Children that have been diagnosed with autism were found to be less likely to be vaccinated than other children. Siblings of the children with autism were also less likely to receive the recommended vaccines, according to a new study.
This puts these children at an increased risk of getting diseases that can be preventable through vaccine.
People Still Believe False Research
A new study published in JAMA Pediatrics showed that children with autism and their siblings have a higher chance of contracting preventable and dangerous diseases. In the conclusion of the study, researchers note that most parents of children with autism believe that vaccines contribute to their children's disorder.
During this time, parents would change their vaccination schedule or just stop giving children vaccines. Scientists say that current strategies to encourage parents to give their children vaccines have not been effective.
Some parents still believe that vaccines are responsible for affecting their children's autism. This could be linked to a fraudulent research paper that was published in 1998 that linked the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines to autism disorders. Upon further research, it was found that there was no link between the MMR vaccine and autism spectrum disorders.
The study was found to feature manipulated evidence, causing the publication The Lancet to partially retract the paper in 2004 and fully retract the paper in 2010.
Vaccination Study
Researchers from Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked on the study. They used the medical records of almost 600,000 children from six different locations around the country, including 3,729 children diagnosed with autism.
To be able determine whether the children had autismm, scientists searched for medical codes that revealed the presence of autism in children. If the codes appeared at two different points in time in the record, this indicated that the child has autism.
Children with autism in the study were born between January 1995 and September 2010. Researchers compared their vaccine rates with children without autism along the same ages, gender, and location. They also looked at younger children born between January 1997 and September 2014.
For the study, scientists looked at the recommended vaccination schedule, which includes the MMR vaccine. They found that 81.6 percent of 2,855 of children with autism ages four to six were fully vaccinated, compared to 94.1 percent of 483,961 children age four to six without autism.
Researchers also looked at the recommended vaccines for children ages 11 to 12. They found that 77.5 percent of children with autism were vaccinated, and 76.9 percent of children without autism were vaccinated. This suggests that parents may see vaccinating younger children as problematic for their autism.
The younger siblings of children with autism were also less likely to receive their vaccinations. Researchers suggest that a new approach should be used to educate parents and avoid situations where children aren't receiving their vaccines.
