Autistic Children of Earth: Have Autistic Children Been Sacrificed for the Greater Good?

Torchwood Children of Earth, Image from Coventry Telegraph.net

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read this blog if you intend to watch Torchwood: Children of Earth but have not yet done so.

The BBC's 5 episode Torchwood: Children of Earth series played in Canada this week on the Space television channel. It was good science fiction, using the fantastic plot themes and story lines permitted by science fiction to ask serious questions about the nature of humanity and the difficult choices we make. In Children of Earth the world's leaders are required to decide whether to sacrifice 10% of earth's children to aliens ... for the greater good. The show prompted me to think of public vaccine programs designed to protect "the herd", at potential risk to some vulnerable subsets of children; children who might develop autism disorders after vaccination.

In Children of Earth world leaders are forced by an apparently superior alien power to sacrifice 10% of the world's pre-pubescent children to the aliens who would keep them perpetually alive as units used in producing chemicals to which the aliens are addicted. Failure to do so will result in the destruction of all humanity. The alien menace arises from their ability to unleash deadly viruses that would wipe out all of humanity, viruses for which they hold the antidotes.

The leaders confronted with this choice decide to make the sacrifice and then must decide which children will be delivered to the aliens. Their first thoughts are to use a random process, one which might result at least in some measure of fairness. Ultimately the leaders decide on a process which spares their own children and picks those children who, in their opinion, would end up being a burden on society for various reasons.

The greater good argument appears often in the intense arguments about vaccines and autism. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children are maligned as parasites and free riders. Questions are raised about the intelligence, even the rationality, of parents whose concerns arise from observation of autistic like regression immediately after vaccination of their children. A celebrity actress and mother like Jenny McCarthy who expresses vaccine autism concerns is demonized while celebrity actress and mother Amanda Peet who criticizes parents of children who decide not to vaccinate as parasites is idolized. The pressure to vaccinate our children is intense.

There is of course no issue of children being sacrificed for the greater good if vaccines do not in fact cause harm to children. But that supposition is simply not true. Historically some children have been harmed by some vaccines. Public health officials will say that these instances are rare, which may be true, but is of little consolation to the child affected, or his or her parents.

The big debate today is over the possible role of vaccines in causing autism disorders. Public health officials, vaccine patent holders and internet Neurodiversity bloggers alike join arms in mocking parents who rely on their own direct observation of their children's post vaccination regression into autism to argue that vaccines actually caused the autism that followed. Apparently the "correlation does not imply causation" or "it's just a coincidence" arguments have infinite shelf lives and can be used no matter how many times the coincidences and correlations occur.

Mocking celebrities and parents is not sufficient though to beat concerned parents into submission. It is also necessary to ignore credible health officials, researchers and professionals who argue that the existing state of science does not actually disprove any connection between vaccines and autism. While Jenny gets much ink from the "vaccines are sacred and shall not be questioned" crowd Dr. Bernadine Healy and Dr. Jon Poling who have stated that some vulnerable children may incur autism from vaccines are all ignored. While the vaccine court decisions in which no vaccine autism connection is found are trumpeted far and wide .... and loudly the cases, like Banks and Poling, where the government folded its hand and settled before a media attracting court decision could ensue are ignored.

I am not convinced that vaccines, and their ingredients, cause or contribute to instances of autism although I suspect they might in some cases just as I suspect other environmental triggers might be involved. I am no longer convinced though, as I once was, by public health official statements that the science is complete, that all the research has been done and that vaccines are not, and never are, involved in causing or triggering autism. When people like Dr. Bernadine Healy and Dr. Jon Poling argue that some autism cases might result from vaccination of some vulnerable children I am not inclined to disregard their comments.

I do not know if children who develop autism after vaccination were sacrificed for the greater good but I also believe that the issue is far from decided. I do know the vaccine program will continue and hope that concerns of parents are addressed through research to prevent possible instances of autism and to enhance public confidence in the vaccine programs which have done so much good for so many.

(UPDATE: It appears from reports late yesterday that Torchwood is being renewed for another season.
...

I hope Torchwood gets picked up for another season. Surely amongst all of the inane and unrealistic "reality"" shows there is room on television for an openly fictional program which asks serious, thought provoking, questions about human nature even while providing first rate entertainment.)

autism

Evidence of Harm - The Sequel

In recent years theories that autism increases have been caused by either the MMR vaccine itself or thimerosal, the mercury based vaccine preservative, once more widely used, has dominated much public discussion of autism - despite an almost total lack of support for the vaccine causes autism theories amongst the world scientific community. But the controversy generated by the Wakefield study and the David Kirby/Robert Kennedy Jr anti-mercury campaigns has had an impact - on famlies already stressed by the realities of their children's autism and on a decline, at least temporarily, in the numbers of persons getting their children vaccinated against serious, dangerous diseases. Evidence of harm? You bet. Not the kind Kirby and Company rant about on the Huffington post though.

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=22732


Study reveals impact of the MMR controversy on parents of children with autism
Medical Studies/Trials

Published: Thursday, 29-Mar-2007

Researchers have found that the MMR controversy caused parents of children with autism feelings of stress, guilt and frustration. Their study is published in Archives of Disease Childhood.

In the course of 10 focus group discussions across the UK between 2003 and 2005 involving 38 parents of children with autism, scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC) discovered the effects of the uncertainty caused by the MMR controversy on these parents. Their aim was to assess how the parents had been affected and identify their specific needs to inform how these might be met in future debates around immunisation.

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues published an article in which they claimed to have found a link between the MMR vaccine and the onset of autistic spectrum disorder, although most of his co-authors subsequently disassociated themselves from the suggestion that there was a link between the vaccine and autism.

The controversy that followed affected parents' decision-making with regards to MMR vaccination. The Health Protection Agency's figures show immunisation rates across the UK population fell from 92% before the controversy, to 80% by 2003/04 (http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/vaccination/cover.htm). Vaccination rates have since started to increase again as parental confidence in the vaccine has begun to recover. However, until now no research had looked at the impact of the MMR controversy on the parents of children with autism.

Dr Shona Hilton and her colleagues at the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow found that many parents of children with autism have come under great stress and pressure as a result of the scare.

Dr Hilton found that some have experienced agonising uncertainty as to whether the MMR vaccine may have provoked their child's or children's autism. Many have wondered whether they are to blame for their child's condition or felt they had "let their children down" by deciding to vaccinate. Even those who felt that their child's autism was not linked to the MMR vaccine, either because of family history or because they had avoided vaccination, had suffered as a result of the ambiguous advice they felt that they had received.

The discussions also showed that most parents found it extremely difficult to make subsequent decisions about further vaccination for their children with autism and later children. Many parents felt let down by health professionals and health visitors as well as GPs. This appeared to be a result of the lack of clarity and consistency in what they were told. It may also have been a result of the perceived lack of empathy with and understanding of the realities of caring for a child with autism.

Dr. Hilton said: "It is clear from a review of the literature that there has been a lack of follow-up of the impact of this health scare on those likely to be most directly affected - those living day in and day out with children with autism. These parents in particular have been under a huge amount of stress about the possible impact of their decision to vaccinate or not. Often, those they turned to for guidance and advice, their health visitors and GPs, were not able to provide them with the support they needed.

Dr Hilton added "we are planning to conduct further research into whether health professionals feel that they are well-enough equipped to deal with parents during such health controversies, and how they can be better-supported. We hope to be able to develop new information materials and to identify other support that health professionals need in the difficult task they face of communicating with parents at the height of any future health controversies."

http://www.mrc.ac.uk