Mercury in Vaccines

Doctors Reject Calls for Enforced Pre-school Immunisation

July 02, 2010
Doctors Reject Calls for Enforced Pre-school Immunisation
GMC panel chairman calls for compulsory MMR

From: News.Scotsman.Com DOCTORS have rejected calls for UK children to be fully immunised before they are allowed to start school.

The British Medical Association conference in Brighton heard that cases of measles had increased since uptake of the measles mumps and rubella jab (MMR) had fallen.

But doctors decided forcing parents to have their children vaccinated before starting school was not ethical or practical.

Dr Surendra Kumar, from the BMA's GPs committee, said measles had almost been eradicated until the publication of research, now discredited, linking the MMR vaccine to autism. He added: "As a result we have now started seeing children suffering and dying from measles.

"Let us send a clear message, that in a country like the UK we will not let our children suffer and we will not let our children be a source of risk of infection to others... we should not allow them to start schooling before they have been immunised."

Other doctors expressed concern about passing the motion.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA, said: "I want to make clear that we support immunisation but we are not in support of this means of compulsion for a whole lot of practical and ethical reasons. If it were ever to happen here we would have numerous opt-outs and it would be highly problematic."

IVF Linked to Autism, Israeli Study Suggests

Science News IVF Linked to Autism, Israeli Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (June 30, 2010) — The first "test tube baby" was born in 1978. With advances in reproductive science, an estimated one percent of all American babies are now born each year through in vitro fertilization (IVF). But IVF and other assisted fertility treatments may be solving one problem by creating another, suggests new evidence from Tel Aviv University.

In a recent study, Dr. Ditza Zachor of Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine reported a strong link between IVF and mild to moderate cases of autism. Her findings were presented last month at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Philadelphia.

According to her research at the Autism Center at the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Israel, which Dr. Zachor directs, 10.5% of 461 children diagnosed with a disorder on the autism spectrum were conceived using IVF, a significantly higher number than the 3.5% autism rate in the general Israeli population.

Other factors in play

While the study doesn't draw any definitive conclusions, it presents some urgent questions, says Dr. Zachor. "It's too early to make a serious deduction based on that evidence alone," she says, citing other birth-related factors in her study, such as low birth rate and prematurity. Dr. Zachor's ongoing research will attempt to separate out these risk factors to come up with more precise numbers for autism and other prenatal conditions in IVF.

The key may be "imprinting," a biochemical procedure during cell division which determines which genes will be selected or "expressed" in the embryo. Research into epigenetics -- changes in gene expression that occur without a change in the DNA sequence -- suggest that the malformations may be caused by imprinting abnormalities introduced into the embryo while it's in a test tube environment, says Dr. Zachor. One such disorder linked with IVF appears to be Angelman syndrome.

However, Dr. Zachor does not want to discourage infertile couples from undergoing IVF implantation, which most often results in a healthy child.

Age-appropriate fertility treatments

Dr. Zachor notes that mothers in her study who had IVF tended to be older -- with a median age of 32.6 years. Also significantly, nearly 4% of the children with autism were born prematurely, and about 5% of those had a low birth weight. In the general population, only about 1% of all newborns are delivered with a low birth weight.

Aware of these risks, however, health practitioners may be able to intervene and find ways to avoid the problems, the researcher says. For example, they might recommend that IVF treatments be delayed for a longer period, despite any psychological stress this might cause to would-be parents. Some researchers believe that unassisted fertilization is a better way to avoid negative health effects.

"Many infertile couples choose this procedure, and they need to know whether there is a risk of autism," concludes Dr. Zachor. She stresses, however, that most women who undergo fertility treatments should not be scared away from IVF procedures: the majority of children born using IVF do not have autism, and most children who have autism were not conceived using IVF.

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by American Friends of Tel Aviv University.

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MLA American Friends of Tel Aviv University (2010, June 30). IVF linked to autism, Israeli study suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 2, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/06/100614122026.htm
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