First of all, I’ve clearly struck a nerve with at least one person in the medical profession because I’m “ignorant” and don’t have all the “medical facts.” I don’t think what I said is all that different from what Hannah Poling’s father had to say to WebMD, but perhaps he will be more respected since he’s a neurologist:
The experience with Hannah, [Jon] Poling [MD, PhD] says, has not turned him against vaccines. “I want to make it clear I am not anti-vaccine,” he says. “Vaccines are one of the most important, if not the most important advance, in medicine in at least the past 100 years. But I don’t think that vaccines should enjoy a sacred cow status, where if you attack them you are out of mainline medicine.”
“Every treatment has a risk and a benefit. To say there are no risks to any treatment is not true.”
“Sometimes people are injured by a vaccine, but they are safe for the majority of people. I could say that with a clean conscience. But I couldn’t say that vaccines are absolutely safe, that they are not linked to brain injury and they are not linked to autism.”
Poling is hopeful that the decision will trigger government action. “I hope it will force government agencies to look further into what susceptibility factors are out there for children to develop brain injury after vaccination, to look into the susceptibility factors of people at risk.”
Hannah Poling is the autistic girl who was at the center of the case I reported in this post. What her father said, as quoted by WebMD, is all I was trying to say in my previous post. He just said it more eloquently, and hopefully in way that those in the medical profession will find acceptable.
Secondly, here’s coverage of the story from CBS News — note the end of the story where they say their investigation has turned up nine more cases like Hannah’s going all the way back to 1990:
Wow … 9 cases since 1990. How many millions of doses of vaccine have been given in the last 18 years???
One case – or even 9 cases – does not prove a theory, C.J. How do we know it was the vaccines that triggered Hannah Poling’s symptoms? That’s certainly one possibility, but perhaps she acquired a viral infection in the waiting room that day, and that’s what triggered her high fevers and change in mental status. There are many alternative explanations. Coincidence does not prove causation.
A case report is the lowest form of evidence in the scientific literature – and this is the equivalent of a case report. Case reports are fuel for further investigation … nothing more. They prove absolutely nothing.
At least five major studies have been undertaken to look for a link between autism and vaccination … and all results to date have been negative. For you to make accusations that the medical community is “pretending” there is no link and “stonewalling the public” based on this case alone is inappropriate.