Autism Street

Over at Age Of Autism (the self-proclaimed “Daily Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic”), chelation expert, J.B. “autism is a misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning” Handley, brings us more typical anti-vaccine nonsense. In his most recent (and David Kirby-like) post, Hepatitis B Vaccine: An Unmitigated Disaster, J.B. trots out the sciency.

As most readers of AoA know, the Hep B vaccine was added to the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule in the early 1990s, requires four doses before a child is eighteen months old, and is the only vaccine on the CDC’s schedule that is recommended to be given on an infant’s first day of life.

When it was added to the schedule is irrelevant. It’s a 3-dose vaccine (4 are permissable when a 4th dose is part of a combination vaccine). Safe contribution to local and herd immunity as early as possible is a good thing.

What else do we know about this vaccine? Quite a bit, actually. In no particular order:

1) A recent study published in the journal Neurotoxicology called “Delayed Acquisition of Neonatal Reflexes in Newborn Primates Receiving a Thimerosal-containing Hepatitis B Vaccine: Influence of Gestational Age and Birth Weight” found that monkeys who received a Hepatitis B vaccine on the first day of life experienced a significant delay in survival reflexes versus monkeys who received a placebo.

Perhaps J.B. will tell us exactly what these reflexes have to do with autism? Not likely. Besides the fact that this study is irrelevant to autism (never mind that Hep B hasn’t contained Thimerosal since 2001 either), it looks more like monkey business rather than relevant and sound science.

2) A recent study published in the journal the Annals of Epidemiology titled “Hepatitis B Vaccination of Male Neonates and Autism” found that “Boys who received the hepatitis B vaccine during the first month of life had 2.94 greater odds for ASD [autism] compared to later- or unvaccinated boys.”

In reality, no such “study” has been published that I’ve seen. I’m sure there’s one forthcoming, but for now, all I’ve seen is an abstract and a poster presentation. The poster is underwhelming to say the least. As the authors of this poster themselves noted (among other things), “cross-sectional design limits causal inferences”, “autism diagnosis is parent-reported”, and “secondary data analysis does not support conclusions regarding risk attributable to specific vaccine components”. The data is represented as being for boys age 3-17 between 1997 and 2002, which means the age group spans the evolution of the term “autism” to “autism spectrum disorders” (with the addition of PDD-NOS and Asperger Syndrome). It also means they span broadening of the criteria for autism itself. I wonder how they’ll control for the changing definition of “autism”, and the impact of awareness and recognition, which is especially important since this is based on partental reports.

3) A recent study published in the journal Neurology called “Hepatitis B vaccine and the risk of CNS inflammatory demyelination in childhood” found that the Engerix B vaccine for Hep B (the one my son received) appears to increase the risk of central nervous system inflammatory demyelination.

Except it found the opposite. “Vaccination within this period was not associated with an increase in the rate of CNS inflammatory demyelination (adjusted OR, 0.74; 0.54–1.02), neither >3 years nor as a function of the number of injections or brand type.” and “Conclusions: Hepatitis B vaccination does not generally increase the risk of CNS inflammatory demyelination in childhood.”

Relevance to Autism? Zero.

4) A recent study published in Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry titled “Hepatitis B triple series vaccine and developmental disability in US children aged 1-9 years” stated “the odds of receiving EIS [special education services] were approximately nine times as great for vaccinated boys as for unvaccinated boys after adjustment for confounders. This study found statistically significant evidence to suggest that boys in United States who were vaccinated with the triple series Hepatitis B vaccine, during the time period in which vaccines were manufactured with thimerosal, were more susceptible to developmental disability than were unvaccinated boys.

Right. Special education services in general. Good luck with that one J.B.

5) In 2002, the Institute of Medicine (which I personally believe is a corrupt agent of the vaccine industry but many believe is the final word on medical issues) published a study titled, “Immunization Safety Review: Hepatitis B Vaccine and Demyelinating Neurological Disorders” in which they reached the following non-conclusion: “Additionally, the committee found that the epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between the hepatitis B vaccine in adults and multiple sclerosis. However, the evidence was inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between the hepatitis B vaccine and all other demyelinating conditions.” (Author’s note: If you’re a vaccine, and you can’t get an “all clear” from the vaccine-loving IOM, you’re in big trouble.”)

Me thinks J.B. missed the part where the I.O.M. said, “hepatitis vaccine in adults and multiple sclerosis” More irrelevancy.

6) Generation Rescue analyzed the vaccine schedules of 30 first-world countries. 60%, or 18 countries, have Hep B vaccine on their schedule. That means 12 countries, or 40% of the countries, DO NOT require the Hep B vaccine, despite the fact that it has been readily available for 19 years. Of countries that do require Hep B vaccine, we could only find a few Eastern European countries like Bulgaria and Latvia who also give the shot to babies on the first day of life. Many other countries appear to pursue a more balanced approach to Hep B vaccine, here are some direct quotes from country vaccination schedules.

Solid logic - an appeal to popularity among 40% of selected countries. Warning, valid ad-hominem follows: Actually, I was ready to stop reading point #6 at the “Generation Rescue analyzed…” Generation Rescue sucks at analysis. Don’t take my word for it, read more about their 14 studies, their phone survey (here, here, and here), their take on mercury excretion (based on part of their “25 Myths” mecury document of days gone by).

Poor guy. The shiny new (not really new, it’s actually a recycle of the mercury nonsense) hypothesis has all the looks of the Sirens of Ulysses. Will J.B. be drawn in like an insect to the bug-zapper? Or will another vaccine-centric, yet completely merit-free autism hypothesis attract his attention in the nick of time in another few months?