Autism boards

[bbrandonsmom]

This might be stupid-but why are all the Autism boards different regarding their stand on vaccines as a possible cause for the spectrum disorders? Is it author/owner based opinion? I see most are all in agreement that more study needs to be done, but some are writing off vaccines, yet others are not.

[TanyaL]

I think the biggest reason is that there are two fundamentally opposing camps trying to understand ASD issues and a range of parents in between. Some people feel ASDs are completely health-related, manifestations of nutrition and gut and toxin issues (and other problems), and others feel that ASDs are a natural human variant--basically not a problem, except for needing to help kids learn to cope with a world that doesn't understand them. If ASDs aren't a health problem, then vaccination is a non-issue because there's nothing wrong with the person and that diverts attention from approaches to help kids live in the world. For people working on health issues with their kids, who feel that vaccination did change their child's health and behavior, they may have very strong views indeed.