In my work as a pediatrician, I often come across alleged vaccine damage, where a correlation (something that happens after vaccination) is mistaken for causation (what happens is directly caused by the vaccine).
I’m not surprised: it’s normal, for non-experts and especially where strong emotions are involved, to latch onto something to accept a difficult reality… but reality is not only difficult, but also complex.
In this brief article, I want to illustrate some situations that could happen (fortunately rarely) and that might be attributed to vaccinations, but that have nothing to do with the effects of vaccines.
Vaccine damage or metachromatic leukodystrophy?
“From 2 years old something changed and it just so happened that he had recently completed vaccinations. Now we want justice!”
Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) is a serious GENETIC neurodegenerative disease, rare and progressive, belonging to the group of lysosomal storage disorders.
The late-infantile form begins between 6 months and 2 years and is more severe than those with later onset.
It is characterized by progressive deterioration of neurocognitive motor functions, seizures, difficulty speaking and walking, behavioral disorders and personality alterations.
Remember: “correlation is not causation.”
If something happens after doesn’t mean because of.
It’s important not to believe everything you read on social media regarding alleged “vaccine damage,” especially if they always have an inevitable IBAN at the end of the tearjerker post.
For Metachromatic Leukodystrophy, a true experimental gene therapy (which mRNA vaccines are NOT!) has been available in Italy since 2022 and is giving hope to affected children.
Vaccine damage or Dravet syndrome?
“He could sit with support, loved rolling on the carpet, was ready to start crawling. He recognized us and smiled, he had always been well. After the second dose of the hexavalent vaccine, that same evening the epileptic seizures began, since then he’s no longer our child.”
Dravet syndrome is a rare epileptic and developmental encephalopathy of GENETIC origin, which begins in the first year of life (usually between 5-8 months) characterized by untreatable seizures, associated with cognitive and motor deficits that are typically triggered by febrile episodes (even following vaccinations!).
Children show progressive cognitive decline after early impairment of language and vision. About 86% of patients have intellectual disability and 31% have an autism spectrum disorder.
I’ve included Sara’s story among the sources (you’ll find it at the end of the article).
It’s better to ignore other stories told on social media solely for the purpose of collecting money on the backs of seriously ill children that have nothing to do with vaccinations.
Damaged by vaccine or Sanfilippo syndrome?
“There are videos from when he was little where he smiled/crawled/said ‘mama’; everything changed around 2 years old, after completing vaccinations.”
Sanfilippo syndrome is a rare GENETIC terminal neurodegenerative disease that manifests between 2 and 4 years of age.
What happens is that affected children lose all the skills they have acquired! They suffer from seizures and movement disorders, experience pain and suffering and then die, often before the second decade of life.
Due to its neurodegenerative nature and multisystemic impact, Sanfilippo syndrome is often called “childhood Alzheimer’s” or “childhood dementia.”
I would be curious to read the medical records of children “damaged by vaccine.”
Especially those used by their own parents as circus acts on social media with videos, photos, moving posts and continuous requests for money.
A couple of mothers told me they would send me the documentation of their children damaged by vaccine.
Do you think I received it?
Moreover, as we have seen, this is not the only childhood neurodegenerative disease that involves significant deterioration after the first months of apparent and absolute well-being. Without necessarily bringing up autism spectrum disorders (where symptoms are actually already present from the beginning even if not very visible).
The simple explanation is not always the real one
Many people know Occam’s razor, a rhetorical and logical device according to which the simplest and most plausible explanation is the one most probably true. This is not always the case, especially in the complex world of health and medicine.
This is why it’s important, before seeking improbable causalities, to make sure you know the field you want to talk about very well and to accept that, however competent we are, we are not always able to find a single cause for some unpleasant situations.
And that, in some cases, the cause may not please us, but it is not necessarily the one we would like it to be.
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SOURCES
1. https://www.sindromedidravet.org/storia-di-sara/
2. https://www.fondazionetelethon.it/storie-e-news/news/dalla-ricerca/terapia-genica-per-la-leucodistrofia-metacromatica-una-storia-lunga-25-anni/
3. https://www.osservatoriomalattierare.it/malattie-rare/leucodistrofia-metacromatica
4. https://www.orpha.net/it/disease/detail/33069
5. https://www.sanfilippofighters.org/sindrome-di-sanfilippo