When comparing 17,000 boys and girls in California and Oregon, the vaccinated children were 120 percent more likely to have asthma. In the group of 9,000 boys, those who were vaccinated were 224 percent more likely to have ADHD, 155 percent more likely to have a neurological disorder, and 61 percent more likely to have autism compared to unvaccinated boys. Girls only represented 20 percent of the neurological disorder cases, and this smaller sample size did not show any significant differences in prevalence between the vaccinated and unvaccinated girls.

This survey was commissioned by Generation Rescue and performed by an independent survey company (SurveyUSA), a well-known national opinion research firm. This survey was designed to correspond to the CDC’s national phone survey study on autism prevalence, which the CDC characterized as highly reliable and reproducible. The survey cost a mere $200,000, and the authors comment on the important findings they derived from this simple and inexpensive study compared to the billions of dollars spent by the pharmaceutical industry on vaccine research.

This survey confirms a previously published study of asthma and allergies, which had also shown the association of health problems in children with vaccination. In that study of 1,177 children, the unvaccinated group had 11 times less asthma if they had no family history of asthma and no previous use of antibiotics. Unvaccinated children with a family history of asthma were still only half as likely to have asthma compared to the vaccinated children.

These two studies confirm the theory that vaccines are associated with chronic health problems (asthma) and neurological disorders (ADHD, autism). The studies do not purport to explain the mechanism responsible, whether it is an additive in the vaccines (e.g. mercury, formaldehyde) or the process of vaccination itself (e.g. the shift in the TH1/TH2 immune system balance to TH2 dominance that produces more allergic responses and inflammation). They do suggest that the increasing number of vaccines given to children may play an important role in the increasing incidence of asthma, ADHD, and autism. These are sobering findings that should provide a warning that our strategy to prevent infectious diseases may be backfiring and causing chronic and debilitating disease. What is the cost of vaccines on the health of our population? Have we replaced the occurrence of childhood acute illnesses with an epidemic of chronic immune system depletion and neurological disorders? If so then our vaccine strategy has a very high price indeed.

The Generation Rescue survey published June 26, 2007 can be found at their website www.generationrescue.org/survey.html

Enriquez R, et al. The relationship between vaccine refusal and self-report of atopic disease in children. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 2005 (April); 115 (4):737-744