TheAutismDoctor has been asked to weigh in on the recent media attention regarding the film Vaxxed, which was scheduled, but not shown, at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Robert De Niro, who helped organize the exposition, announced that he has an 18 year-old son with autism, and felt that the point of view presented in the documentary was important enough to explore. However, he decided to pull the film because the controversy is so heated that it deterred the public’s enjoyment of the rest of the event.

Do Vaccinations cause Autism?
The topic has been covered in this venue over 35 times, so I’m fairly certain that another protestation will confer little additional sanity.

Regardless of the volume and frequency with which Jenny McCarthy, Robert De Niro or Dr. Udell voice the opinion that we are not against childhood inoculations, ‘anti-vaccination’ is usually the way that the information is characterized. Opinions are either, “All or none, for or against, pro-science or anti-vaccination, educated or ignorant, healthy or dangerous.” Such points of view offer no middle ground and so this dispute won’t go away any time soon.

Discussion
I posed the following question to the ‘pro-vax’ father of a 6-month old, “You are asked to enter your baby into a formal study in which there are two groups.”

Group A – Present Schedule

Start at birth (Hepatitis B in hospital)
Fever OK (give Tylenol)
Mild illness OK
9 or more components at once OK
Negative previous reaction OK
‘Make up shots’ (for missed doses) OK
Other medical conditions OK
Development not on track OK

Group B – Other factors considered

Wait to begin until infant is clearly healthy
No shots if child is sick
Fewer components at each time
No pretreatment with Tylenol
Medical evaluation if previous problems
Appropriate testing if medically unstable (e.g. frequent infections, premature, GERD, eczema, asthma, abnormal stooling…)

Dad’s answer? “The safe one!” Really? Is that the one that the ‘scientists’ and government say is all right? And by the way, even if a physician might answer the hypothetical by responding, “Group A is perfectly fine,” their partner would probably protest, “Are you crazy? Not my kid!”

When that scenario is too cumbersome to recite, I pose another question. “Which is a more reasonable statement? ALL vaccinations are good for ALL children ALL of the time,” or “SOME inoculations might not be good for SOME toddlers in SOME situations?”

If the answer is the latter, it begs the question, “Which ones, when, under what conditions?”

Conclusion
Childhood vaccinations have been a true victory for modern medicine. They have prevented a variety of devastating diseases suffered by so many for millennia.

This movie, subtitled, From Cover-up to Catastrophe certainly stokes the controversy, as does its outspoken lightning rod, Andrew Wakefield.

No matter how frequently, dogmatic or pedantic the ‘Vaxxers’ pontificate, this polarization will continue until we understand more abut the present autism epidemic. Once that diagnosis is accurately understood and described, ‘real’ science demands independent, prospective, randomized, controlled, double-blind crossover studies of each and every component of the modern protocol to prove safety and efficacy.

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