(Posted on 6-2-07 by Patrick Sullivan Jr., bumped on 6-29)
JB and the GenerationRescue crew are ready to throw another log on the fire.
"We surveyed over 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys had a 155% greater chance of having a neurological disorder like ADHD or autism than unvaccinated boys." -Generation Rescue, June 26, 2007
Some local news coverage (transcript, video).
Btw, this line from that coverage is mundane when you read it, but it's dripping with sarcasm and arrogance when you hear the soundbite:
But Dr. Mark Sawyer, a professor of pediatrics, says a similar study was done by scientists in Denmark and it found no link between autism and vaccines.
You mean this study? (Starting at the 11th paragraph.) Yeah, no reasonable person could learn that and have any complaints about the Denmark study.
UPDATE: In my inbox from Clifford Miller, a (non-vaccine) lawyer in the UK, who regular readers may remember from the post On Evidence...
To clarify how serious the implications of the new information from the Generation Rescue study California-Oregon Unvaccinated Survey - Generation Rescue - June 26, 2007 is, this study shows we are killing and injuring vastly more with vaccines than without.
The implications with figures are spelt out below. The Generation Rescue study also showed more than twice as many vaccinated children have asthma. This is in addition to the relative risk for autism being more than double.
If you raise this with your political representatives, you should point out this is not like a voter's exit poll telling us there is a 3% "swing" from one party to another. If we had results like this in an election the party in government would be facing extinction. These figures show relative risks higher than 2 - that is greater than a 100% "swing".
By way of comparison I attach logarithmically plotted graphs of measles mortality in the UK and in the USA showing today without vaccine UK measles mortality would be less than 1 in 55 million and the position is similar in the USA. Graph 1 (pdf), Graph 2 (pdf) And here are the Asthma Death And Injury Figures (Word doc)
When I first entered this "is autism caused by mercury" debate over two years ago, I would not have considered myself to be an anti-vaxer. In fact, I regularly recommended the article, A User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule to my friends. But it's things like these scare prospective parents such as myself. I'm no genius, but I'm informed enough not to sheepishly comply with any and all vaccinations for my future kids.
UPDATE 2: Another update from Cliff...and this is a good one!
Generation Rescue's very impressive advertisment "Are We Over Vaccinating Our Kids" appeared in the US politician's newspaper "Roll Call" in Washington DC.
Generation Rescue has mounted a high profile campaign in the US.
Roll Call newspaper is considered the leading publication for Congressional news and information. Published Monday through Thursday while Congress is in session, Roll Call sets out to provide US national politicians with up-to-the-minute news of the legislative and political manoeuvres that happen every day on Capitol Hill.
Honestly, you have to take 45 seconds and read the ad.