Doctors Believe Vaccine-Autism Questions Should Be Investigated

Written by Amy Denney on September 5, 2023. Posted in Current News

Experts weigh in on the possible link between vaccines and autism, and why it’s become public health’s 3rd rail

Might there be 25 children living with autism spectrum disorder who developed it after receiving childhood vaccinations? Or could it be 25,000?

The fact remains that there are some.

A review in Pace Environmental Law Review more than a decade ago found 62 cases in which Health and Human Services (HHS) compensated children with autism for injuries described as vaccine-induced brain damage.

The question of precise risk is one many parents wrestle with, but data fall far short of offering sound insight. What is concerning to some doctors is that there is still so little investigation into the issue and that the subject perpetually unleashes emotionally divisive opposition that does nothing to further science.

A recent meta-analysis affirming the link between autism and the gut microbiome brings to mind the explosive reaction another time the association was made.

Nearly 20 years ago, a case report study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield in The Lancet highlighted inflammatory bowel symptoms associated with autism and the fact that eight of the 12 children had recent MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccinations.

It wasn’t a study examining vaccinations, but it spurred media headlines speculating that Dr. Wakefield was making a claim that led eventually to an investigation, the study’s retraction, the destruction of his reputation and career, and the start of what’s now dubbed the vaccine-autism myth.

The meta-analysis published June 26 in Nature Neuroscience doesn’t mention vaccines. By applying new analytics to 25 previous studies, it’s made the strongest link between autism and the gut.

The U.S. CDC’s website has a page about autism and vaccines that declares, “Vaccines don’t cause autism.”

But the unanswered question that Dr. Wakefield’s observational study posited still lingers: Could vaccines cause gastrointestinal (GI) issues that are unique to autism? The issue is no less controversial today.

Vaccines Should ‘Sit in the Background’

GI issues are connected to the gut microbiome, which is all the bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live mostly in the colon. They break down food into metabolites that are vital for the body’s digestive and neurological functions, among other roles.

The microbiome-autism link has never been stronger, especially with 43 researchers contributing to the new data analysis.

But Jamie Morton, one of the Nature study’s corresponding authors, emphatically states that there’s no vaccine link—even though he said there are no data available on how vaccination may alter the microbiome for good or bad.

“I don’t even know if there is microbiome data for that to help with those kinds of insights,” he said.

There’s sufficient evidence already, he added, that vaccines aren’t contributing to the rising rates of autism. New rates from the CDC show that 1 in 36 children are diagnosed with autism.

“There’s enough studies on this that it needs to sit in the background for now,” Mr. Morton said, pointing to a 2014 meta-analysis in Vaccines that examined the issue, as well as to the CDC’s website of recommended reading.

“Given how much study there has been with vaccines, I’m a little speculative on the penetrance of vaccines. I’m not convinced there’s a large detrimental effect of that.”

The only way to resolve the causality issue, he said, is a comprehensive look at all the factors that affect the microbiome throughout pregnancy and childhood.

Mr. Morton pointed to the National Institutes of Health program called environmental influences on childhood health outcomes (ECHO) as one resource that is looking at childhood vaccinations, among other factors.

ECHO is following 50,000 children from before birth to look at how environmental exposures such as to chemicals could be affecting health, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

ECHO communications director Rebekah Yeager didn’t acknowledge whether childhood vaccinations were ever considered for the study, but they aren’t getting consideration.

“Investigators collect limited information on childhood vaccines, such as asking caregivers whether there have been delays in getting childhood immunizations and the reasons for the delay,” she told The Epoch Times.

The ECHO cohort doesn’t have microbiome data, but it is collecting specimens that Ms. Yeager said can be used for microbiome analysis in the future. The only trial related to vaccines connected with ECHO is examining whether a mobile health app is influencing parental decisions to vaccinate children against COVID-19.

Wakefield Study Chilling Effect

All research begins with observations of something new or interesting that could merit more study, which was what Wakefield explained about his study, as he noted vaccination concerns among the emerging issue of GI complaints from his patients with autism.

It’s a similar style—albeit a much smaller cohort—to that of the ECHO project, which examines lab reports alongside information collected from parents.

But the controversial global reaction to the Wakefield study created a cooling effect on sincere investigations into possible links, not just between vaccines and autism but even gut health and autism, Dr. Arthur Krigsman told The Epoch Times.

He’s board-certified in pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition and treats children with ASD all over the world.

“Good GI researchers became afraid to look carefully at GI disease in autism because in that initial 1998 paper published in The Lancet, parents expressed concern about a particular vaccine, the MMR vaccine … which forever linked autism, GI disease, and MMR,” he said. “These three items really should not be linked and certainly not because of a case study of 12 patients.

“If a kid has GI disease, that should be looked at for its own sake, regardless of what caused it.”

Dr. Krigsman said the stigma and fear of the “anti-vaccine” label changed the way researchers and clinicians have approached ASD, and in particular the investigation of GI disease in patients with autism.

The effect, Dr. Krigsman said, has meant vaccine safety in general hasn’t gotten enough attention, to the detriment of children and their families who don’t know the true risk of vaccine injuries.

Putting Vaccines in Perspective

Those who are demanding more research are also among the first to say it’s highly unlikely that vaccines are the sole cause of autism. Many believe that vaccines may work in conjunction with other factors to trigger the onset of symptoms in regressive autism.

“I don’t think that it’s the issue. But I do think it can trigger an immune mediated regression when the wrong kid gets a vaccination at the wrong time,” Dr. Armen Nikogosian, a functional physician who specializes in autism, told The Epoch Times.

“Part of what the data shows is that some people can be susceptible to the effects of vaccinations when other people aren’t. Nobody is willing to have the conversation that they can sometimes hurt people.

“I don’t know why we think it’s one-size-fits-all with the shots. It’s not one-size-fits-all with pharmaceuticals. It is well established that some kids simply can’t take some medications—so we don’t give them or find alternatives.  Vaccines should follow the same principle.”

The only way to end the debate is a study that compares unvaccinated children with vaccinated children to see whether childhood shots are associated with the disorder. However, Dr. Krigsman added that such a study “is unlikely to be funded, and upper tier journals will be reluctant to publish it” because of the controversy around the issue.

“I don’t know what the solution is, but clearly vaccination is at least one of the triggers for autism” as evidenced by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims’  having compensated a number of parents for vaccine related injuries, including autism, he said.

“It could be a few or it could be most of the autistic kids. We won’t know without a vaccinated versus unvaccinated study.”

Complex Immune System Interplay

Inflammation is a normal, healthy response in the human body that helps fight infection and build a resilient immune system. Microbiota modulate immunity, and as a 2017 Frontiers in Microbiology article pointed out, “correlations between gut bacteria composition and the severity of inflammation were first described for inflammatory bowel diseases and later extended to other pathologies.”

Genetics, environmental factors, and diet can strongly influence microbial makeup, according to the article, in turn altering gut permeability, allowing pathogens to cross the gut barrier and trigger infection or chronic inflammation.

These immune system complexities are what can result in vaccine adverse reactions, microbiologist Kiran Krishna told The Epoch Times.

A study published in 2019 in Cell found that antibiotics can stifle the effectiveness of the flu vaccine because they kill microbes beneficial to the immune response. The study highlights that “microbiome loss impairs antibody response in subjects with low pre-existing immunity” and “antibiotics treatment leads to enhanced inflammatory signatures in the blood.”

Antibiotics are used in some vaccines to keep them safe from pathogens, as explained by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Antibiotics used during vaccine manufacture include neomycin, polymyxin B, streptomycin, and gentamicin.

“Any sort of compromise to the gut microbiome reduces the functionality of the immune system,” Mr. Krishna said. “If your gut microbiome is compromised and you take something like a vaccine that is dependent on proper function of the immune system, that could have an adverse effect.”

A ‘Lightning Rod’ Issue

Mr. Krishna said the claim that vaccines cause autism is a lightning rod for controversy.

“There’s always a certain number of people who get hurt from vaccines or don’t respond properly,” Mr. Krishna said. “That certain parts of the industry want to bury that makes it a bigger lightning rod. That gets people fired up and makes [pharmaceutical companies] want to combat it, rather than illuminating there’s a certain percentage of people who get hurt by this.

“What are the conditions that cause people to get hurt by this? Let’s investigate it rather than ignoring it and saying it doesn’t happen and so on.”

That’s why it’s important for physicians and researchers to hear what parents are saying on the issue, Dr. Krigsman said, because when they don’t feel heard by the medical establishment, it can be detrimental to healing and to the advancement of medicine.

“You listen to the patient’s parents and what they have to say. You believe them,” he said.

“Parents are saying something. They made observations, and they’re very intuitive parents. It should be looked at, as should other things, and it’s not. Parents deserve to know the risk so they can weigh it.”

Adults are able to monitor their own risks by assessing overall systemic inflammation.

For instance, Mr. Krishna said he monitors his body temperature and any symptoms that might indicate he’s fighting off an infection for three to four days before getting vaccines to make sure his body isn’t overtaxed.

If he’s sick, he said the shots aren’t worth the risk.

See more here theepochtimes

Header image: Speech Occupational Therapy of North Texas

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