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Autism Vaccine Controversy
Reviewed By:
Louise Chang,
SOURCES: 2009 Medical Reference from Medstar Television. Paul Offit, MD, Infectious Disease Expert, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Gerry Schellenberg, PhD, Molecular Geneticist, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia.
© 1999-2011 Medstar Television
Narrator:
Pediatrician Paul Offit (OFF-it) says blaming vaccines for autism only puts children in more danger.
Paul Offit, M.D.:
Because not vaccinating them, not, doesn't lessen the risk of autism, it only increases the risk of vaccine preventable disease and it's enough. It's got to stop.
Narrator:
In his new book, Autism's False Prophets, he looks at the exploitation of the disease and how it's misled families looking desperately for a cure.
Paul Offit, M.D.:
I think there's a lot of profiteering and a lot of quackery frankly that surrounds this and these to me are the false profits of autism.
Narrator:
He's already getting feedback from what he calls the silent majority – parents who are getting off the vaccine bandwagon.
Paul Offit, M.D.:
These are parents with children with autism who are angry at all the diversion that's come with vaccines that would much rather us focus on the good science
that surrounds autism instead of this, this dead-end fruitless hypothesis.
Narrator:
Tina Brown agrees. She has two sons on the autism spectrum. Her son, Dalton, was diagnosed at 15 months.
When little brother Dylan came along, the Browns thought they could protect him from the disease by not having him vaccied. But, at four months, the signs were there.
Tina Brown:
We still have no answers and instead of just focusing on the immunizations we need to look into other things - environmental, genetics, DNA profiles.
Paul Offit, M.D.:
There's a lot of very good science out there and you virtually never hear about it because I think those who oppose vaccines have taken the autism story hostage.
Narrator:
One breakthrough study you may not have heard about suggests a strong genetic component. Researchers from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and
the University of Pennsylvania found that a mutation in a gene involved in brain cell communication increases the risk for autism.
Gerry Schellenberg, Ph.D.:
We hope it's the start of finding a lot more genes and getting a better description of what causes autism.
The genes give you proteins and we gotta' know those proteins to really understand the disease.
Narrator:
Understanding autism can lead to treatments. And that's encouraging to families like the Browns who want to leave vaccine theories behind and move forward.
For WebMD, I'm Sandee LaMotte.
