Hepatitis B Vaccine Triples Risk of Autism in Infant Boys

In the well-respected Journals of Epidemiology Carolyn Gallagher and Melody Goodman of the Graduate Program in Public Health at Stony Brook University Medical Center, NY, wrote that, “Boys who received the hepatitis B vaccine during the first month of life had 2.94 greater odds for ASD [Autistic Spectrum Disorders]  compared to later- or unvaccinated boys.”

The conclusion states that: “[The] Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with hepatitis B vaccine had a 3-fold greater risk of ASD; risk was greatest for non-white boys.” The authors used U.S. probability samples obtained from National Health Interview Survey 1997-2002 datasets.

I’ve previously reported on multiple risk factors that are known to increase the risk of autism such as jaundice, epidural anesthesia and acetaminophen use while pregnant just to name a few. Could the Hepatitis B vaccine be another risk factor associated with the rising Autism Epidemic? If you didn’t know the CDC now puts autism as affecting 1 in 68 children, a 30% rise than the previous years.

Now don’t read this data wrong, it doesn’t say it causes autism (in the US court of Law anything above a risk factor of 2.0 is considered to prove causation though), the data merely states it raises the risk of developing autism.

So lets look at the data.

The CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disability Monitoring Network (ADDM) publishes childhood statistics in birth cohorts, grouped into years. Children born in 1992 had an estimated Autistic Spectrum Disorder rate of one in 160 and those born in the 1994 cohort (they skipped 1993) had nearly the same rate. However they children born in the 1996 cohort had nearly a 50% increase in the rate of autism to the one in 80 range.

Why the jump?

Well one possibility is the Hepatitis B Vaccine, which the study above was focused on. This vaccine was introduced to the newborn vaccine schedule in 1991 and was given to children born within the first three hours (as a side note this vaccine did contain 25 micrograms of thimerosal). However in 1991 and 1992 only 8% of infant children received this vaccine according to the CDC’s National Immunization Survey. In 1994 it grew to roughly 27%. But by 1996 the vaccination rate had grown to 87%, which as shown above was the year that the ASD rate made a huge jump in incidence.

In addition I have discussed many studies that have supported the claim that the Hepatitis B Vaccine disturbs myelin, the nervous systems “insulation” which protects and nourishes the nerves. In the Journal of Neurology, a study showed that children who had received the full Hepatitis B series had a 50% increase in developing a central nervous system inflammatory demyelination disease than children who had not received the vaccine.

I think the data clearly shows that the Hepatitis B vaccine is a known risk factor for developing autism. Now does that mean you shouldn’t vaccinate your child with the Hepatitis B vaccine, well that’s a personal choice I believe you have every right of making. My job is to inform and help you make educated decisions that will impact your children for the rest of your lives.

Personally I do choose to vaccinate my children with the Hepatitis B vaccine. I’ve made that decision solely based on my profession, where I often get exposed to blood that may be contaminated with the Hepatitis B virus. However I have modified the time of vaccination until my children are older and have a more mature immune system.

Either way, the pile of risk factors for developing autism are growing in the research community.