Ph.D. Scientist calls the recent CDC vaccine and autism risk study "flawed"

The recent United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study “Increasing Exposure to Antibody-Stimulating Proteins and Polysaccharides in Vaccines Is Not Associated with Risk of Autism” by Destefano et al. 2013 purports that “increasing exposure to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides in vaccines during the first 2 years of life was not related to the risk of developing an ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).” In a HealthImpactNews.com piece dated April 1, Dr. Brian S. Hooker, PhD, PE, an Associate Professor of Biology at Simpson University in California commented, "Of all of the papers I have reviewed over my 26-year career as a research scientist, this is perhaps the most flawed and disingenuous study I have encountered."

Dr. Hooker told Health Impact News Daily that the basis for the study is basically a rehash of the data that was used to generate the fraudulent Price et al. 2010 Pediatrics study (Price et al. 2010 “Prenatal and Infant Exposure to Thimerosal From Vaccines and Immunoglobulins and Risk of Autism” Pediatrics 126:656) that was supposed to be the CDC’s “final word” stating that thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative in some vaccines, was in no way causally linked to autism. This original study was also flawed due to a statistical error called “overmatching” and the study authors hid data regarding prenatal thimerosal exposure which showed that children exposed to just 16 microgram mercury in thimerosal in utero were up to 8 times more likely to receive a diagnosis of regressive autism (Price C, et al. Thimerosal and Autism. Technical report. Vol I. Bethesda, MD: Abt Associates Inc; 2009). Dr. Hooker says that the study authors instead falsely reported no risk of autism associated with prenatal thimerosal exposure.

The basis of the more recent study was to confirm or deny a correlation between the “number of antigens received” and the incidence of autism. Table 1 of the study reported the possible number of antigens per given vaccine. Dr. Hooker says, however, that the term “number of antigens” is a complete "white-wash" of what is actually in these vaccines, their concentrations and their relative strengths in terms of inflammatory response, and that is not an accurate predictor of how the body will respond to specific antigens.

He says, "...antigens” for the five antigen DTaP vaccines (e.g., Infanrix) include diphtheria toxoid, tetanus toxoid, pertussis toxoid, filamentous hemagglutinin and pertactin. The number “5” assigned in this category is merely the number of different antigens and doesn’t account for each antigen’s amount or relative strength.

Neither does this account for the fact that Infanrix also contains aluminum (an adjuvant – designed to elicit a non-specific immune response), formaldehyde and polysorbate 80, all which could also elicit some form of inflammatory reaction."

This means that the main “independent” variable of “number of antigens” within the Destefano et al. 2013 study is meaningless.

Dr. Hooker says that the new study is also filled with a statistical error called “overmatching.” He refers the public to a comprehensive analysis of the previous CDC study completed on the same data set (Price et al. 2010 Pediatrics), regarding thimerosal exposure rather than the number of vaccine antigens. He tells the reader to see Chapter 6, “Vaccine Safety Study as an Interesting Case of ‘Over-Matching’” by Drs. M. Catherine DeSoto and Robert Hitlan (http://www.intechopen.com/books/recent-advances-in-autism-spectrum-disorders-volume-i/vaccine-safety-study-as-an-interesting-case-of-over-matching-) in the book “Recent Advances in Autism Spectrum Disorders – Volume I”, edited by Michael Fitzgerald, ISBN 978-953-51-1021-7.

Dr. Hooker says that Dr. DeSoto and Dr. Hitlan make the point that the cases and the controls in this study are too closely matched to each other. He says:

"Cases were matched with controls of the same age, sex, within the same HMO and essentially the same vaccination schedule using the same vaccine manufacturers. This may be seen in Figures 1 and 2 of the Destefano et al. 2013 paper which indicated that there are almost no differences between the exposure to antigens between the case (autism) and control groups in every exposure group tested. This holds for cumulative antigen levels (Figure 1) as well as single day antigen exposure levels (Figure 2).

This type of error of course precludes “finding a difference” between cases and controls because all differences were matched out case-by-case.

This would be akin to analyzing radiation workers that got the same dosage of gamma radiation within cases and control groups to determine the relationship between gamma radiation and cancer incidence. Of course, since cases and controls got the same dosage, no effect would be seen. However, this is an unfair study. To see the true effect, cases would need to be matched with controls with variable levels of gamma radiation exposure and perhaps a “no exposure” group would be included as a baseline comparison to cancer rates within higher exposure groups.

In the same way, the CDC has used these overmatched data to obfuscate any true effect between vaccine antigen exposure and autism incidence."

Why does the CDC refuses to do a study on the health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations? Dr. Hooker believes that, "The CDC is simply afraid of what they already know – vaccines cause chronic disease and an unvaccinated population will be much healthier, period (as evidenced in the Glanz et al. 2013 study within the Journal of the American Medical Association which stated that unvaccinated children were seen at a lower rate of frequency in emergency room and outpatient visits)."

Children with autism are also physiologically different than neurotypical children. Dr. Hooker says, "Numerous studies have shown genetic (e.g., James et al. 2006), morphological (e.g., Herbert et al. 2005) and biochemical differences (e.g., Waly et al. 2004) between these two populations. To perform a case-control study such as that presented in the Destefano et al. 2013 paper assumes a genetically, morphologically and physiologically homogeneous population, which is simply not the case."

Finally, Dr. Hooker believes that the CDC should not be conducting ANY type of vaccine safety study, based on their primary mandate of maximizing vaccine uptake. Their role demonstrates a clear conflict of interest.

Source: http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/can-we-trust-the-cdc-claim-that-there-is-no-link-between-vaccines-and-autism/

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