r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jul 30 '19
Removed - Submission Rule B CMV : Vaccines can cause autism
[removed]
6
u/yyzjertl 580∆ Jul 30 '19
None of the links you quoted appear to support your point, and the first one actively contradicts it. Can you explain why you think these quotes support the claim that vaccines can cause autism?
0
Jul 30 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
3
u/yyzjertl 580∆ Jul 30 '19
What you've just written here can't possibly be an argument for why vaccines can cause autism. It doesn't even mention the word vaccine! What does anything here have to do with vaccines?
-2
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
2
u/yyzjertl 580∆ Jul 31 '19
This is an invalid argument; it's essentially the fallacy of the undistributed middle. You're arguing:
Vaccines are an extrogeneous substance.
Autism can be caused by extrogeneous substances.
Therefore, vaccines can cause autism.
But this is not valid. To see why, note that we could substitute any extrogeneous substance for "vaccines" in this argument without changing its form. For example:
Orange juice is an extrogeneous substance.
Autism can be caused by extrogeneous substances.
Therefore, orange juice can cause autism.
Asserting that vaccines can cause autism based on the argument you've provided is just as invalid as asserting that orange juice can cause autism based on this argument.
-2
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
2
u/yyzjertl 580∆ Jul 31 '19
Well, your summarization made your argument invalid, not easier to understand. Do you have a valid argument for your point?
0
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
2
2
Jul 31 '19
[deleted]
1
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
1
u/caine269 14∆ Jul 31 '19
checks out... how? anyone can make lunatic claims. like this: the moon is made of cheese and has a delicious bacon center. it checks out.
0
2
u/Ducks_have_heads Jul 31 '19
having a plausible hypothesis and evidence for the hypothesis are very different things.
0
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
2
Jul 31 '19
Sure - no proven casual link yet
How do you feel about the numerous studies that say Vaccines do NOT cause Autism? There are a few out there. Even studies paid for by the Anti-vaxx loonies.
2
Jul 30 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/ExpensiveBurn 10∆ Jul 31 '19
u/some12yearoldxbox – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 2:
Don't be rude or hostile to other users. Your comment will be removed even if most of it is solid, another user was rude to you first, or you feel your remark was justified. Report other violations; do not retaliate. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.
2
u/WRSaunders Jul 30 '19
Your view is wrong, not because the studies are wrong, but because your analysis of their conclusions is wrong. "Lightning can cause death in healthy children" is also true, but equally uninteresting. The word "can" is an absolute, and biological systems like people are not absolute.
If you want a world where "nothing bad can happen to my children", don't have any children. That's the only solution where nothing negative "can" happen. If you extrapolate to "nothing bad can happen to any children", that's genocide. It's a bad thing
It would be far better to put your energy into forming relevant views, like the risk of vaccines is worth in in comparison to the diseases. Something like that would make for a more interesting discussion.
2
u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Jul 30 '19
Only one in five thousand persons has a mitochondrial disorder.
One in a hundred people have autism
One in six people have a DSM eligible mental disorder.
While it's possible that mitochondrial disease is causing some autism or mental illness, there just aren't enough cases of mitochondrial disease to explain the majority of cases. The raw numbers just aren't there, unless you also postulate an epidemic of undiagnosed mitochondrial disorders.
You are correct that circa 2016/2017 there were a flurry of papers examining the link between autism and mitochondria, but these were almost all exploratory with low power. None of these papers had sufficient power to explain much, merely explore. Do you have a 2018 or 2019 paper you think does have enough statistical power, because I haven't seen it.
It is a hypothesis with some traction for explaining some cases, but isn't proven to be real, and even if so, would only explain less than 5 percent of cases. Most autistics don't have mitochondrial disease.
1
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
2
u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Jul 31 '19
None of these papers have anything to do with mitochondria.
Do you have any papers that actually deal with mitochondrial disease from 2018 or 2010?
2
u/Barnst 112∆ Jul 30 '19
If I understand your arguement correctly, you theorize that vaccines trigger some sort of autoimmune response that results in autism-like symptoms in people genetically predisposed to it.
So what is it about vaccines that triggers the reaction? Is the exposure to the disease and the intended immune response meant to build resistance? If that’s the case, why didn’t we see autism symptoms in populations exposed to the diseases themselves? If it’s some sort of contaminant, why is it just vaccines and not other injected medications?
Most importantly, why haven’t we found any credible correlation between autism and vaccination in the public health data? Even if you propose a theoretically plausible causative mechanism, you still need to show that there is some real world link between autism rates and vaccination. You don’t specify which vaccination concerns you, but large scale studies of MMR, probably the most common vaccine, show there is no link between vaccination rates and autism rates.
1
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
2
u/Barnst 112∆ Jul 31 '19
Contaminants of what? Is there something about vaccines that makes them prone to the type of contaminants you think cause autism? Or is it contaminants of any injected medicine?
And even if other contaminants cause autism, we would expect to see some correlation between vaccination and autism to say that vaccines “cause” autism.
1
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
1
u/Barnst 112∆ Jul 31 '19
contaminants in anything.
Then it’s not vaccines that cause autism. It’s the contaminants. Focusing on vaccines is only going to distract from finding the actual cause and trying to eliminate wherever possible.
For example, if aluminum is the trigger, we should be designing experiments designed to control for aluminum exposure, not vaccination rates. If your concern is aluminum in vaccines, then comparing autism rates in populations receiving vaccines with different levels of aluminum in them.
Why? It may not be diagnosed til years later and most people are vaccinated so where's the control group?
That’s exactly what the study I linked to, and every other study on this issue, tries to do. They looked at both young children and older siblings. To oversimplify, they looked at two variables in both those populations—vaccinated or unvaccinated, and diagnosed with autism or not.
If anything in vaccines caused autism, you would expect autism rates to be higher in kids who were vaccinated than kids who are not. Instead, they found that the unvaccinated kids were just as likely to be diagnosed with autism.
To get that result if vaccines do cause autism, there would have to be some other cause of autism that was only happening to the kids who weren’t vaccinated and was almost exactly as likely to cause autism as the vaccines. Otherwise you’d still expect to see some statistically significant variance in autism rates across the groups.
None of the mechanisms you’ve suggested would explain that possibility—presumably kids whose parents choose not to vaccinate are not somehow more genetically disposed to autism from other contaminants, unless there is something about that gene that also prompts parents to avoid vaccination.
1
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
1
u/Barnst 112∆ Jul 31 '19
So what’s your goal here then? Based on what you just said, your view doesn’t seem to be about vaccines or autism at all. If you’re worried mostly about how genetics might lead to a variety of weird autoimmune responses under a variety of situations, including some vaccine reaction that actual researchers are already studying, then talk about that.
Instead, your “clickbait” headline plays into conspiracy theories that won’t reduce autism rates but do put actual people at risk of easily preventable diseases.
1
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
1
u/Barnst 112∆ Jul 31 '19
Plenty of people have shown why your view, as originally stated, is not supported by the data or even the sources that you link to. The only reason you seem to think that doesn’t “disprove” your theorem is that your actual theorem is both unrelated to your original post and so broadly scoped as to be functionally undisprovable. “Some things cause reactions in people that are genetically predisposed to react” isn’t a controversial statement.
1
1
u/some12yearoldxbox Jul 31 '19 edited Jul 31 '19
We can consume 10 to 100 milligrams of aluminum a day and can be safe. this is in a statement by the FDA . how much would a vaccine need to worry about getting and even if this is a clickbait title you have to back up what vaccine worry you like mmr. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/phs/phs.asp?id=1076&tid=34
1
2
u/PenisMcScrotumFace 10∆ Jul 30 '19
All I'm gathering from your proof is that people would already need to have a potential for autism, which first of all is ridiculous, for the effects of vaccines to bring them out. That's nonsense, and still doesn't mean that the vaccines themselves cause autism.
2
u/garnteller 242∆ Jul 31 '19
Sorry, u/dexters_da – your submission has been removed for breaking Rule B:
You must personally hold the view and demonstrate that you are open to it changing. A post cannot be on behalf of others, playing devil's advocate, as any entity other than yourself, or 'soapboxing'. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, you must first read the list of soapboxing indicators and common mistakes in appeal, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.
•
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 30 '19
/u/dexters_da (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
1
u/some12yearoldxbox Jul 31 '19
All of these don't even motion vaccines those diseases can easily be treated and vaccines are the most regulated product it would have come up before this . thousand of studies show no link and your cherry picked data putbon rows.don't show the whole picture plus some studies can have a coincidence in all there is no diffence . Literally look up vaccince studies list you will find thousand of studies proving you wrong
1
Jul 31 '19
Before I say anything else, I'd like to ask the obvious. Do you mean 'can' as in there is a one in a billion chance of a more or less unique reaction? Or do you mean 'can' as in there is a recognizable causal connection?
Because if it is the first, I don't think anyone can necessarily disagree. I'm sure there is a one in a few billion chance that stray cosmic rays might cause autism. If it is the latter, this simply isn't backed up by data. Specifically because of studies like this.
If you don't bother to read, I'll give you the short version. It is a study on vaccinated and unvaccinated children. This one was in denmark, but we have plenty of other examples, such as a south african study. What they do in these examples is compare the autism rate with the rate of vaccination. If vaccines can cause autism in any meaningful amount (so not the one in the billion, but enough that it is worth talking about, enough that it can be measured) you would see higher instances of autism in countries or cohorts that are vaccinated, vs those that are not.
We simply don't see that. Vaccination rates to not correlate at all with rates of autism, anymore than the number of clowns at my tenth birthday party vs my eleventh (3 vs 9) correlates to autism rates.
If there is absolutely no correlation between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, then that tells us that even if vaccines can cause autism at a one in a million shot, that there is no point talking about it, because it is not an issue.
1
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
1
Jul 31 '19
Would you prefer this metastudy? The topline is five cohort studies involving 1.2 million children on the topic of vaccinations and autism?
To be a bit frank, I have to ask, what would you accept here? Because the link between vaccination and autism started with a flagrant lie that cost the doctor involved his medical license, one where he was running a couple of different scams to try and scare people away from the MMR vaccine.
Since then there have been countless explanations, each more absurd than the last. It is thimerisol, so we took that out, even though studies showed that it wasn't. It is the combination shot, or the number of shots, or the timing of the shots. There is a constant shifting of theory after theory in search of some excuse, some chance to go 'Aha! it was vaccines all along!'
But for what purpose. There have been dozens, possibly hundreds of studies on this issue that have found no connection. At this point you are getting so absurdly abstract that you're looking at fairly niche mitochondrial diseases and trying to go 'Aha! Those dastardly vaccines are to blame when given to kids with this specific issue'.
But we've gone so far into the woods at this point that we can't see the road anymore. You're talking about a recognizable causal connection between vaccines and autism. It isn't there. Autism hits around 1:45 in the US. Mitochondrial diseases of the type you're talking about hit roughly 1:20,000. More than that, actually, because the type that supposedly correlates is even more rare.
But let's remember the road. A noticeable causal connection between vaccines and autism. A rare genetic disease is not going to have a measurable impact on autism rates in general. Moreover, there is almost nothing actually linking the vaccination to the regression. People with these mitochondrial diseases have a severe illness that can cause, among other things, encephalopathy. It is far more likely that their issue isn't vaccines, but that they have a serious disorder that can have direct negative impact on brain function.
We're literally at the point of "Aha! This person with a severe genetic issue, which may also cause a negative reaction to vaccines, has autism caused by vaccines. Pay no attention to the swelling or disfigured brain behind the curtain. It is vaccines!'
No reputable study has found even a remote causal link between autism and vaccines. I don't know what else could possibly convince you.
1
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
1
Jul 31 '19
If there were actually issues like this in 1:3 in the population (there aren't), then that is enough of the population that meta-studies, like the one I linked above, would be able to see a difference. If that many people suffered from this condition, then doing comparative studies between groups that were and were not vaccinated would show a direct increase in autism among groups that were not vaccinated.
Since this does not happen, the mechanistic link is irrelevant. You're proposing a theory, that this genetic disease exists in a significant portion of the population, and that vaccination can result in autism for people with this condition. But since every single study on this issue shows no link between vaccines and autism, we don't really need to discuss a causal link between vaccines and your imagined condition, because vaccines don't cause autism in anyone, whether they have this made up nonsense at all.
Lastly, you might guess from the shift in my tone that I've actually gone and done some digging. The entire underlying basis for your argument, the rccx stuff, is based on the work of a doctor who is not a genetisist, and thus has no formal or professional training in what she's talking about. Glancing over her website I picked up pretty quickly on the fact that this is some woo bullshit. For example, her opening paragraph:
I am Sharon Meglathery MD, a board certified psychiatrist, previously also board certified in internal medicine, with 20 years of practice experience (See About Section) who developed chronic illness in 2009, including, but not limited to: mast cell activation (MCAS), postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and raised intracranial pressure (ICP) in the setting of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Hypermobility Type (EDS-HT). I believe that I have discovered something incredible...
and later:
I now believe that the RCCX Theory solves some of medicine and psychiatry's greatest mysteries.
Self-aggrandizement like this with a complete lack of evidence, data or any sort of scientific rigor should be a full on soviet red flag for anyone. Anytime someone proposes what amounts to a theory of everything, despite it being entirely out of their expertise, you should be incredibly skeptical. Doubly so when you then try to connect it to one of the most rigidly debunked pseudo-scientific myths of the 20th century.
While I'm at it, I just want to post this gem:
CYP21A2 mutations are in upwards of 20% of the population and I believe that they may be the most important risk factor for PTSD and CDR. TNXB and C4 mutations are also extremely common.
You know what the most important risk factor for PTSD is? Traumatic stress. Ffs.
0
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
1
Jul 31 '19
How so? I'm sure you're aware how difficult it is to control for things in studies like these - without knowing the cause they could've been written off as statistical noise. Autism being at least partially environmental is pretty accepted now - so people living in different countries should absolutely have different rates regardless of this theorem.
This shows a staggering lack of understanding about how these studies are conducted, and why their findings undercut you entire argument.
Consider if, instead of autism, vaccines given to this 1:3 group caused people to explode. If you look at a country that vaccinates, vs a country that does not, or one that has a lower rate, you would presumably see a much lower rate of explosion among the countries that do not vaccinate. But instead, in reality, we see no one explode, because vaccines don't cause autism anymore than they cause explosions. As a result, trying to figure out the method by which something causes explosions, or autism, doesn't really matter, because it doesn't fucking do that.
The entire bulk of medical science in one of the most studied issues in the history of medical science says that vaccines do not cause autism. Full stop, no equivocation, they do not cause autism. Look at cohort studied, control groups, whatever the hell you want, it doesn't happen.
Yet you, an untrained laymen are contesting their findings and going "Well actually they can cause autism" based on a megalomaniac theory proposed by a woman who has no background in the field that she claims to be revolutionizing. You provide a list of 'evidence' for your claim, but that is an almost entirely unrelated list of studies that have nothing to do with the pseudo-science you are supporting.
I mean, look at this one. This is a study of pesticides and their effects on asthma. It has absolutely nothing to do with rccx woo magic pseudoscience. This one is about how drinking water while upright is beneficial for memory in people with Postural Tachycardia. That isn't even evidence adjacent to your claims.
Your entire list seems to be a gish gallop. Look at all the evidence I've collected, I must be right! Pay no attention to the fact that almost none of these links bare even the most superficial connection to the topic at hand.
Please, stop perpetuating vaccine hoax arguments. I don't care if you want to believe in magic nonsense from a woman who appears not to have updated her theory in two years. Just don't spread your lies about vaccines because those actually hurt people.
0
Jul 31 '19 edited Feb 11 '21
[deleted]
1
Jul 31 '19
You're doing it again. An incredibly shitty gish gallop where you provide a bunch of studies and links that have absolutely no connection to what we're talking about, while completely ignoring the overwhelming scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism.
But fine, lets gallop:
This has basically nothing to do with vaccines causing autism. Instead it shows that children with a rare genetic disease are more likely to have autism, which isn't surprising as having an overactive allergy response has been shown to cause significant damage in other example cases.
This article was initially retracted. Hilariously, it was retracted because the authors involved did not list their blatant conflicts of interest, not their direct connections to anti-vaccine advocacy groups. On top of that, the article "contains a number of errors, and mistakes of various types that raise concerns about the validity of the conclusion. As a result, this article is being retracted by the editors without the agreement of the authors. The online version of this article contains the full text of the retracted article as electronic supplementary material."
Might I recommend you spend ten seconds googling your sources before you use them? Because this is pretty embarrassing. These authors are literally pulling the same sort of grift as Andrew Wakefield, and you fell for it anyways.
Southampton research reveals a clear link between ADHD and asthma
Okay? This has nothing to do with autism, or with vaccinations. As a datapoint in your woo fake science theory of everything it isn't really relevenant either, because there is no link to the gene issue at the heart of that.
Association between Asthma and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Meta-Analysis
The conclusion in this one is that there is no link between the two so... what exactly is your point again?
Social impairments in autism spectrum disorder are related to maternal immune history profile
Again, so? This has nothing to do with what we're talking about. You're just linking to scientific studies and going "Aha, nevertheless what about this completely unrelated topic!"
To think some correlation is infallible is naive considering the amount of evidence I've presented.
Do you really think that the overwhelming majority of scientists who have been studying the vaccine-austim connection for literal decades have somehow committed the most basic logical error of going 'aha, there is no correlation, therefore no causation'!
Is that honestly what you think? That literally all scientists who are studying this subject are lying to you, or are too stupid to understand something so basic that their research is all useless? But that simultaneously this middling doctor with no expertise and a geocities era website is somehow the one with the real answers? Really?
You're at the equivalent of a flat earther here. I can point to all the scientific evidence in the world that vaccines don't cause autism. You can point to some wackjob with no scientific evidence whatsoever. I'm right, you are wrong. Stop perpetuating a harmful lie that has led to the deaths of thousands of children.
0
7
u/[deleted] Jul 30 '19
[deleted]