study has been celebrated by doctors and public health officials as a reminder of the safety of vaccines at a time when it is sorely needed.
Although many other well-designed studies have likewise shown that the measles vaccine does not increase a childs risk for measles, this new study provides even stronger evidence about its safety and should be reassuring to even the most skeptical parents, Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief, Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, Cohen Childrens Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY, told Healthline.
Measles, a potentially fatal, but entirely preventable disease, has shown a disturbing resurgence in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
With 66 confirmed cases in Washington and four in Oregon, health officials there have dubbed the ongoing incident a public health emergency.
Nearly two decades ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proclaimed measles
Vaccine Ingredients Do Not Cause Autism
- One vaccine ingredient that has been studied specifically is thimerosal. Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative used to prevent germs from contaminating multidose vials of vaccines. Research shows that thimerosal does not cause ASD. In fact, a 2004 scientific review by the IOM concluded that the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosalcontaining vaccines and autism.Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism external icon
Since 2003, there have been nine CDC-funded or conducted studies that have found no link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD. These studies also found no link between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and ASD in children. Learn more about the CDC Studies on Thimerosal in Vaccines pdf icon.
Even before studies showed that thimerosal was not harmful, there was a national effort to reduce all types of mercury exposures in children. As precaution, thimerosal was removed or reduced to trace amounts in all childhood vaccines between 1999 and 2001. Currently, the only type of vaccine that contain thimerosal are flu vaccines packaged in multidose vials. There are thimerosal-free alternatives available for flu vaccine. For more information, see the Timeline for Thimerosal in Vaccines.
Besides thimerosal, some people have had concerns about other vaccine ingredients in relation to ASD. However, no links have been found between any vaccine ingredients and ASD.
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Alicia Silverstone Is Adamantly Anti
While there has not been a conclusive study of the negative effects of such a rigorous one-size-fits-all, shoot-em-up schedule, there is increasing anecdotal evidence from doctors who have gotten distressed phone calls from parents claiming their child was never the same after receiving a vaccine, Silverstone writes in The Kind Mama. And I personally have friends whose babies were drastically affected in this way.
Vaccination Theories & Covid
The anti-vaccination drive has even extended to the COVID-19 pandemic, with public health experts warning that activists will use social media to spread rumors about the ineffectiveness or outright harmfulness of a vaccine for coronavirus.
Leading that charge is Andrew Wakefield, who spoke at an online event in May 2020 with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Both traded in conspiracy theories and accusations that the COVID-19 pandemic was being used by governments to force mandatory vaccines. Again, these claims are unsubstantiated and without merit.
Notwithstanding that Wakefields research was widely discredited, that Kennedy has received stringent criticism for his vaccine skepticism, and that research as recently as 2019 has found that autism vaccination theories are baseless, the organizer of the virtual event at which they both spoke said more than 30,000 people had signed up to attend.
At these anti-vaccinations events, speakers are rarely asked to provide evidence supporting their statements. They make bold accusations without research to back them.
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A Fraudulent Study From 1998 Continues To Have Negative Impact On Health
This past week, Dr. Mark Green, M.D., who was recently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the state of Tennessee declared: Let me say this about autism, I have committed to people in my community, up in Montgomery County , to stand on the CDCs desk and get the real data on vaccines. Because there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines. As a physician, I can make that argument and I can look at it academically and make the argument against the CDC, if they really want to engage me on it,”
As a clinician dedicated to serving people with autism and their families, I am both appalled and disheartened that a physician and future member of Congress has once again promulgated the “vaccines cause autism” narrative that has led to so much misinformation and fear regarding vaccinating toddlers and preschoolers against deadly diseases. Moreover, these shameful comments demonstrate why this lie has proven extremely difficult to overcome.
Not knowing what causes autism creates a knowledge vacuum that can be readily filled with the certainty that people, such as Dr. Green, who know vaccines cause autism and who argue that the CDC, federal government, Big Pharma, and the media are in an evil cabal to cover up the truth.
Myth #: Vaccines Can Infect My Child With The Disease It’s Trying To Prevent
Vaccines can cause mild symptoms resembling those of the disease they are protecting against. A common misconception is that these symptoms signal infection. In fact, in the small percentage where symptoms do occur, the vaccine recipients are experiencing a body’s immune response to the vaccine, not the disease itself. There is only one recorded instance in which a vaccine was shown to cause disease. This was the Oral Polio Vaccine which is no longer used in the U.S. Since then, vaccines have been in safe use for decades and follow strict Food and Drug Administration regulations.
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Is Jenny Mccarthy Anti
We need to get rid of the toxins, the mercurywhich I am so tired of everyone saying its been removed. It has not been removed from the shots.
Jenny McCarthy has called for vaccine companies to develop less toxic vaccines with a safer schedule. She believes that a re-emergence of certain diseases will be the wake-up call we need in order to demand that vaccine companies make safer vaccines.
I am not anti-vaccine. Im in this gray zone of, I think everyone should be aware and educate yourself and ask questions. And if your kid is having a problem, ask your doctor for an alternative way of doing the shots.
Jenny McCarthy has pointed out how people paint her as anti-vaccine when in fact, she believes that vaccines are a good thing. She believes that people should do their own research and ask their doctors questions. Parents should look for alternatives to the current vaccines and a different schedule.
The ironic thing is my position has always remained the same. People just never listened to it. Literally, throughout the years, I have said the same thing over and over again. But people will only read headlines instead of looking back and seeing what Ive been saying.
Jenny McCarthy has stuck to her position of making vaccines safer through the years, despite the attempts by mainstream media to paint her as a crazy anti-vaxxer.
Autism And The Mmr Vaccine
What is Autism?
Autism is a complex biological disorder of development that lasts throughout a person’s life. People with autism have problems with social interaction and communication, so they may have trouble having a conversation with you, or they may not look you in the eye. They sometimes have behaviors that they have to do or that they do over and over, like not being able to listen until their pencils are lined up or saying the same sentence again and again. They may flap their arms to tell you they are happy, or they might hurt themselves to tell you they are not.
One person with autism may have different symptoms, show different behaviors, and come from different environments than others with autism. Because of these differences, doctors now think of autism as a “spectrum” disorder, or a group of disorders with a range of similar features. Doctors classify people with autism spectrum disorder based on their autistic symptoms. A person with mild autistic symptoms is at one end of the spectrum. A person with more serious symptoms of autism is at the other end of the spectrum. But they both have a form of ASD.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development , part of the National Institutes of Health , is one of the NIH Institutes doing research into various aspects of autism, including its causes, how many people have it, and its treatments.
Why do people think that vaccines can cause autism?
Should my child have the MMR vaccine?
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Safe For Mass Immunization
While clearly effective at preventing viral disease, there are risks from vaccination. Some children may develop a fever or rash following vaccination, for example.
The researchers also identified certain associations with the MMR vaccines, such as experiencing fits due to high temperature and a blood clotting condition called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.
However, the research team says the risk of these occurring is much lower than the risks that the diseases themselves pose.
The scientists also wanted to look specifically at other risks that the public perceives, such as autism.
We wanted to look at evidence for specific harms that have been linked with these vaccines in public debate often without rigorous scientific evidence as a basis, explains Dr. Pietrantonj.
The review summarizes data from two studies with almost 1.2 million children that show that the rates of autism diagnosis are similar in those receiving the MMR vaccine and those who do not.
The researchers also found no evidence for a connection with a host of other diseases the public has previously linked to the vaccine, including encephalitis, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and asthma.
On the basis of this data, the scientists continue to recommend the MMR vaccines for global use.
Overall, we think that existing evidence on the safety and effectiveness of MMR/MMRV/MMR+V vaccines supports their use for mass immunization, says Dr. Pietrantonj.
Reported cases have increased by
Study Author Andrew Wakefield Manipulated And Misrepresented His Data
A British investigative journalist, Brian Deer, followed up with the families of each of the 12 kids in the study. He concluded, “No case was free of misreporting or alteration.” In other words, Wakefield, the lead author of the original report, manipulated his data. In the British Medical Journal, Deer spells out exactly what he found, and it’s rather shocking that this study was ever published in the first place. You learn that the parents of many of the kids deny the conclusions in the study some of the kids Wakefield suggested were diagnosed with autism actually weren’t others who Wakefield suggested were “previously normal” actually had preexisting developmental issues before getting their shots.
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Beyond Vaccines: 5 Things That Might Really Cause Autism
ByRachael Rettnerpublished 7 January 11
The idea that vaccines cause autism received yet another blow this week, with a new article in the British Journal of Medicine declaring the 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield, which originally found an autism-vaccine link, an “elaborate fraud.” The article is the latest criticism of a theory that has been widely discredited. But if vaccines are off the table, what does cause autism?
While scientists are still investigating the issue, they say the disorder likely has a number of causes involving both our genes and our environment, or some combination of the two. For instance, people may have underlying genetic susceptibilities to autism that are triggered by something they encounter in the environment.
Making things even more complicated is the fact that autism, which is characterized by problems interacting and communicating with others, is not a single disorder, but a range of disorders that may have various causes.
“People are going to manifest the disorder in different ways, and that could be because there are different sets of genes, different sets of environmental factors,” that contribute to how the disorder presents itself, said Alycia Halladay, director of research for environmental sciences for Autism Speaks, an autism advocacy organization that funds autism research.
Here are the latest findings and ideas from scientists about what might really cause this mysterious condition.
Genetics
Pesticides
Pharmaceuticals
Parental age
The Doctor Who Fooled The World
In September 2020 Johns Hopkins University Press published in North America Deer’s investigation of Andrew Wakefield and the origins of the anti-vaccine movement in his book, The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Science, Deception, and the War on Vaccines. This was simultaneously published in the United Kingdom and Australasia by Scribe. Reviews included The Times Book of the Week where columnist David Aaronovitch wrote, “This is a remarkable story and this is a remarkable book⦠helping to explain the political and social predicament that now afflicts so many of us â the crisis in truth and its exploitation by people without scruple.” Reviewing for the leading science journal Nature, Saad Omer praised the book as “riveting⦠a compelling portrait of hubris and the terrible dark shadow it can cast.”
Among other reviews, Michael Shermer in The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Exposing researchers who lie, cheat and fake their data often requires the work of courageous whistleblowers or tenacious investigative journalists. Enter Brian Deer, an award-winning reporter for the Sunday Times of London.”Publishers Weekly also described the book as “riveting,” and the Big Think website said, “Every chapter drops your jaw”. According to Foreword Reviews, “This stunning work sounds an urgent message and demonstrates the essential role of investigative journalism in uncovering the truth.”
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Wakefield Has Refused To Replicate The Paper’s Findings
At the very bedrock of science is the concept of falsification: a scientist runs a test, gathers his findings, and tries to disprove himself by replicating his experiment in other contexts. Only when that’s done can he know that his findings were true.
, Wakefield’s book.
Wakefield has never done this. As the editor of the BMJ points out, “Wakefield has been given ample opportunity either to replicate the paper’s findings, or to say he was mistaken. He has declined to do either.” In 2004, 10 of his co-authors on the original paper retracted it, but Wakefield didn’t join them, and he has since continued to push his views, including doing the rounds on the anti-vaxxer speakers’ circuit and publishing books.Wakefield’s own website portrays him as an embattled hero: “In the pursuit of possible links between childhood vaccines, intestinal inflammation, and neurologic injury in children, Dr. Wakefield lost his job in the Department of Medicine at Londons Royal Free Hospital, his country, his career, and his medical license.” Wakefield even tried to suethe BMJ and Deer, suggesting they were going after him in some sort of vendetta. So far, these lawsuits have gone nowhere.
Kristin Cavalari Will Not Vaccinate Her Children
You know what, Ive read too many books about autism, and the studiesThere is a pediatric group called HomesteadorshootHomestead or Home First. Now Im pregnancy brain, I gotta confuse thembut theyve never vaccinated any of their children and theyve never had one case of autism. And now, one in 88 boys is autistic which is a really scary statistic.
Heres the thing: At the end of the day, Im just a mom. Im trying to make the best decision for my kid. There are very scary statistics out there regarding what is in vaccines and what they cause asthma, allergies, ear infections, all kinds of things. And we feel like were making the best decision for our kids.
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Epidemics Effects And Reception
Physicians, medical journals, and editors have made statements tying Wakefield’s fraudulent actions to various epidemics and deaths. Michael J. Smith, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Louisville, an “infectious diseases expert who has studied the autism controversy’s effect on immunization rates”, said, “Clearly, the results of this study have had repercussions.”
Wakefield’s study and his claim that the MMR vaccine might cause autism led to a decline in vaccination rates in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, and a corresponding rise in measles and mumps infections, resulting in serious illness and deaths. His continued claims that the vaccine is harmful have contributed to a climate of distrust of all vaccines and the reemergence of other previously-controlled diseases.
The Associated Press said:
Immunization rates in Britain dropped from 92 percent to 73 percent, and were as low as 50 percent in some parts of London. The effect was not nearly as dramatic in the United States, but researchers have estimated that as many as 125,000 US children born in the late 1990s did not get the MMR vaccine because of the Wakefield splash.
A profile in a New York Times Magazine article commented:
Journalist Brian Deer called for criminal charges against Wakefield.
On 1 April 2011, the James Randi Educational Foundation awarded Wakefield the Pigasus Award for “refusal to face reality”.