So, I've always considered the "Vaccines Cause Autism" crowd to be more than a little bit crazy. But lately I've been seeing some kind of disturbing trends that make me think that even if they're barking up the wrong tree with the thimerosal thing, that they might actually be on to something.
Anyway, it turns out that my wife is likely suffering from lupus, which although a serious disorder is not (usually) life threatening. While researching lupus, we found out that
Live vaccines are contraindicated for people with SLE. Whether this is because SLE sufferers are susceptible to infection from live vaccines or because the treatments for SLE
leave them susceptible is an open question.
Furthermore, there's some evidence that certain types of autism are linked to autoimmune disease in family members.
Autism is an autoimmune disease
Troubling case study
Outspoken neurobiologist who things autism is autoimmune related.
And then today, on Slashdot I saw this
Immuno suppressant drug restores function in autistic mice.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that my infant son, with a family history of autoimmune disorders
on both sides of the family may be at greater risk receiving live virus vaccines like MMR than not.
Measles, mumps, rubella are all bad, yes, but not really THAT frequently encountered. Autism strikes me as much, much worse.
Somebody with a medical background point me to appropriate journal articles. I posted this in another location and was frankly appalled by the response that I got - telling me that I was no better than a child abuser for even considering such a thing as skipping the MMR.
The information that I'm operating on is not from a bunch of hippies with crystals - these are all peer reviewed articles in respectable medical journals by real scientists and doctors. (Of course Halton Arp is a real scientist, and ALSO a anti-big-bang maniac.)
If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong here - but I need some hard facts, not just strident repetition of the conventional wisdom.
TFS
