Autism Advocates Push For New Federal Vaccine Agency
Ronald Bailey | August 1, 2006, 3:00pm
Last week two members of the House of Representatives, pandering to the fears of the anguished parents of autistic children, introduced the Vaccine Safety and Public Confidence Assurance Act of 2006. Many such parents are convinced that vaccination caused their children's illness although most scientific evidence suggests that that is not so. One chief claim is that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal is responsible for increases in autism in the United States. The new Agency for Vaccine Safety Evaluation would take over monitoring vaccines for safety from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
There is little solid scientific evidence that thimerosal is the culprit for increased rates of autism. Nevertheless, in 1999 the CDC and various medical organizations, concerned that parents confused by misinformation on the Internet and in the media would refuse to vaccinate their children, asked vaccine makers to remove thimerosal from their vaccines. According to the CDC: "Today, with the exception of some Influenza (flu) vaccines, none of the vaccines used in the U.S. to protect preschool children against 12 infectious diseases contain thimerosal as a preservative."
The removal of thimerosal was not based on evidence of harm, but was justified by invoking the dangerously conservative precautionary principle. One popular version of this regulatory principle reads: "Where an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." In other words, alleging "threats" is enough to outlaw a technology.
Given that there is very little evidence that vaccines in the United States are unsafe, it's a real question whether or not we need another federal agency designed to slow the introduction of needed medicines to the public?
Captain Holly | August 1, 2006, 5:30pm | #
To be sure, there is a fair amount of modern-day Luddism among vaccine opponents. In my experience, most of them are simliar to flat-earthers when it comes to scientific arguments.
BUT I think such unhealthy skepticism is well-nourished by the Government's insistence that every new vaccine is the Latest and Greatest Step Forward in Public Health, and if you as a parent don't agree you're looked upon as a child abuser.
Parents nowadays are required to vaccinate their children against an ever-increasing number of diseases at an ever-increasing cost for an ever-decreasing benefit. Yet the CDC continues to tout new vaccines that protect against minor or rare diseases as essential to preserving public health.
Take the chickenpox vaccine, for example. For the overwhelming majority of healthy, normal children, chickenpox is a mild, self-limiting disease that resolves without complications and confers life-long immunity. Yet the vaccine, although effective in preventing chickenpox during childhood years, might actually hurt recipients by keeping them from getting chickenpox as a child -- when the symptoms are much milder -- and then wearing off as they age, making them
more vulnerable to severe symptoms if they are exposed.
I'm not anti-vaccine. But it seems that vaccines today are more geared to preventing limited outbreaks of unusual diseases than protecting the public against widespread epidemics.
If smallpox is the "gold standard" of vaccines -- inexpensive, easy to deliver, protects against a highly contagious, deadly disease -- alot of these new vaccines have a long way to go. Most are rather costly, require several boosters, and protect against diseases that pose little threat to the general public. It's no wonder that some folks would become suspicious.
