Concerns surrounding vaccine as a cause of autism began many years ago. This concern emerged as a result of children developing autism after 18 months of growth. It is surprising that autism occurred after children had been vaccinated in the first 18 months.
During the late 1990s, researchers from Food and Drug Administration admitted that children under the age of 18 months were vulnerable to ethyl-mercury found in immunizations. In this regard, there was a probability that children ingested methyl-mercury a renowned organic mercury.
However, for methyl-mercury to cause autism, it must be administered as a drug in large doses beyond the required standards. Moreover, National Autism Association raised concerns over the use of thimerosal as a vaccine preservative. Thimerosal is alleged to increase the exposure of mercury in the vaccine to a substantiated high amount. However, there is a significant amount of research studies indicating that thimerosal is not associated with autism.
Allegations that autism prevalence increases with the number of vaccinated children is non-factual. Irrespective of the unfounded claims about the disorder, vaccines do not cause autism.
Center for Disease and Control (CDC) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) warns that linking vaccines as a cause of autism is-untrue. CDC and IOM revelations are founded from studying the amount of antigens received by a child from the first day of vaccination to two years. This study reveals that there exists no connection of vaccine and autisms spectrum disorder (ASD). In fact, the amount of antigens between children with autism and without is the same irrespective of the vaccines administered.
Moreover, acquiring autism does not result from increasing vaccine antigens. In addition, the amount of vaccine antigens administered to children has reduced in recent years. Development of vaccine with low amounts of antigens has changed with time. The development of cellular pertussis vaccines leads to production of at least 6 antibodies.
It is important to note that a child’s immune system can respond to immunologic stimuli from different sources. This means that a child is exposed to many antigens and pathogens not related to vaccines. Allegations that thimerosal cause autism is unfounded since the substance do not preserve vaccines in recent times.
A clinical perspective on autism is that brain damage causes the disorder. In this regard, a child’s brain functions abnormally compared to that of a normal child. From a clinical point of view, there exists no single cause of the disorder. From this perspective, biologists assume that autism is developed as a result of heredity, genetic and environmental factors (Currenti, 2010).
An in-depth on the study on families with autistic children reveals that inheritance of the disorder is likely to occur due to irregular genetic coding. This means that a child born in a family with a history of autism may be susceptible to autism (Currenti, 2010). Medical practitioners and pathologists argue that genetic vulnerability is a probable cause of autism. This means that a child that is vulnerable to medical conditions such as tuberous sclerosis and congenital rubella syndrome risk acquiring autism.
Finally, environmental factors such as exposure to mercury toxins can cause autism in children (Currenti, 2010). The prevalence of mercury toxins is higher in modern times than in earlier years. This explains why low levels of mercury in vaccines may not cause autism in children.
Reference
Currenti, S. A. (2010). Understanding and determining the etiology of autism. Cellular and molecular neurobiology, 30(2), 161-171.