Hep-B Vaccine & Autism: Cause or Correlation?

[Fnord]

This article was presented on another website, and the poster has asked for it to be debunked.

"Hepatitis-B Vaccine Triples the Risk of Autism in Infant Boys" (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/08/Hepatitis-B-Vaccine-Triples-the-Risk-of-Autism-in-Infant-Boys.aspx)

The article is dated October 8, 2009. Here are the opening paragraphs:


A new study has shown that giving Hepatitis B vaccine to newborn baby boys more than triples their risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder.

The study’s authors used U.S. probability samples obtained from National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 1997–2002 datasets.

The conclusion states that: “Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with hepatitis B vaccine had a 3-fold greater risk of ASD.”

.
The article also includes a section on "The Evidence Against Thimerosol," so I have a strong intuitive sensation that the rest of the article is pure woo also.

Please, oh noble members of JREF; please debunk this article ... if only for the sake of the children!

(Yeah, I typed that last bit with a straight face.)

[madurobob]

Well, your primary way to debunk it is to point out it was posted by Mercola. Do a search for him on this forum and you'll see why.

But, I've seen the abstract for that study and it sure does look like correlation, not causation and the authors even say this. Give me a moment and I'll find it.

[blutoski]

This article was presented on another website, and the poster has asked for it to be debunked.

"Hepatitis-B Vaccine Triples the Risk of Autism in Infant Boys" (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/08/Hepatitis-B-Vaccine-Triples-the-Risk-of-Autism-in-Infant-Boys.aspx)

The article is dated October 8, 2009. Here are the opening paragraphs:


.
The article also includes a section on "The Evidence Against Thimerosol," so I have a strong intuitive sensation that the rest of the article is pure woo also.

Please, oh noble members of JREF; please debunk this article ... if only for the sake of the children!

(Yeah, I typed that last bit with a straight face.)

I'll see if I can locate the original paper. Mercola's links in his reference section don't actually work.

[madurobob]

Here is a link to the abstract:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/hepbposter.pdf

In their conclusions they say "design limits causal inferences" and "does not support conclusions regarding risk attributable to specific vaccine components"

Contrast that with Mercola's words. In his first sentence he claims a causal link that the study does not appear to conclude.

[Silly Green Monkey]

Hepatitis B? I thought that was the series I was given as a part of blood-borne pathogen training. Something only health professionals and those in immediate danger from hepatitis B need, right?

[madurobob]

Hepatitis B? I thought that was the series I was given as a part of blood-borne pathogen training. Something only health professionals and those in immediate danger from hepatitis B need, right?

That was certainly the case a decade ago when I was an EMT. But, when my youngest was 4, just a few years ago, they told me a hep-b vaccine was becoming common practice in children. I was given the option of saying no thanks... and I honestly don't now remember what I decided. I'll have to check his records.

ETA:
CDC Says (http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/)
Vaccination: Hepatitis B vaccination is recommended for all infants, older children and adolescents who were not vaccinated previously, and adults at risk for HBV infection.

[Estellea]

It's the villian du jour. Hep B vaccine, that is. It is recommended for U.S. infants before discharge from the hospital. I believe that the U.S. is the only country with a birth dose recommendation, and unremarkably, has the same ASD rate as other countries.

[pgwenthold]

Estellea has it right.

It is the villian du jour, because they have failed with any of the other ones specifically.

You get this "It's MMR!" and "It's thimerasol" (which was never in MMR), but then there are those blaming HiB (or DTaP) and now HepB. It's funny how we can go from, "He got his shot and all of a sudden quit responding" to blaming HebB, which is only given to newborns.

[Aerik]

This study and all defenses of it have already been demolished by the Gorski.

Here's the link (http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1989). And then Orac's take (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/10/some_monkey_business_in_autism_research_1.php)

Basically Andrew Wakefield and a few fellow cranks have gotten together and tried to make a link between and autism and hepatitis B vaccines by very dishonest means. There was a study in which the vaccine had adverse neurological affects on monkeys. Those affects were not autism, of course, and the study does not correlate to a human analog. However, by juxtaposition of a description of that study with a statement about vaccines and autism, they hope to rope listeners/readers into believing that the studies are somehow linked.

Then they decided to poorly design their own disingenuous study and try to get that published anywhere they can, be it a legitimate journal or not, and pass it off as proof of the link.

[blutoski]

deleted post - while i was in a meeting, others posters have responded

[Aerik]

Honorable mention: Look at the level of intelligence of Mercola's followers (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/10/dumbest_comment_ever.php).

[Capsid]

Hep B vaccine is given to neonates of hep B infected mothers in endemic countries. Although this seems to be a US study anyway. 90% of children born to infected mothers go on the have chronic infection themselves.

[Estellea]

I had forgotten about this but this (and the comments) sums that claim up nicely: http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=3140

This was a poster presented at a conference, not a peer-reviewed article and it's even a weak poster. These same authors had a publication last year that looks pretty dodgy also: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a905442343

I will be reading that next week.

[Dr. Imago]

"Breathing oxygen is associated with the development of autism in 100% of autistic cases. Therefore, we should advise parents not to allow their children to breathe."

You can quote me on that.

I think it is an important exercise to look back at Wakefield's hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield) and the dangers of cherry-picking data to retro-fit a clinical theory (and, perhaps, even falsifying data), and then to tenaciously hold onto that theory despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The reason why this is important is because it started us down this path that vaccines cause autism (beyond simple association), and now people are going to tirelessly hunt for the elusive red herring until they make the square peg fit the round hole... at least in their minds.

~Dr. Imago

[Eos of the Eons]

You linked Mercola. *gak*

[Eos of the Eons]

Ugh. There should be laws that address the level of lengths that Wakefild and Mercola do to skew data and then outright LIE about it. Course, calling someone a liar can get you sued and then liars get to keep on lying. Fair world we live in, and then parents get to pay for it.