Blue Collar Scientist

There’s been quite a bit in the last few days on the science blogosphere condemning Clinton and Obama for ‘buying in’ to claims that vaccination causes autism. I thought it might be useful to go back to primary sources and see what was actually said.

Before we do that, a quick note about the issue (just skip all this and scroll down to the first quotation if you already know the history). The autism-vaccine “link” was dreamed up - or at least heavily promoted - by lawyers who want to make money at the expense of what they see as a rich pharmaceutical industry ripe for the taking¹. The plaintiff bar’s original focus was not on autism; it was on other sorts of vaccine injuries, some real, some make-believe.

Their litigation in the 1980’s essentially ended vaccine production in the United States; as a response to this critical threat to health, the government has had to take various steps to insure that vaccines are still made here, and are available to people who need them. One of those steps is the creation of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, put into place in 1988. It was originally a response to litigation over the pertussis vaccine, in which lawyers introduced evidence, leading to huge payouts, that was later found to be false. Under current law, the plaintiff’s bar goes after the VICP when they think that something might possibly have gone wrong with a vaccine. Although the program is paid for by a small surcharge on vaccines, the court is government-backed, and it hasn’t always remained within its budget; so in essence, every plaintiff’s award or frivolous suit through this court costs the taxpayer a bit of money. It is still, of course, better than not having any vaccines.

The vaccine-autism link doesn’t appear to have become popular until the late ’90’s, and originally the proponents of the link claimed that thimerosal, a vaccine preservative, was the cause of autism. Thimerosal was removed from vaccines given to children starting in 1999², and if this hypothesis were right, a reduction in autism should have been noted in the following years - but it hasn’t. Rather than admit that they don’t know anything about medicine, proponents of the thimerosal hypothesis have moved on to become full-blown anti-vaccination campaigners. Among the claims they’ve advanced is that vaccination is part of a vast government conspiracy to keep people in their place.

That is where we are today. Given the political muscle behind the vaccine conspiracy theorists, mainly in the form of the plaintiff’s bar - who currently have billions of dollars of autism-related claims against vaccine makers in the VICP court - and the predatory medical and quack-medical practitioners following a buck, the issue is now, apparently, one for the presidential campaign.

So here’s what the candidates actually said (with links back to sources):

Barak Obama:

We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.

Note that where Obama says “this person included,” he gestured to someone in the audience - he apparently doesn’t mean “myself included.” That doesn’t excuse the fact, of course, that the science is very conclusive that there is no autism-vaccine link.

John McCain:

It’s indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.

Strong evidence? John McCain basically accepts the conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker.

Hilary Clinton:

Do you think vaccines should be investigated as a possible cause of autism?

I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines. I have long been a supporter of increased research to determine the links between environmental factors and diseases, and I believe we should increase the NIH’s ability to engage in this type of research. My administration will be committed to improving research to support fact-based solutions, and I will ensure that the NIH has the staff and funding to fully explore all possible causes of autism.

What will you do to protect Americans, especially young children and pregnant women, from exposure to mercury through vaccines?

I will ensure that all vaccines are as safe as possible for our children by working to ensure that Thimerosal and mercury are removed from vaccines. I plan to fully invest in our research agencies so they can protect our children’s health, and so they can find the causes and cures for conditions such as autism.

There’s some more material there from Clinton, including something that I’d consider to be classical political weasel words.

Remember, folks, we live in the real world. Resources are limited. Every dollar we decide to spend researching this issue is a dollar we can’t spend some other, better way. What the candidates are talking about is the need to research an issue that has already been researched to death, with six or seven major - and expensive - studies already completed, and with thimerosal already removed from vaccines making a repetition of much of this effort pointless in the extreme.

1. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they deserve to be taken. But not over vaccines. [↩]
2. The only vaccines today that contain thimerosal are for influenza and tetanus, although if you get bitten by a snake, some antivenins contain thimerosal [↩]

Tags: autism, Barak Obama, Hilary Clinton, John McCain, vaccination

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 6:45 am and is filed under medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.