The "Vaccines cause Autism" morans piss me off.

[Odin2005]

Just a bunch of BS that is ultimately based on the assumption we are "damaged" and need to be "cured." It is just as bigoted and offense towards us that going around saying vaccines turn kids gay is bigoted towards gay people.

[SheilaT]

1. I'm with you on that.

I have a son (26 in three weeks) who has Asperger's, and it's all I can do not to scream at people who want to blame it on vaccines. The more I read about Asperger's, the more I realize he had it from the very beginning. Even as an infant he was not like other infants, although not different enough to diagnose with anything.

I suppose that maybe there are some who develop autism of some kind from vaccines (even though I highly doubt it), but the very vast majority have some kind of wiring that's off, or chemistry that's wrong, and that's why they have autism.

[Odin2005]

2. I subscribe to the genetic "too much of a good thing" theory.

Basically, my theory is that a low level of expression of forms of genes (alleles) that cause autistic traits is favored by natural selection, but occasionally too many of those alleles show up in a single individual, and the result is the more "low-functioning" forms of Autism. So it's kind of like sickle-cell anemia in tropical populations, only involving several genes instead of a single one.

I think this is the case because there are so many people that have influenced out world that are/were mildly autistic (Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Lewis Caroll, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Dirac, Charles Darwin, Bill Gates etc.) one cannot help wonder if such traits are maintained in the gene pool despite them causing low-fuctioning Autism. Heck, I've read that Einstein didn't talk until he was almost 4, and profound speech delays are one of the symptoms of full-blown autism.

[Debbi801]

3. I agree...

From birth, my 6 yr old was different. As I explained to one of his many doctors when I was giving a medical history, he was always "More." He was this way from day 1, way before his first vaccine.

Sadly, the Jenny McCarthy's of the world don't help. Especially when they go around claimng they've "cured" their children.

[Odin2005]

4. Ugh, they anti-vax dumbasses are at it again.

:banghead: