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 Their
stories are strikingly similar. Parents welcome a healthy
new child into their family. The child begins to develop normally,
even thrive. But in the second year of life, the child stops
progressing, stops babbling and acquiring new words, stops
hugging and making eye contact. Soon after comes the crushing
diagnosis: autism, the mysterious developmental disorder that
seems to rob many children of their emotions.
Stunned
and saddened, many parents look for answers. Noticing that
the onset of autism occurs right around the time their children
receive their regularly scheduled childhood vaccines, some
parents have begun to organize and agitate for more research
into the possible connection between vaccines and illness.
Could the public health panacea of the 20th century turn out
to be the medical menace of the 21st?
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An
Enigmatic Disorder
First
described in 1943, autism was thought to be a mental illness,
likely caused by bad parenting. By 1964, however, scientists
began to search instead for a biological--specifically neurological--basis
for the disease.
Today,
autism remains an enigmatic disorder. It is often accompanied
by mild to severe mental retardation, but many autistic individuals
have exceptionally high IQ's. Each autistic person expresses
the disorder uniquely: there is no definitive diagnostic test
and--though it appears to run in families--no gene has been
found.
Although
statistics vary widely, the Centers for Disease Control estimates
autism may occur in as many as one out of 1000 children, making
it one of the more common developmental disorders. Some research
indicates autism may even be increasingly common.
A
California study found the number of children with autism
increased by 273 percent between 1987 and 1998. Similarly,
a Maryland study found a 513 percent increase between 1993
and 1998. And, the Centers for Disease Control found an apparent
cluster of the disorder in a New Jersey town where one in
150 children is autistic. What could be the cause of this
sudden surge in the numbers of children diagnosed with the
disorder?
Still, the implications of Wakefield's original report
were fuel for a long smoldering fire
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In
1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield of the Royal Free Hospital in London
correlated the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to gastrointestinal
disease and autism. In an article published in the British
science journal The Lancet, Wakefield reported finding
measles virus in the intestines of 11 children--none of whom
had actually had measles but all of whom had developed bowel
problems and autistic behavior soon after receiving the MMR
vaccine. Wakefield hypothesized that the measles particles
in the vaccine (more
on vaccines) might have had an adverse affect on the bowel,
interfering with the absorption of some vital nutrient, which
in turn interfered with normal brain development.
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In
the summer of 2000,a measles outbreak swept Dublin,
Ireland due to low vaccination rates
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Although
Wakefield's report made headlines, scientists--including Wakefield
himself--emphasized the study's limitations. In a follow-up
study with a larger sample size, Wakefield did not find a
correlation. Nor did any other research group looking into
the possible connection, which included the Centers for Disease
Control and the National Institutes of Health. Still, the
implications of Wakefield's original report were fuel for
a long smoldering fire.
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Photos:
ADA
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