Autism and MMR Vaccine

MMR vaccination and relationship to autism among children study proposal
Background
The MMR vaccine is meant to give protection against measles, mumps and rubella diseases. The vaccine contains live measles, mumps and rubella viruses which have been significantly weakened or attenuated. These attenuated viruses trigger or stimulate the human immune system but does not cause disease in a healthy individual. This vaccine should not be given to individuals with suppressed immunity or immune-suppressed people due to some underlying illness or due to drug treatment. These exception groups include the babies whose mothers, during their pregnancy or during the days of breastfeeding had immunosuppressive treatment. The reason for their exclusion from the vaccine is due to the possibility of the vaccine strain replicating too much hence causing serious infection (Oxford Vaccine Group, 2018).
Problem statement
There have been a good number of misconceptions about the MMR vaccine with the major one being that it is responsible for the onset of autism in children. There have been claims of children developing autism soon after they have been vaccinated hence the need to investigate further this claim and known the facts surrounding the claims.
The problem statement in this respect therefore is do the benefits outweigh the risks among children who receive the MMR vaccine as compared to the children who are denied the vaccine and end up developing autism.
This study will therefore delve into finding out whether among the children who end up developing autism, there is any higher risks that can be quantified among those who received t5hye MMR vaccine as compared to those children who do not receive the MMR vaccine. This will help explain or debunk the claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism in children.
Significance of the study
The study will help shed more light into the controversy of whether the MMR vaccine causes autism among children or not. This makes the study very significant in that it will be instrumental for the medical doctors, helpful for the social health worker, informative for the home care giver and also educative to the family members of children suffering from autism. The results of the study will help add to the already existing pool of knowledge in the vaccination and its effects in effect correcting hitherto formed misconceptions. The study will also utilize the literature review from peer reviewed articles to clearly show how this vaccine is administered and the side effects or possible adverse events that it has been proven to cause over the years. Such information will help further clarify through exclusion that these cases of autism are not in any way tied to the administration of the MMR vaccine.
Potential results of the study
Bearing the researches done before, there is a high likelihood of the study finding out that the MMR vaccination does not in any way predispose children to the autistic related symptoms or even causing autism in its totality. This is a premeditated conclusion bearing that great medical research have been done with the concern having been raised and so far there have not been tangible evidence to the MMR vaccine causing autism in children. According to the Health Line journal, (2018), there have been no conclusive evidence that MMR vaccine is responsible for any single case of autism among children. Indeed, it indicates that the CDC has it that the MMR vaccine has helped prevent a host of other infections like measles, mumps and rubella. Bering these significant findings in the previous research, it is highly likely that this study will bring out once more that the scare from MMR vaccine on guise of getting autism for children is a void claim that has not data backing.
The possible results of the study can also be deduced bearing in mind the already known side effects of the MMR vaccine. These include redness, pain and at times swelling of the injection site. Such Side effects occur 1 in every 10 people who get this vaccination. The other side effects that have been observed include children getting raised temperatures, they lose appetite and get measles-like rushes on their body. This is said to be normal and is a sign that the measles part of the vaccine has started to work, these symptoms ay to for 2-3 days and then disappear without leaving behind any more adverse effects. Some children will develop mumps-like symptoms like the slightly raised temperatures, swollen glands in the neck, under the jaw or on the cheek. Such symptoms are known to set in after three weeks of the vaccination and are so rare that it affects 1 in every 50 children, a sign that the mumps part of the vaccine has started working. The other side effect is the inflammation of the joints as a sign of arthritis or arthralgia, a condition that is very rare among children but can be more pronounced and frequent in adult women but lasts for about 3 days and disappears (Health Link, 2018). With these well known symptoms and side effects, the study can deduce in advance that the development of autism is highly unlikely to be one of the adverse events experienced by the children who receive the MMR vaccination since such is a serious event that could have been captured by these previous studies.
Research design
Being a medical study, there are various factors that need to be taken into account when choosing the research design that would be used. The ethical aspect of the research needs to be considered as guided by the good clinical practices (GCPs). The aspect of doing no harm to the research participants will be the guiding principle in this study. The study will endure to ensure the research participants are not subjected to any undue possibility of harm that otherwise they would not be exposed to if the research was not conducted. The research will safeguard the participants that opt to volunteer into the study and their confidentiality will be of utmost consideration in the entire study period. The researchers will be sensitized to ensure that the research is focused and objective without diverting to areas that were not meant for the research.
The research will take the form of literature review and questionnaire administration to the research participants. The decision to use these cascade approaches is intentioned to ensure that maximum data is captured and to act as confirmatory test on each other.
The researchers will delve into extensive literature review of the existing literature, majorly drawn from the peer reviewed articles, journals and newspaper reports as well as research reports that had been published there before. The sample of the range of literature that will guide the research will be covered herein in the bibliography section. The literature review will act as a guide on the prevalent content in the libraries and the medical research and reports that had been generated by other medical personnel before. It will also help inform the research of the conditions behind the MMR vaccine at the global level and not just locally within the US. This information will help reaffirm or deconstruct the assumptions that have been developed about the vaccine within the US, in effect guiding the study towards a definite conclusion. The literature review will also give light to the perceptions and assumptions that are held elsewhere about the MMR vaccine and in particular if there are similar assumptions relating to autism in children as is within the US. These details will enable the research to see the magnitude of the problem being handled and also know what informs the stereotypes, if any exist locally and/or internationally.
The second research approach will be to identify the children who have had the MMR vaccination and those children who have autism. Their parents will then be instrumental in helping inform the research. The researchers will liaise with community health workers who specialize in caring for children with autism. The community health workers will purely help in identification of children with autism and then the researcher will accompany them in seeking the permission of the parents in participation in the research. The researcher will then use the questionnaire to extract details from the parent of the child. The details that will be entailed in the questionnaire will predominantly concentrate on finding out whether the children have had the MMR vaccination and the perception of the parents of children with autism towards the link between the vaccine and autism.
A second set of questionnaires will be targeted at children who have had the MMR vaccination but do not have autism. The aim will be to get a comparative data to use against the information collected from the children with autism and see if the difference in perception is of any statistical significance. It will also find out the reasons why the parents thought it was wise to go for the MMR vaccination and if these expectations were met. The questionnaire will also seek to know the attitude of this set of parents towards the relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Data analysis
The first set of data that will be collected from the literature review will be analyzed in a qualitative manner in that the information will be detailed down in the report as collected in the various pieces of literature that would be used and analyzed. This will help in compiling the report where the details that are relevant to the study will be highlighted and the sources accordingly cited.
The second set of data collected from the questionnaires will be entered into excel sheets, after which the trends and the percentages will be tabulated and the relevant pie charts and line graphs populated in order to graphically see the difference or similarity of the perception of the two sets of parents as would be generated by the responses.
CDC, (2015). Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine Safety. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/mmr-vaccine.html
This is a CDC website detailing the MMR vaccine, its use and the safety of the vaccine. Being a government agency website that is purely based on laboratory experiments and social research, the information presented therein is reliable.
Gritt E., (2018). What is the MMR vaccine, when was it introduced, what are the side effects and why was it linked to autism? https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/5181092/mmr-vaccine-autism-side-effects-introduced-jab-injection/
This is a well researched article from a reliable online journal that attempts to give the reader, who could be a local lay person at home, the history of the MMR vaccination, the possible side effects and the reasons and to why it is linked to autism. Being that it targets general readership, the article uses simple language which acts as its strength in reaching the massive intended audience.
Offit P., (2018). Does the MMR vaccine put my child at greater risk for autism? Baby Centre. https://www.babycenter.com/404_does-the-mmr-vaccine-put-my-child-at-greater-risk-for-autism_11518.bc
This is an informative article on a baby center website attempting to outline the issues surrounding parenting, autism and MMR vaccination. The article, being in the plainm language it is written in, helps parents to understand the importance of MMR vaccination and the myths relating it to the autism complications. The website is also appropriate in that parents of children are likely to consult such websites before they make the decision to take their children for the vaccination or not.
References
CDC, (2015). Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine Safety. Retrieved June 20, 2018 from https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/mmr-vaccine.html
Gritt E., (2018). What is the MMR vaccine, when was it introduced, what are the side effects and why was it linked to autism? Retrieved June 20, 2018 from https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/5181092/mmr-vaccine-autism-side-effects-introduced-jab-injection/
Health Line Journal, (2018). The Truth about the MMR Vaccine. Retrieved June 20, 2018 from https://www.healthline.com/health/mmr-vaccine#side-effects
Health Link, (2018). Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) Vaccine. Retrieved June 20, 2018 from https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/healthlinkbc-files/measles-mumps-rubella-vaccine
Offit P., (2018). Does the MMR vaccine put my child at greater risk for autism? Baby Centre. Retrieved June 20, 2018 from https://www.babycenter.com/404_does-the-mmr-vaccine-put-my-child-at-greater-risk-for-autism_11518.bc
Oxford Vaccine Group, (2018). MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps and Rubella Vaccine). Retrieved June 20, 2018 from http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/mmr-vaccine