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Bazelon: “One of the reasons people cite for opting out is the fear of autism. Is there any evidence that is a legitimate concern?”
Spiesel: There are actually two concerns. One is thimerosal, and the other is measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The MMR vaccine concerns were based on what turned out to be very bad research. And there’s a lot of evidence that neither the MMR vaccine, nor thimerosal, nor the number of vaccines a children receives at one time has any role to play in autism. In fact there are some good immunological reasons that most people don’t know about that bunching some vaccines together increases the response.”
You can watch the entire video here.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Ms. Clark // Apr 17, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Thank you for posting this. I love this interview. It’s how the media ought to be handling the “controversy”. There’s no controversy, but maybe saying there’s no controversy is controversial enough to get the media to report it that way? Since they usually love “controversy”.
2 Matt // Apr 17, 2008 at 5:47 pm
There were a couple of details wrong–nothing major, but it will be interesting to see if people focus on those details and ignore the facts.
All in all, a good presentation. Not a lot of actual science or references to studies, but just a clear message.
He sounds sorta like the opposite of “Home First” though–asking people to leave who don’t vaccinate.
Matt
3 isles // Apr 17, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Dr. Spiesel was terrific. People need to hear this in a way that’s clear and authoritative, which he delivers. Wish it would have been on every channel’s five-o-clock news!
4 Debbie Bennett, SLP // May 23, 2014 at 6:36 pm
There’s more mercury in half a can of tuna than in 100 of the old thimerosl MMR vaccine shots.
5 Chris // May 24, 2014 at 5:02 pm
Especially since the MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal!
6 Chris // May 24, 2014 at 5:07 pm
Sorry for being too flippant. You are right, the amount of thimerosal that were other vaccines like DTaP were very small.
By the way, SLPs are some of my favorite people. One of the primary reasons my son who was completely nonverbal at age three does now speak.
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