The study is trying to determine if there is a statistically significant difference in the autism rate of at risk children due to vaccination. The methodology is not necessarily wrong but so many people overlook the simple implications of the test sample. The abstract states that there were 1,929 high risk kids and 134 of them (6.95%) got Autism with no statistical difference in the Autism rate between the 1,409 vaccinated children and the 520 non-vaccinated children.
At a 6.95% incident rate we would expect 98 vaccinated and 36 non-vaccinated high risk children to become autistic if there is no effect due to vaccination. If the non-vaccinated group had a much lower incidence rate than 6.95% or if the vaccinated group had a much higher incidence rate then we could conclude that vaccinations cause Autism. So the question is simple, How much higher/lower would the rates have to be to say that there is a statistically significant difference?
Since the sample size is so small, the non-vaccinated group incident rate would have to be 59% lower than 6.95% or drop to an incidence rate of 4.06% to be statistically significant at the 99% level of significance. The vaccinated group, which is relatively small but at least larger would have to increase by 25% to 8.70% to conclude that vaccinations cause Autism.
You see, statistics are your friend. Since vaccinations don't increase the rate of Autism by 25% in high risk children big pharma can conclude that vaccinations don't cause Autism. This study is a piece of crap and any idiot that has been using it to make a conclusion regarding the safety of vaccinations is just an imbecile.
The next time I take your advice on how to interpret statistical evaluations will be the first. You are completely unable to see the forest for the trees. The sample size is modest, not small, and the main point of this study was that even in children who have older siblings with autism (i.e., at risk children for autism, since there is a known genetic component of autism), the rates of autism in these younger siblings was clearly not a function of whether these children had been vaccinated with MMR or not.
This study, if it were the only study evaluating autism rates vs. vaccination rates, would certainly not be considered the most statistically robust study ever conducted, due to the modest sample size of 1929 children who are younger siblings of children with autism. However, in the larger picture, when combined with the dozen or so major studies, with much larger sample sizes, that have unequivocally shown no statistical correlation between autism and vaccination, this study simply becomes one more study that confirms this lack of correlation, as per the editorial, below, wihch accompanied the study.
"In an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Bryan King, a psychiatrist and autism specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, noted all the ways this research question has been studied. “Taken together,” he said, “some dozen studies have now shown that the age of onset of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, the severity or course of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, and the now the risk of ASD recurrence in families does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.”
To me, it's unconscionable that we're still wasting time and money on this issue, when there are so many more pressing medical issues out there. And it's a sad reflection on the inability of so many people to understand fairly simple scientific and statistical concepts. Also, by the way, this study and most of the other studies on this topic was NOT funded by Big Pharma - most (if not all - I haven't checked them all) of these studies have been funded/supported by governmental entities, like NIH, CDC, the Dept. of Health and Human Services, etc. But don't let that get in the way of your hysterical rants.
