Pen & Teller's Bull: Vaccinations show

[MommyHawk]

Anyone see this on Showtime?

They did a show on vaccinations, saying they save lives and don't cause autism.

Of course, they had scientists and authors for the side that they wanted to prove and no scientists for the vaccination side, and of course, they Pen & Teller are just comedians entertaining. BUT... they basically said that although the rate of autism is rising, it's only because we've widened the spectrum of symptoms, thus widening the number of kids diagnosed.

I know not to believe anything on TV, but I just wanted to see if anyone else saw this and what they thought about what was said. Thanks!

[Narmowen]

I agree with them, & their theory that autism is rising because of the widening of the spectrum.

My SO & I have discussed that before-before we saw the episode.

[Adaline'sMama]

I want to see this episode! I am really interested..aside from the autism issue, did they have agree with anything that non vaxers said?

[Marnica]

I didn't watch it because I knew it would make me mad.

Widening of the diagnostic criteria....yeah ok that's it.

I don't buy it.

Childhood Disintegrative Disorder was in the DSM-II in 1968. PDD was in the DSM-III in 1980. PDD-NOS was added in the DSM-III-R in 1987. The only addition has been the specification of Aspergers in 1994, which was previously recognized in earlier DSM's from 1980 on as either Childhood Onset Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Atypical Developmental Disorder or as PDD- NOS. In fact the diagnostic criteria for autism underwent a corrective narrowing in 1994, adjusting for false-positives noted in DSM-III-R and converging with the ICD-10 which ended up making an autism diagnosis more exclusive and only served to clearly define the non-autism spectrum disorders.
JMHO

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8906453

[Magali]

I started a thread about this in the TV forum. Anyways, my thoughts on the episode were pretty low. I really like Penn and Teller, but IMO, they presented a weak pro vax argument. The show went as I thought it would...monkey brain is good to inject into your body as long as it has a purpose, don't base your choice on Jenny McCarthy (agreed), non-vaxers are wackos, trust your Dr. completely, yada yada yada. They basically only dealt with autism/ingredients. Personally, my choice to not vax goes well beyond those two issues. They presented the "no-vax" movement as a bunch of misinformed parents who are worried about autism, when there so many more considerations. Just an all around lame episode.

[Jadzia]

Originally Posted by MommyHawk

BUT... they basically said that although the rate of autism is rising, it's only because we've widened the spectrum of symptoms, thus widening the number of kids diagnosed.

So they basically ignored the recent UC Davis study which found otherwise? How "pro-science" of them.

[daisymommy]

50 years ago, 1 in every 100 children did not have "something wrong with them" mentally. No matter what you want to to call it, even if it *was* called something else back then, and we hypothetically are widening the scope to include more children under the umbrella of autism (I don't believe this, but I'll play devils advocate here)--there simply, no way, no how, were 1 in 100 children with these symptoms.

I have friends who are 75 years old who are doctors, know teachers who have been teaching elementary school for 35 years, and they all say, something has seriously gone wrong lately with our children. It used to be one child in a blue moon who had special needs mentally, but now, there are whole classes for them, the doctors see these kids on a daily basis, the numbers are out of control!

So *something* is causing it. Even if you disagree that vaccines are the cause, it's not like 1 in 100 kids have had this problem for the last 100 years. Something has gone very wrong in our world.

I also have a very hard time accepting people telling me that there is no connection when I saw it happen to my brother with my very own eyes. One day he's perfectly fine, next day he gets his kindergarten shots, he gets a high fever, and stops talking, eyes glaze over, and by the next day he is what we would now call "on the spectrum". Like somebody flipped a light switch. It wasn't a gradual change. He was never the same again. Can anyone tell me that was a pure coincidence? I think not.

[mamadelbosque]

daisymommy I agree, 100%. Heck even when I was a kid back in the 80s/90s I didn't know *ANYONE* who was autistic or 'on the spectrum'. In my entire elementary school I can think of one kid who was 'different' - an she was missing part of her arm!! (ok, actually, I remember a couple other kids who lost arms/legs in tractor accidents over the years, but none w/ *mental* issues!!). SOMETHING is weird. SOMETHING is going on. Just cause' we don't know wtf it is doesn't mean its not happening. I'm not 100% convinced its vaccines (though we dont' vax ), but it could be. It could also be all the frigging plastic, or chemicals or preservatives or pesticides or herbicides in our food/water. Or it could be all the new radio/tv/etc waves in the air around us that didn't use to be there. Or about a million other things. but *SOMETHING* is definetly going on.

[yara1]

I was watching about 10 minutes of it and than I could not watch any longer, because of my deep disappointment with Penn and Teller.
They were portraying people who chose not to vax as ... stupid ...
They were expressing tremendous amounts of some unreasonable anger. That's how it looked like...
Also they were talking very negative about Dr. Andrew Walkefield... and(as its known) his story is not very simple - that he just "being discredited".

As much as I was happy with Penn and Tellers' "Bullshit Circumcision" - now I am disappointed...

[HikeMama]

I've seen it. Seems to me that Penn & Teller pick a side and tell it in a funny, in-your-face kind of way. I don't think they do tons of research, but then again, maybe they do. You can do tons of research and come up on either side of the coin with this issue. And you can find ignorant people on either side of this issue too. Some of their episodes I love, and some of them I hate. They have to sound angry because they have to say that the other side is BS. I think it's because they have to be so vehemently for or against whichever side that makes it so hate-able. It's likely just all part of the show. I wouldn't bother being angry about it, though; I doubt it will sway anyone's opinion one way or the other about whether or not to vaccinate, and if it does, they obviously didn't feel very strongly or do enough of their own research.

Oh, and on a personal note- we vaccinate on an alternative schedule. My non-scientist hypothesis on autism rates is that it's got to be environmental. I don't think it's all about widening the spectrum. I think they picked that as an easy out, but if they were asked real questions, they couldn't really back it up. It's ACTUALLY on the rise, not just the label.

[MommyHawk]

I felt like they were comedians for the smoking industry telling us that smoking is good for you. Now I find I watch their show with less enthusiasm since I see they don;t really research it, only make something stick out and funny for an hour. Of course, every little thing I see makes me wonder if I made the right decision to not vax, so I feel I have to go back and do the research for myself again.

[ema-adama]

Congress hearing on environmental triggers for neurodevelopmental disorders, inclusing Autism.

If that link doesn't work, you can also find it here. You can ignore the blogger (or not), I just found this video clip on her blog. It seems that some scientists are no longer denying a real increase or denying the interplay between genes and environment. It's a long video to watch, but facinating if you are interested in Autism.

Just putting it out there with regards to claims made that there is no real change other than diagnostic criteria. Take it or leave it

ETA: the first link did not work, you need to go to the blog. Sorry

[Jadzia]

It seems that some scientists are no longer denying a real increase or denying the interplay between genes and environment.

Here is information about the UC Davis study I referenced earlier:

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome...ent/index.html

A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has found that the seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted — and the trend shows no sign of abating.

This study is from January 2009 and reflects the latest research on autism prevalence. If anyone is arguing the old talking point that autism is not increasing, they are not keeping up with the latest findings.

[morepuppies]

They did interview not shown

Glad that both the UC Davis study and the Senate hearings were brought up.

The argument that there is no real increase in autism and that it is genetic is dead, but because vaccines have done so much good, those who held them in such high esteem have refused to face the facts that the law of diminishing returns has set in and the 70 (yes it is now seventy) doses of vaccine recommended for children has gone way overboard and is causing widespread health problems.

The show interviewed reputable autism parents who believe vaccines are involved, but they only aired the ones that they could make fun of. They interviewed Rebeca Estep of TACA and SafeMinds a few months ago. The producers were all blown away by what she said, and one, who was recovering from cancer, said everything made perfect sense to him, and that she was very credible. She later found out she had been dropped from the final piece. I think it was because she WAS credible.

I think that the show (from what I could stomach of it) was SO over the top, that anyone really looking for hard information and confirmation of the official line that vaccines are safe and don't cause autism, will leave there realizing that they don't really have good info to back up their arguments, so all they can do it make fun of it.

Because in the end, the statement "vaccines do not cause autism" is not even remotely scientifically supportable.

There are 16 vaccines on the childhood schedule, and they have tested only one. The MMR. And the results are conflicting. There has been ONE study of the Heb B vaccine (just the first dose given at birth) and it shows that having that one shot right after birth triples a child's chance of having autism.

Hepatitis B Vaccination of Male Neonates and Autism

Annals of Epidemiology , Vol. 19, No. 9 ABSTRACTS (ACE), September 2009: 651-680, p. 659

And no other vaccines have ever been looked at to see if they have any relationship to autism.

And of course there is no testing at all of what the whole schedule does together. The FDA, in 1980, asked CDC to compare vaccinated kids to unvaccinated kids to see if the vaccine schedule was related into increases in autoimmune and neurological disorder. That was thirty years ago and they are still refusing to do it.

I have a vaccine injured child, and I really hope that parents are paying attention to the fact that the smoke and mirrors charade that is being performed to get them to keep taking the overload of shots pushed by CDC is just that... smoke and mirrors.

We got like 15 doses of vaccine when we were kids in the 1970s. So now children will all die if they don't get all 70 doses?

[MountainMamaGC]

I think they do shows and articles like this to turn the sheep into shepherds. Its certainly not to convince people like us to go vaccinate our kids. Its to convince mainstream people that we then non/selective vaxers are dangerous and/or rediculous.

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by Jadzia

Here is information about the UC Davis study I referenced earlier:

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome...ent/index.html



This study is from January 2009 and reflects the latest research on autism prevalence. If anyone is arguing the old talking point that autism is not increasing, they are not keeping up with the latest findings.

I remember reading that when it first came out, and I remember my impression being that people who use the mantra that the increase is due to diagnostic criteria, were not taking it seriously. It's one study done in a sea of studies that have supposedly found that Autistic children have always been around, we just called it something else or didn't call it anything. I know that the noisiest, more prominent voices on the net are certainly not talking about it, and continue to push their mantra.

I agree that this phenomena of popularising 'there is no epidemic' has nothing to do with changing the minds of parents who don't vaccinate. And a lot more to do with giving parents who do vaccinate tools to pressurise parents who do not vaccinate into going ahead and following the CDC schedule, or where I live, the national schedule, which is very close to the CDC schedule.

It was refreshing to see real life can be a little more sane than internet hullabaloos.

[seaheroine]

Originally Posted by Jadzia

So they basically ignored the recent UC Davis study which found otherwise? How "pro-science" of them.

yeah that

[rabrog]

And let's go beyond not only MMR but thimerisol. Okay, let's say it's not thimerisol (hey, may not be! No one's convincing me mercury is okay to inject into my child, though.) Then let's study formaldahyde, aluminum and all the other junk that's in the vaccines.

The problem is that until we (non-vaxing parents) yell loud enough about something, they won't look at anything else.

Jenn

[skyblufig]

Dh and I took that show at face value; it's Penn & Teller for cryin out loud. I did take issue with the way they mis-represented Jay Gordon. They edited pretty much everything he said so that he was easily lumped into P & T's non-vaxing "side", when in truth -- and I'm sure he mentioned this but it was edited out -- he's NOT anti-vax, he is pro-parental choice and very pro-spread-them-out-and-start-later. As is Jenny McCarthy, who iirc, P & T kept referring to as "former Playmate Jenny McCarthy". We don't vax at all, but we've always been fans of Dr Gordon. He's always tried to quietly debate the subject, but always defers to parents doing as they see fit for their own kids. Offit, however, not so much.

[Baby_Vol]

I haven't seen the show, but did they really say "don't base your opinion on Jenny McCarthy" ....but then expect people to base an opinion on their own show? That's so hypocritical that it's funny.

Hubby watches this show ...hope he misses this one b/c it will just make him mad, I'm afraid.