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Every time I hear about more middle class, educated parents not vaccinating their children or another outbreak of easily preventable diseases in our schools it makes me angry. Vaccines are fundamental to our way of life.

We in the western world have it lucky. Our health care, hygiene and preventative measures against disease and epidemics has never been better. Smallpox was the first disease to be eradicated completely thanks to Edward Jenner’s vaccine and a world wide program of systematic vaccination.  This disease (I use the past tense) used to kill an estimated 400,000 Europeans a year in the 1800s. Considering the population of Europe during this century was under a quarter of what it is today that would mean in today’s figures over 1.5 million deaths a year. Just in Europe. Polio is a disease that is incurable, debilitating and up until the 1970s was still affecting Western populations. Today it is all but eradicated. Without the help of vaccines our lives would be a lot shorter.

There is no denying that vaccines have been the biggest single contributor to our good health and long lives. Having all but eradicated any disease that vaccines exist for.  Why then are there parents out there who are refusing to vaccinate their babies?  Awareness and myopia are to blame somewhat. Vaccines are voluntary and most parents have grown up free from the horrors of these diseases. They simply don’t know why it is so important to immunise their children. The government needs to spend more on awareness, it’s a simple fix for these people. However, there is another group who cannot be reasoned with it seems. These people are convinced that vaccines are causing autism.

There is no denying that the number of babies diagnosed with autism has increased dramatically, just look at the chart of US data below. The vaccine blamers say that this, along with the use of microscopic amounts of mercury in a couple of vaccines is proof that they cause autism and use it as a very sorry excuse not to vaccinate their children.  Exposing them, unshielded to many diseases that would love a chance to make a comeback.

However, immunisation rates in the USA have only lifted a few percentage points. Where then are all these new cases of autism coming from? You can’t say a few thousand more vaccinated newborns a year are adding 20,000 autistics to the pool. The numbers just don’t add up.

What these parents need to understand about the autism data is that as diagnosis methods improved and the social stigma behind autism has dropped more and more diagnoses have been made. Twenty years ago nowhere near as many cases would have been picked up. The biggest failing in their argument though is that they simply don’t understand that “Correlation does not imply causation“.

For example - how ridiculous does this statement sound?

As ice cream sales increase, the rate of drowning deaths increases sharply.
Therefore, ice cream causes drowning.

Now think of it in terms of the main arguments the vaccine doubters use:

As vaccination rates increased, the rate of autism increased sharply.
Therefore, vaccination causes autism.

Sounds just as stupid doesn’t it.

I do have to empathise with parents who have immunised their infants and then found out the child has autism. The fact that autism isn’t noticeable until 3-4 years of age at the earliest and the raft of vaccinations they receive over those first few years may lead to some sort of cause and effect association. I know I would struggle to accept that this is how they were born and not as a result of something happening post birth.

Interestingly enough the debate isn’t over yet. There is one set of statistics which strongly suggest a likely cause of the increase in Autism. The older the mother (and father) at the time of pregnancy the more likely they are to have a child with Autism. At the age of 40+ the risk of having a child with Autism almost doubles from that of a woman having children in their early twenties. Twenty years ago the majority of women had children in their twenties. This has now shifted to the mid thirties and early fourties. No wonder the rates of autism have over doubled. The average age of a first time mother in Australia has moved from 24 years in 1975 to almost 31 years.

Expectant mothers should think twice before they decide to say no thanks to vaccination. If you’re having a child in your late thirties or older you’re running the gauntlet. Immunisation is not going to change this fact but it sure is going to prevent your child becoming another statistic. To the rest of you without children yet - please don’t leave it too late and remember, there is no proven or even plausible link between Autism and vaccination.

Update: Tuesday 2nd Feb 2010

The doctor who originally tried to convince us there was a link between autism and vaccines has now been totally discredited.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599195765600

So please have your child vaccinated. It’s important - 100 years ago you couldn’t expect most children to make it to adulthood. Vaccinations against bacterial (and some viral) infections gives them that chance that we got when we were young.

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