Study Addresses ‘Too Many Too Soon?’ Vaccine Concerns
March 29, 2013 Today, the Journal of Pediatrics published the first major study to look specifically at a possible link between autism and increasing exposure to the immune-stimulating compounds in early childhood vaccines. The researchers analyzed the vaccination and medical records of more than a thousand children in three managed care organizations. They totaled each child’s exposure to the immune-stimulating compounds, or antigens, in vaccines up to age 2. (Vaccines vary in the amount of antigens they contain.) The researchers also totaled the maximum exposure to vaccine antigens that each child received in any single day. They then tracked the children’s development through at least age 6. They found no link between increased risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and higher exposures to vaccine antigens in the first two years of life or on any one day. More specifically, they looked for associations with regressive autism. This subtype of autism…