Single MMR vaccines

The Wendy Chung video is informative and one of the main messages for me is that there is more that is unknown about autism than is known. Unfortunately, to me, she uses Wakefields fraud as evidence that the link between MMR and autism is false. This is bad logic. You can say something that might be true for fraudulent reasons but that does not mean that there is no link. What we know is that there is no statistically significant link between the two things. i.e. if there is a link then it is so small and rare that the population as a whole should still accept the risk because the impact of the MMR vaccines are proven to be real, significant and beneficial. What is beyond doubt is that the Wakefield scandal caused significant numbers of deaths due to people avoiding the proven benefits of the vaccine.

It is possible that taking a child to a GP surgery can lead to a fever due to the number of bugs in the air in a waiting room. Where else would you find a greater chance of picking up flu or any other bug? Children of that age have low levels of immunity as they have not had much exposure to bugs. You must not avoid social contact in response to this thought - everyone has to build up their immunity to these bugs sooner or later.

It is possible that children with latent autism may have their autism brought out by a fever. But practically all children have fevers so the autism is likely to come out sooner or later.

In this case, the child seems to have had a bad reaction to vaccination so it is reasonable to ask the GP if special precautions should be taken for the booster. The parents should be on their guard to try and ameliorate the fever by making sure that the child is kept as cool as possible and properly hydrated etc.

As I said before, my children have had these vaccines and I recommend that all other parents should see the certain benefits but be aware of the possible fevers etc by knowing what to do if a child develops a fever. NHS Choices has a page about this www.nhs.uk/.../Introduction.aspx - this talks about how common it is for children to have fevers and it also talks about the importance of keeping a child cool and the use of paracetamol as a drug to keep fever down.

So for the avoidance of doubt, there is an absence of evidence about the link between autism and MMR but there is no absence of evidence whatsoever about the benefits of the MMR vaccination, the overwhelming evidence is very much in favour of having this vaccine.

The Wendy Chung video is informative and one of the main messages for me is that there is more that is unknown about autism than is known. Unfortunately, to me, she uses Wakefields fraud as evidence that the link between MMR and autism is false. This is bad logic. You can say something that might be true for fraudulent reasons but that does not mean that there is no link. What we know is that there is no statistically significant link between the two things. i.e. if there is a link then it is so small and rare that the population as a whole should still accept the risk because the impact of the MMR vaccines are proven to be real, significant and beneficial. What is beyond doubt is that the Wakefield scandal caused significant numbers of deaths due to people avoiding the proven benefits of the vaccine.

It is possible that taking a child to a GP surgery can lead to a fever due to the number of bugs in the air in a waiting room. Where else would you find a greater chance of picking up flu or any other bug? Children of that age have low levels of immunity as they have not had much exposure to bugs. You must not avoid social contact in response to this thought - everyone has to build up their immunity to these bugs sooner or later.

It is possible that children with latent autism may have their autism brought out by a fever. But practically all children have fevers so the autism is likely to come out sooner or later.

In this case, the child seems to have had a bad reaction to vaccination so it is reasonable to ask the GP if special precautions should be taken for the booster. The parents should be on their guard to try and ameliorate the fever by making sure that the child is kept as cool as possible and properly hydrated etc.

As I said before, my children have had these vaccines and I recommend that all other parents should see the certain benefits but be aware of the possible fevers etc by knowing what to do if a child develops a fever. NHS Choices has a page about this www.nhs.uk/.../Introduction.aspx - this talks about how common it is for children to have fevers and it also talks about the importance of keeping a child cool and the use of paracetamol as a drug to keep fever down.

So for the avoidance of doubt, there is an absence of evidence about the link between autism and MMR but there is no absence of evidence whatsoever about the benefits of the MMR vaccination, the overwhelming evidence is very much in favour of having this vaccine.