Vaccination and Autism: A Causal

Vaccination and Autism: A Causal Relationship

The debate over whether or not autism actually exists independent of vaccinations has been ongoing for decades. DPT, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus), commonly known as the three-in-one vaccination, until the 1980s, when the outcry about the possibility of the combination of these drugs being administered in a single injection, causing some children to have an adverse reaction to the combination, and leaving those children in a condition largely diagnosed as "autistic," resulted in the three-in-one vaccination being discontinued as a single injection. This, only after much evidence documenting the causal relationship between certain childhood conditions, sometimes death that could be closely linked to the three-in-one drug combination. However, even in the face of the vast body of evidence supporting the link between the DPT and neurological damage suffered by young children; the vaccinations continue to be given to children, albeit usually separately administered by pediatricians today, as opposed to the combination in which they were once administered.

The Evidence

The evidence supporting the neurological and other kinds of permanent damage done to children by the DPT vaccines is vast. It is best to approach the evidence has been documented and presented to the public by authors like Harris Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, in their books DPT: A Shot in the Dark (1985), and Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality: The Assault on the American Brain (1990), demonstrate the link that is being ignored by the FDA, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies in the name of profit (James, Walene, 1995).

Most pediatricians today hold that the manner in which the vaccine is administered is the key; while other specialists and experts maintain that it is the preservative (thimersol) in the vaccines, and still others contend that it is the vaccines themselves (Schulman, Daniel, 2005). The prevailing philosophy that governs the continued use of these vaccinations in lieu of the evidence supporting the fact that they cause neurological and other permanent damage to children is seemingly this: that the number of children who experience adverse reactions is out weighed by the number of incidents of disease prevented by the administration of the drug. In other words, we sacrifice a few so that the greater majority can live without disease.