In a Huffington Post article titled “In the Vaccine-Autism Debate, What Can Parents Believe?”, Jenny McCarthy, in a reaction to the damning British Medical Journal (BMJ) expose of wrongdoings on the part of disgraced British researcher Andrew Wakefield, unsurprisingly jumps to his defense, and in the course manages to, again unsurprisingly, misrepresent some basic facts about this issue. McCarthy doesn’t seem to care much about the facts; for example, she still maintains that there is antifreeze in vaccines, a claim which has been definitely shown to be untrue, and yet she has not retracted it. This is the problem with arguing via talking points: the person who relies on them instead of research becomes immune to the facts.
So, what does McCarthy get wrong in her valiant defense of Wakefield? She starts her article with this:
Last week, parents were told a British researcher's 1998 report linking the MMR shot to autism was fraudulent -- that this debate about vaccines and autism is now over, and parents should no longer worry about giving their children six vaccines at a single pediatric appointment or 36 by the time they are five years old.
The BMJ series, titled Secrets of the MMR Scare (scroll all the way to the bottom for parts 2 and 3 of the series) did not concern itself at all with the number of doses of vaccines a typical 5 year-old would receive if following the recommended US schedule. The series was written by Brian Deer, a British investigative journalist, and its focus was on Andrew Wakefield, his paper, actions, and undisclosed conflicts of interest. It did not make any pronouncements on the vaccines-autism manufactroversy.
Regarding the number of vaccines: based on the 2011 US recommended vaccine schedule, it is technically correct that a child might get up to 6 doses of vaccines at a single appointment, more specifically at the 2 months appointment, assuming that the second dose of HepB, which can be given at any time during the first 2 months of life, hasn’t been administered at a prior doctor’s appointment. On the other hand, I cannot be sure if that is what McCarthy is referring to, or if she is committing the same mistake Age of Autism made, which prompted me to teach them to count to three.
The number 36 is fairly close, but it refers to 0-6 years of age, not 0-5, a minor error which isn’t too consequential. However, since we’re being technical, depending on which vaccines are being used against Rotavirus and Hib, two less doses can be administered, thus bringing the number down to 34 during the first 6 years, or 33 in the first 5.
Regardless of the accuracy of the numbers, how bad is it for a baby to receive up to 6 vaccines in one visit, or 36 over 6 years? Studies suggest that a child’s stress hormone levels peak after the first shot, and receiving more than one shot in a single pediatric appointment does not increase stress levels, so spacing out the shots can expose the child to increased amounts of stress. The study’s authors concluded as such:
The comparison in stress response between infants receiving one as opposed to two inoculations was made possible by the recent change in pediatric immunization practice. The present findings indicated that 2- and 6-month-old infants were no more likely stressed by two inoculations than by one.
Furthermore, studies also show that deviating from the recommended US schedule, by spacing vaccines out, has no benefits. Lastly it has been estimated that the human immune system could respond to as many as 105 vaccines (“Vaccines”, Plotkin, Orenstein, Offit, 4th Edition, pages 1636-1637), although no one is suggesting 100,000 needles in one visit; that would put to shame even the most ambitious acupuncturist.
Six doses at one time might be uncomfortable for a parent to witness, but considering the evidence provided in the above paragraphs, there is no reason to believe that they would have an adverse effect on a child’s health. “Too many, too soon” is a cute slogan, but ultimately it is meaningless and not based on science. Spacing out the vaccines is a loose-loose scenario from the child’s health perspective: it would provide no benefits, but it would leave her unprotected from potential diseases for longer periods of time, thus leaving her vulnerable to all the negative effects that catching one of these preventable diseases can have.
Jenny continues:
Is that the whole story? Dr. Andrew Wakefield's study of 12 children with autism actually looked at bowel disease, not vaccines. The study's conclusion stated, "We did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described [autism]."
Of course the study didn’t prove the association; one study can never prove anything. Even if Wakefield’s study had been carried out properly, and even if the observations were accurate, and he had found a real temporal association between the MMR vaccine and autism in the 8 children, he still couldn’t conclude that they proved an association between the MMR and autism. Not one reputable scientific study published in a reputable journal will, or should, ever conclude with the words “we have proven…”
However, he did hint at a possible connection. In the press conference announcing the study, Wakefield said: “Vaccination should continue, but it will put children at no further risk if it is dissociated into three," as reported by The Independent on 02/27/1998. Interesting suggestion, given that Wakefield’s study did not look at the single shots at all. One might wonder: on what basis did Wakefield make that statement?
Wakefield’s anti-MMR stance comes out quite clearly in this transcript of a 20 minute video about the paper released by the hospital he was working for at the time.
INTERVIEWER: So you're saying that a parent should still ensure that their child is inoculated but perhaps not with the MMR combined vaccine?
DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD: Again, this was very contentious and you would not get consensus from all members of the group on this, but that is my feeling, that the, the risk of this particular syndrome developing is related to the combined vaccine, the MMR, rather than the single vaccines.
………………………………………………………………………………………
WAKEFIELD: And I have to say that there is sufficient anxiety in my own mind of the safety, the long term safety of the polyvalent, that is the MMR vaccination in combination, that I think that it should be suspended in favour of the single vaccines, that is continued use of the individual measles, mumps and rubella components.
Furthermore, in a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos (skip to the 2:30 min mark) George asks Wakefield point blank: …You said at the press conference that you would not recommend, you told people not to get the MMR vaccine based on what you had found, none of the other doctors would go that far and you manufactured a scare at a time when you were in a position to profit from it….. In his reply Wakefield not once denies having recommended parents not to give their children the MMR vaccine. He denies having manufactured the scare, but does not deny that he spoke against the vaccine, based on his “study” which according to McCarthy did not look at the MMR vaccine.
Lastly, here is the full last paragraph of the 1998 Wakefield paper (emphasis added):
We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.
Clearly, contrary to what McCarthy claims, the MMR vaccine was something the study looked at, and Wakefield took every chance speak against it. Jenny’s claim that the study “looked at bowel disease, not vaccines” is demonstrably wrong.
Time to hint at a conspiracy:
Since when is repeating the words of parents and recommending further investigation a crime? As I've learned, the answer is whenever someone questions the safety of any vaccines.
Or, whenever someone makes stuff up and tries to pass it on as legitimate science. Wakefield is making the case about his innocence through a book, which needs not to be plugged on this website, and on TV. That’s weird given that if what Wakefield is saying is true, and if Brian Deer is in fact a “hit man” who is making false accusations towards him, filing, and winning, a libel suit against both Deer and the BMJ should be a walk in the park given the horrendous UK libel laws. In fact, Brian Deer openly challenged Wakefield to do just that, in his interview with Anderson Cooper. If Wakefield is being honest, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain, and proving that Deer is falsely accusing him should be extremely easy. The ball is clearly in Wakefield’s court.
As an aside, repeating the words of parents is not how science is done; science uses anecdotes as a starting point to coin hypotheses, and that’s where the relationship ends. Anti-vaxxers cannot have it both ways: either Wakefield was only repeating parent’s words, or he was doing a proper scientific investigation of the parent’s concerns.
Next, McCarthy completes the circle: after the incorrect factual statements, and the hint to conspiracy, comes the irate-mom-who-won’t-take-no-for-an-answer act:
I know children regress after vaccination because it happened to my own son. Why aren't there any tests out there on the safety of how vaccines are administered in the real world, six at a time? Why have only 2 of the 36 shots our kids receive been looked at for their relationship to autism? Why hasn't anyone ever studied completely non-vaccinated children to understand their autism rate?
Please pay special attention to this paragraph. This seems to be the new direction the anti-vaccination movement is moving in, the new position of the goal post. What is so great about this line of thinking however is that it proves what we in the pro-health camp have known for a while: the anti-vaccine proponents know vaccines cause autism. No amount of contradictory evidence will ever be enough, because they will always fantasize something else about vaccines that they can demand to be studied, but that is OK. Our educational efforts are not aimed at the McCarthys, or Meryl Doreys, of the world, but to the parents who are on the fence and about to make a very important decision about their children’s health. We fight for them, and even more importantly for their children, which is why correcting the anti-vaccination misinformation is of paramount importance to the pro-health community
In the title of her article, McCarthy asks what can parents believe, and while we might disagree on the answer to that question, the answer to another has been partially revealed. That other question is “who can parents believe”, and the answer in part reads: not Jenny McCarthy.
Leart Shaka is a NYC based skeptic, who is focusing his skeptical efforts in countering anti-vaccine misinformation. He is the creator, and Editor-In-Chief, of The Vaccine Times, a quarterly pro-health publication, for parents, by parents, and runs the Vaccine Times website and blog. He can be found on Twitter as @Skepdude and @VaccineTimes.