Ed Autism, vaccines & China

I had a very similar discussion with a friends acquaintance a little while back. When he brought up the idea of not vaccinating his potential children, it was because that doing so would cause an increase chance in them having autism by 10%.
Well it was not so much a discussion because he is a very arrogant fellow and I knew I could not possibly argue with him, so rather it was him preaching to me. This lasted till I asked the validity of his source and if he had actually talked to a doctor on the matter.

I can only assume now that the person who had told him the information was someone that he respected but did not know what he was talking about. The information quite possibly could have been related to the china indecent as well.

All in all, unless he could prove that his source of information was reliable I merely said he should contact a true professional as I did not have any evidence on the contrary at the time.
 
CMacDady said:
I had a very similar discussion with a friends acquaintance a little while back. When he brought up the idea of not vaccinating his potential children, it was because that doing so would cause an increase chance in them having autism by 10%.
Well it was not so much a discussion because he is a very arrogant fellow and I knew I could not possibly argue with him, so rather it was him preaching to me. This lasted till I asked the validity of his source and if he had actually talked to a doctor on the matter.

I can only assume now that the person who had told him the information was someone that he respected but did not know what he was talking about. The information quite possibly could have been related to the china indecent as well.

All in all, unless he could prove that his source of information was reliable I merely said he should contact a true professional as I did not have any evidence on the contrary at the time.
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What kind of "doctor" did he talk to about it???
 
Eos of the Eons said:
What kind of "doctor" did he talk to about it???
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Well you see that's just it he didn't. We spent about two hours talking about various topics...or at least he did. Again and again he kept saying how he would rather run his own life than ever work for someone else and how he got all his advise from a friend of his Uncle who thought the same way.

When he got to the part about vaccines, he just started throwing out facts. I thought his words were partially ******** anyway, but so much more so at this point. So he never actually said where he got his information from, but since I know where he got his ideas about work and life from, I had a good idea that his facts about health were from a similar source.
 
Just finished watching Penn & Teller ******** - Vaccinations....awesome show.

TAM:)
 
T.A.M. said:
Just finished watching Penn & Teller ******** - Vaccinations....awesome show.

TAM:)
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Ive wanted to find out about this in more detail, especially since I didn't have info at the time of my indecent. ******** probably isnt the best place to go..but hey it is easy and entertaining. Thanks for telling me that its out.

EDIT: Darnit. I wish i knew about this information before. I could have actually prevented someone from leaving with incorrect information.
 
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Others have addressed this, but I want to re-emphasize it.

Until very recently, China didn't even recognize autism as a condition, or diagnose it. Even when they started to recognize and diagnose it, it has been done quite minimally. My first six years in China were spent as a teacher in university, and I had more than a few students who were demonstrably autistic...but who not only had never been diagnosed, but had never even heard of the condition before.

China's got 1.3 billion people (give or take a hundred million). There are many people in China with diagnosed disorders -- paranoia, dementia, bipolar, schizophrenic, etc. -- who are not able to receive adequate care, because there just aren't enough resources to deal with all of them. There's simply no motivation to add to that burden by diagnosing more people with problems that they don't have the resources to treat.

This is a common problem in China. How many people have AIDS? How many people are homosexual? How many kids have autism? None of the 'official' numbers are even close to being accurate, because the gov't doesn't want to have to face the inevitable problems that would result from it. Awareness of how many people really have AIDS would reveal a medical crisis that would serious erode confidence in the government. Awareness of how many people are homosexual would cause a significant increase in power for the 'gay rights' movement (and homosexuality is still officially considered a medical disorder in China). Awareness of how many kids are autistic would lead to greater demands on a medical and educational system that are already stretched to their limits.

So yeah, I'm sure you can find statistics to support this person's argument...but understanding the context of those statistics will demonstrate just how worthless they actually are.
 
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AmandaM said:
An anti-vaxer friend just sent this to me, as "proof" of some nefarious conspiracy with our foreign aid policy. I know that part is ridiculous, but any thoughts on this?

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/962/india-halt-vaccine-programmes-after-the-deaths
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I do believe that when there have been the rare instances of what they describe (post vaccination deaths in a few related cases) that there has been suspected contamination/infection with the vaccine batch prior to being given.

Conspiracies about foreign aid/big pharma are quite ridiculous. Is the suggestion that the "West" is deliberately contaminating vaccines at production source to ensure every child immunised in india with a vaccine immediately dies? Does this not seem just a tad unfeasible to anyone with a double figure IQ?

It has happened before in India, and might do so again. Conditions of storage, problems with reconstitution, sterility and incorrect administration can all lead to a risky batch of vaccine.
 
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