My Family's Experience with Autism: The thimerosal debate

Saturday, July 4, 2009

The thimerosal debate

Well, I've been on my personal life for a while now....time for me to get back to discussing decisions that I've made and why. I've already talked about vaccines in general. Now it's time to talk about the preservative "thimerosal".

In 1999, after studies had begun to determine that the MMR vaccine was not causing autism in children, people began to look for other ways that the vaccines could be contributing to the apparent rise in autism. Following a federal mandate, it was learned that many vaccines contained a mercury-containing antiseptic known as "thimerosal". At the time, it was believed by many that this may be the link between vaccines and autism that everyone had been looking for.

Consequently, in 2002, thimerosal had been removed from all vaccines administered to young infants in the United States.

By June 2005, five epidemiological studies had been published (in peer reviewed journals) indicating that thimerosal does not cause autism, as had been believed. Additionally, in January 2008, 6 years after thimerosal had been removed from vaccines, health officials from California revealed that the number of children between 3 and 5 years of age diagnosed with autism had increased. This, in conjunction with the epidemiological studies, shows that thimerosal is NOT to blame for autism.

So, once again, vaccine theories have been shut down by both scientific and empirical results.

I will never tell another parent how they should raise their children or what decisions are "right". Immunizing your child will protect them from horrible diseases that can have terrible consequences. I know there are many parents out there who have or will choose to not vaccinate their children. Please do not make this decision because of a fear of your child developing autism. No link between vaccines and autism has been found (despite numerous attempts).

All right, enough preaching for now.....

Reference (for both this post and for my vaccine post): Offit, Paul A.; Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure; 2008.

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A Little Bit About Me and My Family

Every once in a while, something happens to a family that seems to change everything, whether that change is positive, negative, or in an uncertain direction. One such thing happened to us in March 2009, when we were informed our 26 month old twins (girl/boy) were BOTH on the autism spectrum. Their older brother (nearly 4 at the time) had always been ahead of the curve for most developmental milestones, so we had never really considered that some of the delays the twins were having had anything to do with autism. Well, we were wrong. Since then we have been learning about learning techniques and doing everything we can to make sure they get any and all help they need so that they can live normal lives. This blog chronicles that journey.

The Autism Pizza

I don't know where this came from originally, but I found it on a post on Circle of Moms. It's a good explanation of how things line up on the spectrum.

1. The Crust: Lack of Social Interaction (poor eye contact, not sharing interests with you, no pointing/gesturing)

2. The Sauce: Impaired Communication (possibly no speech, poor conversation skills, repetitive language, echolalia, no make-believe play)

3. The Cheese: Stereotypical Activities & Interests (extreme routine, strong interest in certain things, stimming [flapping, atypical play, etc.] -- like spinning wheels, lining toys up, stacking, etc.)

If you have all of those things: crust, sauce, cheese, you made an Autism pizza. It might have different toppings, but you can look at it and know it's still a pizza. If your pizza doesn't have sauce, that's Aspergers's. If your pizza is missing more than that but still kind of looks like a pizza, that's PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified)