Five Words to Live By

A phrase that we are constantly told throughout our teachings in mathematics, any sciences, even in mere deductive reasoning; correlation does not imply causation.

As I was educating myself to write our first blog post, this phrase consistently interrupted my train of thought. But before we go into the who, what, where, why, etc. I’d like to share a story of how coincidental our first post is about such topic.

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Like any other Sunday night, I found myself laying on the couch and browsing though documentaries on Netflix. I quite enjoy documentaries because I feel like I can validate my neglect of doing actual school work, by replacing it with something sort of…educational (???). Though I ended up stumbling upon a documentary titled Pandemic (a Netflix original, of course) about epidemiology, viruses, vaccines and all the good stuff.

Well after I woke up from my nap during the first two episodes, I woke up to a woman being interviewed in her home. This woman explained that she homeschooled her 4 young children and the scene shifted to her giving a lesson on consent. I was following this woman, agreeing that consent in any situation 110% required, all until she began talking about doctors and vaccine consent.

This family and many other families in the area do not vaccinate their children with fears of other diseases, such as autism, occurring because of vaccines. And that their children could not attend school because of not receiving vaccines.

I was shocked. I have been vaccinated my whole life. I even received vaccines in my own home from our neighboring nurse. I was devastated by the fact that these children could not have normal interactions with other children because of their family’s choice to remain unvaccinated.

Okay–so where is the coincidence? Well I was very interested where the movement for no vaccinations originated from and when I began this assignment, BOOM. I was given the answer.

Andrew Wakefield. Mid to late 1980s.

Wakefield is a former doctor who conducted a study originally on twelve children, ranging from ages 3 to 11. When these children were referred to a gastroenterology unit for chronic enterocolitis and regressive developmental disorder, Wakefield recruited them for his study on the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Short and sweet, Wakefield concluded from this study that, “the MMR vaccine causes a bowel disorder, which he [Wakefield] calls autistic enterocolitis, that then causes autism.” You can find the nitty gritty details of his study here.

Though the thing that is most interesting about his study was that it was quickly retracted from The Lancet, because it was very dishonest (to be nice).

The General Medical Council in Britain even revoked Wakefield’s medical license due to the, “numerous ethical violations that tainted Wakefield’s work.” Just to name a few violations and possibly even other motives for publishing this paper:

• Wakefield included fraudulent data through misrepresented timelines to suggest direct linkage of the autism to the MMR vaccine.
• Unnecessarily subjected children with developmental disorders to invasive procedures.
• Mishandling funds for the study, including benefiting from financing from lawyers who were formulating a case against vaccine manufacturers for a so called, “separate study.”

These violations did not even touch on the group of people he found this cohort with–parents; parents of children with autism! The group he conducted the study on were children that were self referred by parents. And in these parents’ defense, I believe that people can undermine the frustration that comes from watching your child struggle with a developmental disability and not know how it came about. These parents could have be maybe thinking how this study could even end up saving other children from the same disability, if successful. So as the media began heavy coverage on Wakefield’s study and claim, his theory gained momentum within the public and further prompted a following.

In the beginning, he actively spoke on the Autism Research Institute conference and gained support from the coordinator of the Houston Autism Disability Network at the time. Though once other scientists caught wind of Wakefield’s momentous theory of MMR vaccine causing autism in children, it was game over.

“Correlation does not imply causation,” each independent scientist persisted. The Archive of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine did some digging (lots of digging, so much so it took until 2003) and concluded there was no evidence of an association between autism and MMR. Along with numerous other studies within peer-reviewed journal. Also, the director of the National Institute for Mental Health, who has a $120 million dollar research project on autism in the works, does not agree with Wakefield. And on a side note, some of the very resources Wakefield uses in his study on The Lancet would have information on MMR vaccine, autism and chronic enterocolitis that was not connected to one another and did not imply causation. Like Fudenburg, Gupta and Warren. You can find some more claims from other scientist here also.

Despite the disproof in Wakefield’s theory, the movement of no vaccinations still prevail across the world today. As other theories and claims piggy back off of the Wakefield and those of his time. And the big question we are all wondering is, what is happening in response to Measles, Mumps, and Varicella infections and vaccinations around the world?

Thankfully, the World Health Organization (WHO) is tackling infection of MMR, along with may other viruses, with immunization coverage. As written in December of 2019, “global measles mortality have declined by 73%,” along with, “immunization currently prevents 2-3 million deaths every year.” And even more great facts can be found here.

WHO has even enacted a Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) that will give individuals equitable access to vaccines around the world in the coming years. Along with endorsing many national programs to strengthen awareness in governance and other leadership to fight certain viruses–possible even eradicate–through the use of vaccines and immunization services.

Cool, right?

*P.s. if the second hyperlink to a Proquest New York Times article is not viewable, here is the citation:

Dominus, Susan. “The Denunciation of Dr. Wakefield.” New York Times Magazine, Apr 24, 2011, pp. 36-39,50-51,53