Institute Of Medicine says not enough evidence to reject vaccine-autism link

[link to www.examiner.com]

Louise Kuo Habakus, co-editor of The Vaccine Epidemic has summarized the the eighth and final report of the Immunization Safety Review Committee that examines the hypothesis that vaccines, specifically the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines, are causally associated with autism. She notes that there are over a decade of Institute Of Medicine reports on vaccine safety that you can read with free PDF downloads. She writes:

You will be struck by how little is known. And yet the schedule of recommended and mandated vaccines continues to expand.

1991: [T]he committee encountered many gaps and limitations in knowledge... insufficient or inconsistent information... limited capacity of existing surveillance systems... if research capacity not improved, future reviews of vaccine safety will be similarly handicapped.

1994: Committee members were struck by lack of evidence... insufficient or inadequate to make a determination of causality... studies of vaccines are generally not randomized controlled trials... lack of unvaccinated controls...

1997: A number of factors make it difficult to detect adverse events... difficult to establish causality... need for large sample sizes and lack of large computerized immunization databases... More research could be done...

2001: Little is known about ethylmercury (the active component in thimerosal) compared to methylmercury. There are no data that elucidate... weak evidence... additional research would be needed.. no published epidemiological studies examining the potential association... weak and inconclusive evidence... inadequate evidence to accept or reject a causal relationship...


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