Vaccines Are Not Causing the Rise in Autism

Abstract

There is a myth in society that vaccines are related to autism. The paper described that there is no relation of vaccines to autism. It explains how this myth was developed in community and how it affected the health of children. The paper described various facts about the concept. Vaccines Are Not Causing the Rise in Autism

Introduction

Autism is a neurological disorder that presents during the first few years of life. It affects the brain function, development, and social interaction skills. Symptoms of autism include difficulties with behavior and communication. These children have difficulty in interacting with parents, friends, siblings and others. They have difficulties with transitions, they do repetitive behaviors and show high sensitivity to noise. The symptoms vary in the type and severity in every child affected by autism (Gai, Xie, & Perin, 2011).

Autism is associated with genetic abnormality. The chances of autism are greater than 90 percent in identical twins. Some environmental factors, such as use of thalidomide in early pregnancy can cause autism or if the pregnant women gets rubella virus (German measles) infection, there is the chance that their infants may get autism. There is a common myth in society that the MMR and other vaccines cause autism in children (Dales, Hammer, & Smith, 2001). Therefore, parents are reluctant to give their children the required doses of vaccines. This compromises the immunity of their children and makes them prone to communicable infections such as measles, mumps, rubella, which has increased the children's morbidity and mortality.

Discussion

The Relation of Autism with Vaccines

In 1998, a British researcher Andrew Wakefield published his research, in the journal The Lancet, which shows that the MMR vaccine might cause the autism disorder (Wakefield, & McCarthy, 2010). He published his research based on the study of eight children, who developed autism and gastrointestinal problems after getting the MMR vaccine. Other researchers performed multiple studies to confirm the results. They compared thousands of children and found that the risk was same, whether the child received the vaccine or not. The researchers demonstrated MMR vaccine do not cause autism (Davis, Kramarz, & Bohlke, 2001). After 1998, multiple studies were done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the UK National Health Service, American Academy of Pediatrics and the Cochrane Library, all proved that there is no link between autism and the vaccine. The Omnibus Autism Proceeding also known as the vaccine court. It was made to handle 5000 vaccine petitions about the claims that vaccines cause autism. The Steering Committee claimed that thiomersal in MMR vaccines can cause autism. In 2007, three test cases were done to verify the claims; all three test cases were failed. The vaccine court stated that the studies proved that vaccines do not cause autism (DeStefano, Bhasin, Thompson, Yeargin-Allsopp, & Boyle, 2004).

Some studies suggest that children who are fully vaccinated are less prone to develop autism than those who are partially vaccinated. Further, all of the evidences from the research show that vaccines ...