MMR Study II [14 studies website read along (SPIN OFF)]

[Deborah]

Here is the second MMR study from the 14 studies web-site put up by Generation Rescue:

http://www.fourteenstudies.org/pdf/MMR_2.pdf

"MMR Vaccination and Pervasive Developmental Disorders: A Case-Control Study"
The Lancet, Liam Smeeth, MRCGP, Eric Fombonne, MD (September 11, 2004)

This one should be very interesting.

and here are my original questions, which seem to provide a good starting point for discussion:

As you read the article, here are some questions to ask yourself:
1) What are the authors trying to figure out?
2) Why are they looking at this question?
3) What means do they use?
4) Would you approach the problem in the same way? Or?

[Deborah]

Therefore, when measles, mumps, and rubella vaccinations were all coded as having been given on the same day or within a 21-day period, the vaccination was classified as representing MMR vaccination (because live vaccines are recommended to be separated by a period of at least 21 days).22

This is interesting. So if you give single live vaccines they need to be separated, but if you get them into one they suddenly become okay?

[cloak]

Originally Posted by Deborah

This is interesting. So if you give single live vaccines they need to be separated, but if you get them into one they suddenly become okay?

I'm guessing this is because they jockey the antigen levels in the combined shot to account for the diseases interfering with each other. Unless these authors know the individual shots have the same exact amount of antigen as the combined shot, how do they know that getting an M, M, and R within 21 days acts the same as getting an MMR in one day?

[Deborah]

We were not able to separately identify the subgroup of cases with regressive symptoms to investigate the hypothesis that only some children are vulnerable to MMR-induced disease and that this is always regressive.27 However, two recent studies have argued against the existence of a distinct MMR-induced regressive type of autism.28,29

Does this mean that they didn't actually look at the population which Wakefield originally described? And they assume that this population doesn't actually exist, anyhow? That is what it sounds like.

[MissRubyandKen]

We were not able to separately identify the subgroup of cases
with regressive symptoms to investigate the hypothesis
that only some children are vulnerable to MMR-induced
disease and that this is always regressive.27 However, two
recent studies have argued against the existence of a
distinct MMR-induced regressive type of autism.28,29

Deborah- I was just coming to post this little tidbit as well. It's worth repeating.

All of the 'smart' number pushing around aside, this is what I gain from the study-

1,294 cases + 4,469 controls = 5,763 children
991 of cases diagnosed with autism
303 cases diagnosed with other PPD
5,763 children included, all vaccinated with MMR
1,010 diagnosed after vaccination with MMR
184 diagnosed before vaccination with MMR

So 1,010 children out of 5,763 children vaccinated with MMR were diagnosed with a PPD subsequently. Yeah I'm convinced the MMR has absolutely no association at all.

If anyone finds any errors in my math or numbers, let me know. I'm not double checking this before I post. Nursling is sick and I'm going back and forth between helping her back to sleep when she wakes and reading and posting. Surprised I was able to even read this and post! Never felt luckier to have a rocking armchair at my computer desk.

[Deborah]

Thanks for that quick analysis.

I went looking for an example of how this study has been promoted. I had to cut out some verbiage to get this down to under 100 words, but I'll provide a link so the unminced version is available.

...as these diseases have been eliminated...parents of healthy children who later become sick with ...diseases may see the vaccines (with the encouragement of avaricious trial lawyers) as culprits for their children's illnesses.

The most recent case in point has been the longstanding accusation that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism... Numerous studies have debunked the purported link, but have not tamped suspicion of the vaccine...this latest study will finally dispel the junk science surrounding the MMR vaccine; the authors note that "our findings suggest that MMR vaccination is not associated with an increased risk of pervasive developmental disorders."

http://www.medicalprogresstoday.com/...ive.php?id=282

[Deborah]

Please, everyone who is interested in vaccine safety, read these studies! You can understand this stuff with a moderate amount of effort. And knowing what sort of studies are used to vindicate the safety of vaccines will really strengthen your position! [this goes for both sides of the debate]

[DaughterOfKali]

subbing to come back to when I have time to read.

[CallMeIshmael]

Originally Posted by MissRubyandKen

1,294 cases + 4,469 controls = 5,763 children
991 of cases diagnosed with autism
303 cases diagnosed with other PPD
5,763 children included, all vaccinated with MMR
1,010 diagnosed after vaccination with MMR
184 diagnosed before vaccination with MMR
So 1,010 children out of 5,763 children vaccinated with MMR were diagnosed with a PPD subsequently.

I don't think this is quite right.

This is a retrospective case-control study. In this type of study, you start with the disease and look backwards. First, you pick out kids who have already been diagnosed with the condition and match them with control kids who don't have the condition. Next, you look back in everybody's medical records for whatever risk ractor you're trying to study (in this case, MMR vaccine). Finally, you see whether the kids with the condition were more likely to have been exposed to the risk factor than kids without the condition.

Here's my interpretation:

1,294 cases of autism/PDD age-matched with 4,469 controls

1010 of the 1294 with autism/PDD (78%) were vaccinated with MMR.

3671 of the 5763 without autism/PDD (82%) were vaccinated with MMR.

So kids with autism were not more likely to have gotten MMR than those without.

But you can't take retrospective data and use it prospectively. In other words, it's not valid to say that 1010 out of 5763 kids who got MMR went on to develop autism -- since it was the authors of the study who decided how many of each group to include. In order to do that, you need a study that looks forward: you'd a group of healthy kids, give half the MMR and half a placebo, then compare rates of autism.

[MissRubyandKen]

CallMeIshmeal-
I think you've misunderstood my post. I wasn't trying to look at it that way. To be honest it never crossed my mind and doesn't even really make sense in perspective with the study. Sorry for any confusion.

I should have reiterated the words included again I suppose, when summarizing. I meant it to read simply as this- So 1,010 children out of the 5,763 included children vaccinated with MMR were diagnosed with a PPD subsequently. No more, no less. Please take it in context.

As for the % vaccinated I did not see this, I will go back and reread. I was admittedly distracted at the time, thus my disclaimer I might be wrong. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll try to reread at some point today and repost to clarify once I see for myself the information is wrong.

[MissRubyandKen]

1010 cases (78·1%) had MMR vaccination recorded before
diagnosis, compared with 3671 controls (82·1%) before the age at which their matched case was diagnosed.

Look at table 2. Maybe I am interpreting this incorrectly, but aren't there absolutely no numbers under the No MMR vaccination categories? This is what led me to say all were vaccinated.

There's also one point where they explain away a finding, but I need to reread it before I decide whether or not it's relevant.

[Scattershoot]

Originally Posted by CallMeIshmael

Here's my interpretation:

1,294 cases of autism/PDD age-matched with 4,469 controls

1010 of the 1294 with autism/PDD (78%) were vaccinated with MMR.

3671 of the 5763 without autism/PDD (82%) were vaccinated with MMR.

So kids with autism were not more likely to have gotten MMR than those without.

But you can't take retrospective data and use it prospectively. In other words, it's not valid to say that 1010 out of 5763 kids who got MMR went on to develop autism -- since it was the authors of the study who decided how many of each group to include. In order to do that, you need a study that looks forward: you'd a group of healthy kids, give half the MMR and half a placebo, then compare rates of autism.

This study is just as bad as all the others. First and foremost, as Wakefield points out, it doesn't even look at what is referred to as regressive autism in relation to MMR. The study authors go way out of their way to make it sound like they are proving Wakefield wrong and don't even look at what Wakefield claims.

What about within-individual research. Like CallmeIshmael points out, you have to look at unvaxed children to prove if the variable in question causes the outcome. You can't do all this blah, blah, blah, blah, non-sensical "research" and prove anything.

What about the fact that there is a database with all this personal information that can obviously be accessed whenever. As if a mental health diagnosis cannot come back to haunt someone later in life.

I did a study of 1000 people, 800 of whom drank alcohol, and 200 became alcoholics. I compared it to 5000 people, 4000 of whom drank alcohol, and none became alcoholics. Obviously alcohol doesn't cause alcoholism. Look at all those seemingly non-alcoholic people who have had quite a few beers. They are not all falling over drunks. I age adjusted, looked at confounding variables and everything. Some people/conspiracy theorists argued that I should have included people who have never drank any alcohol to see how many were alcoholics but people have to have alcohol to survive, so doing so would have endangered their lives.

I forgot to add. Next time I do this research I will include a placebo for all those naysayers. It will have a shot of whiskey in it and be given hourly for weeks. This way if the "control/placebo" group develops alcoholism I can make sure to point out that alcohol doesn't prove any correlation.

[cloak]

Reading this study hurts my brain.

This study used kids born 1973 and later but the MMR wasn't introduced until 1988. So 316 cases and 1021 controls wouldn't have even gotten the MMR before they turned 2. This doesn't mirror the current US schedule at all. Weird to even include those.

[Deborah]

Cloak, this is a U.K. study, so the U.S. dates don't really play into the question.

[Deborah]

I'm pretty disappointed that no one is defending this study. There must be something good about it. It got peer-reviewed and published and widely praised.

If the local defenders aren't available, I guess we could find some news releases following the original publication of the study.

[Deborah]

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/329/7467/642

Here is a pretty good defense of the study. To read the full-text you have to register with the BMJ, sorry!

Results showed that 78% (1010/1294) of cases, who were diagnosed with pervasive development disorder, had been given the MMR vaccine, but a higher proportion (3671; 82%) of controls, without such a disorder, had been given the vaccine.

The odds ratio for association between having the MMR vaccine and having a pervasive development disorder was 0.86 (95% confidence interval 0.68 to 1.09), indicating no relationship. Findings were similar when restricted to children diagnosed with autism, to children vaccinated before their 3rd birthday, or to the period before media coverage in 1998 of the hypothesis linking the MMR vaccine with autism.

[cloak]

Originally Posted by Deborah

Cloak, this is a U.K. study, so the U.S. dates don't really play into the question.

Maybe what I wrote is confusing. I know it's a UK study. UK didn't get the MMR until 1988. That's not a US date. Let me try to clarify what I meant.

When you're trying to say the MMR doesn't cause autism, why are you lumping in kids that didn't even get the MMR, except maybe as a booster, with kids that actually got the MMR when they were young? The story from all these parents is all these vaccines as babies, MMR at 12-18 months, boom, autism. If something about getting the MMR when you're 12-18 months is what causes autism then some kid getting it as a booster when their older doesn't really tell us much of anything. So that's why I brought up the US schedule.

Hopefully you understand what I'm saying and it's clearer now. I wasn't kidding when I said that study hurt my brain.

[Scattershoot]

From the study:

Furthermore, whether the presence of the fragments
was specific to this subgroup of children, or whether
they were due to intestinal disease rather than a cause
of it, is unknown.

As much as these studies annoy me, there is the occasional good point brought up within the morass of gobbledygook. I think this quote from the study is a good point in referring to Wakefield's hypothesis. Dr. Moulden believes the fragments are a result and not a cause.

[Marnica]

deleted post

[Deborah]

Thanks for clearing that up, Cloak. I figured if I was confused, other people might be confused, too.