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« EPA proposes new smog standards; environmentalists wheeze their disapproval | Main | Another one bites the dust »
Study makes the case for further CDC investigation: links between vaccinations and neurobehavioral disorders?
Parents of children with ADD, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders have been asking the Centers for Disease Control to do further research into a possible correlation between vaccinations containing mercury and neurobehavioral disorders for years. Now Generation Rescue, a small non-profit formed by parents of children with neurological disorders, has released a study that the CDC should be hard pressed to ignore.
The study, which was conducted by an independent opinion research firm, surveyed the parents of more than 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys were 2.5 times more likely to have a diagnosed neurological disorder than unvaccinated boys.
Generation Rescue is quick to admit that this is just a phone survey, but the findings show a strong trend and suggest the need for further research. Among boys aged 11-17, there is not a single developmental condition where the survey detected a higher incidence rate for unvaccinated boys.
Which brings us to the next big question: why hasn't the CDC done a more refined version of this study already? One excuse trotted out is that that it would be next to impossible to identify a cohort of unvaccinated children, but Generation Rescue has blown that excuse right out of the water. If a small parent led group can find more than 900 unvaccinated children in just two states, surely the CDC can find a statistically significant number of them nationwide.
Some theorists say that the CDC is not institutionally capable of doing such a simple and elegant study. Bureaucratic inertia, they say, would introduce so many irrelevant and complicating factors into the study design that costs would escalate out of control and the truth would be buried in irrelevant details.
We think, however, that the CDC could do it. And more to the point, to retain any integrity on this issue at all, the CDC must do this study.
The time has come for answers. After all, if mercury in vaccines is not implicated in autism spectrum disorders, what better way to find out than looking at vaccinated versus unvaccinated children?
« EPA proposes new smog standards; environmentalists wheeze their disapproval |
Comments
I'm disappointed in this post - it's unbalanced to the point of being irresponsible. The author fails to mention the hundreds of scientific studies that have been performed worldwide to look at possible links between vaccines and neurological disorders. The Institute of Medicine reports are a good place to find many of them. Please consider doing some background research before writing more on this topic. The EWG tagline is "The Power of Information", and your readers should be able to trust that you've considered more than one source of information before reporting out to them. I hope that in the future you'll return to the higher standards that you are known for.
Posted by: Rungrrl | June 28, 2007 10:10 PM
Rungrrl, while you're right that many studies have been done, no study has ever looked at the difference in ND rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding acknowledged way back in 2003 that such a study should be done, so why doesn't the CDC go ahead and do it?
Posted by: Amanda | June 29, 2007 9:34 PM