Vaccine Safety and Autism

Dr. Steve Shelov talks about vaccine safety and autism.

Host: It's in the news lately that the there is a bunch of families that have kids with autism, have got a case against the makers of vaccines, they are concerned that the vaccines are the cause of autism. Is that true? Steve Shelov: This is a very important issue. There is no data, none whatsoever, in multiple studies, with multiple experts, looking at the studies to suggest at all that there is an association or a cause of autism by vaccines. It's very dangerous not to immunize your child. We know that there would be thousands of cases of very bad diseases that would have been in the United States for years if we didn't vaccinate our children. So please continue to vaccinate your kids. The studies are very, very impressive that there is no cause of autism by vaccines. Host: If we did vaccinate in a relatively mild case of measles, if it got exposed to a mother who was pregnant, who has ever had it. Is there a disease these kids get called congenital rubella? Steve Shelov: There certainly is. Up until 1968, when the vaccine for rubella was developed, there was a epidemic of rubella every eight years. Most institutions then for children who were mentally retarded were occupied by kids suffering from congenital rubella syndromes. Host: And how many cases were congenital rubella last year? Steve Shelov: I don't believe there were any cases last year. Host: So we went from a lot of case, to none. Steve Shelov: Correct. We have eliminated congenital rubella syndrome from our society, and that is an incredible accomplishment, only because of an effective vaccine. Host: We still worry about kids getting cold, pediatricians get very, very nervous about kids -- they used to ask the kids to hold their throat. There was a thing called epiglottitis, which looks and smells like that group, and they can die and get sometimes straight. You don't hear of it anymore, because we vaccinate against the disease, HIV. Steve Shelov: Exactly. A very effective vaccine also, called the HIV vaccine, Haemophilus Influenza V. Haemophilus Influenza V caused epiglottitis. It also caused meningitis. It was the most common cause of bacterial meningitis which would result in death or hearing loss and multiple other things. So that vaccine has been incredibly important in making our kids healthier. Host: We used to hear about hooping cough in little babies; we do occasionally see a case, we really haven't heard any kid dying from it, yet the death rate in the 30s was 2% of all kids who got hooping cough under six months, and yet its a disease that maybe something can control it, and now we see in the older kids the effects of vaccine, and not the adolescence. Is that true? Steve Shelov: Exactly. Pertussis is a terrible disease. When children used to get it as very young babies, as you heard, they would die. So preventing Pertussis is critically important to keeping young babies alive, and also we now know, because of giving the vaccine in older kids, we can prevent it from becoming a problem in adolescence and in young adults. We also know that those countries where they have seen a lapse in their Pertussis vaccine, there has been a tremendous increase in Pertussis again, which has killed babies and made for a lot of disease in kids. So it's very important to continue to keep your child immunized against Pertussis. Host: I remember when I was a kid, parents were afraid to send kids to camp in the 50s, afraid of a disease called polio, and yet its gone, there's no cases in this country. Isn't that true? Steve Shelov: It is absolutely true. We have eradicated polio in this country, which is an incredible accomplishment, considering back in the 50s and 40s and 30s, many, many children had polio, including one of our Presidents of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. So it's important that the polio vaccine, which is now given as a shot, that has made it even more effective, and whatever potential cause of someone getting polio from a vaccine, which you have never heard of in the past, it's not possible from the new vaccine, being given by shot. Host: Measles which is a horrible disease, ten days of about 105 fever, we hardly hear about cases, and an estimation is that before you will get four million cases. Is that true? Steve Shelov: That is true. Measles is a deadly disease; its not just a little rash and a little fever, the kids get pneumonia, can get forms of meningitis and cephalitis, its a terrible disease, and children died from measles routinely. When I was a young pediatrician, before the vaccine was developed, we would see cases of measles in the emergency room every week, and some of those kids were very sick, and I had one or two die during my time. So that it's an extremely important disease to prevent, and we have been very successful in preventing it again with timely vaccinations. Host: There is even a thing called Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, where your brain becomes cottage cheese from measles. Steve Shelov: Right. We learned, unfortunately the hard way, that when kids had gotten measles as young children, later on as adults, all of a sudden they would get this terrible neurologic disease and die from it. That was a result of having had measles as very young children. So by preventing measles as young children, we are also preventing Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.