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I don't know what timely means. It happened recently? Professor McCarthy stating an opinion on the monkey study (which gp152 pasted earlier in this very thread) is neither noteworthy or timely.
Oh, and I was incorrect about the monkey study. It was actually published in the journal Neurotoxicology (so at least someone reviewed it - Pubmed ID 19800915) in October 2009. 20 monkeys (13 Hep B vaccine with thimerosal added, 4 saline, 3 nothing) were tested regarding neurological development. Not randomized, not blinded, unequal sample size, small effect = not significant. Never mind the fact that one of the authors has been discredited and the study is funded by anti-vaccine group. Also, thimerosal is no longer a part of the HBV vaccine (why did they add it?)
I will very likely regret commenting here, but I'll do it anyway.
They added it as a preservative in very small amounts. It was taken out around 2002 or so. For the record, MMR never contained thimerosal. There was a study that looked at autism rates in the US and Denmark, where they took out thimerosal in the 90s. The autism rates in Denmark rose even faster than ours did over the same time period. Moreover, the rates of autism have not declined despite taking it out of our vaccine supply. In fact, in Denmark, autism rates didn't start to climb until they took it out of the vaccine supply. These numbers were confirmed by several other scientific investigations.
The biggest problem I see with believing the conspiracy theorist types is that the story keeps changing. First they just knew it was MMR causing autism. The CDC actually stopped and looked at it more closely and several major studies failed to show a link. The conspiracy theorists stated that the numbers (n values) used in those studies was 'too large' and hence they 'diluted' or 'covered up' the actual cases connected to autism. No point in arguing about statistics and P values, you can't win.
Then the focus turned to thimerosal, partly due to studies engineered by Mark and David Geier. Their work has been widely discreditedThere was the study out of Denmark, as well as comparison studies involving ethyl mercury, which is slightly different than thimerosal, but chemically very similar. No link. An English study of 1000 children exposed to thimerosal even showed a slight increase in IQ, but it wasn't statistically significant.
Now the story is 'cumulative toxins' resulting from a 'too many vaccines at once.' Frankly I'm tired of the finger pointing and backtracking. The time and money spent avoiding vaccines and whining about 'blaming the parents' takes away from the legitimate focus on finding genetic links and understanding patterns of emergence. What I've come to realize, is that it will ALWAYS be something else, no matter how much data and research is done. There will ALWAYS be another scapegoat or something that 'the scientific community has refused to investigate.' And with those kinds of people, you simply can't win, so I generally don't engage them.
If your unvaccinated kid ever gave my kid a preventable disease, then I will sue your damn pants off.
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