Vaccinations and Autism

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Let me just preface this by saying the views held in this post are entirely my own.

I could be wrong.

Do I have radical views?

I don’t think so.  But when I decided to post about vaccinations and autism, I felt like I might be a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

In the midst of the presidential election in the United States, I decided to look up each candidate and determine what their plans were for the autism community if elected.

(As if vaccinations and autism weren’t enough for a possible controversial discussion – let’s add in politics!)

Clinton: Calls for a nationwide early screening campaign.  She wants to push all states to require health insurance coverage for autism services, help get adults on the autism spectrum employed and do more research.

Trump: Has linked autism to vaccinations in tweets during a presidential debate.

Autism and Vaccinations

Studies have been conducted since 2003 to determine if there was a link between autism and vaccines.  All of the research indicates, vaccines do not cause autism.

I understand why some still feel the research is wrong or doesn’t have all the information.

I have mentioned before Declan lost his speech.  He was able to say a lot of words and was beginning to put 2 words together at his 18 month well visit to the pediatrician.  When he went back for his 2-year-old well visit, he wasn’t talking anymore.

What happened?

I went over it a thousand times in my head when he started using more and more words again.  We only did one thing during that time that was new or different.

We had him vaccinated.

You try to tell a parent whose child stopped speaking after getting vaccinated that vaccines weren’t to blame.

I saw the research.  I saw their was no connection.  Doesn’t mean I believed it.

And I was getting scared.  At the time, Declan was due for another round of vaccinations when he was going to turn 4 years old.  I was concerned the vaccinations would cause another regression.  We had worked so hard and gained so much back – not just in speech but in awareness and behavior.  Were we going to lose it all again with another round of vaccinations?

Thankfully I ran across this article of information.  This gave me a logical answer for what was happening in the developing brain that caused autism.

Autism Breakthrough! Researchers May Have Identified the Neurological Mechanism that Causes Autism

If you read the article and watch the video you will see that a person with autism has a higher number of brain synapses than that of a typical person.  It is around the time that a child is diagnosed with autism that the brain synapses are forming.  In a typical brain, the extra brain synapses that form prune themselves down as to not overstimulate the child.  In the child with autism, the synapses and are not pruning themselves.  So, the brain synapses are numerous and misfiring.  This can lead to sensory overload.

I have had all my children vaccinated.  I have never had any problems or questioned vaccinations until Declan lost his speech.

I allowed Declan to get his 4-year-old vaccinations.  He experienced no regression.  He did not lose any speech.  His behavior did not become any more unstable.  There were no problems.

Vaccinations causing autism is definitely a subject where there are people divided on both sides.  I was skeptical of the research being completed that said there was no link between vaccinations and autism as my child stopped speaking shortly after being vaccinated when he was 18 months old.  Nothing else had changed.  But after doing some research I saw that the developing brain created synapses, and that in the brain of a child with autism, these synapses are not able to prune themselves down, are therefore abundant and will misfire causing a sensory overload.

I do not share this information to cause a dispute.  This information was helpful to me and I share it, in case someone else may find it helpful for themselves as well.