|
|
|
Celebrity Jenny McCarthy will be the keynote speaker Saturday during a conference on autism at the Westin Hotel, 70 Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard.
The five-day conference which begins today is organized by the nonprofit group Autism One. One of the group’s and McCarthy’s main messages is that autism is caused by vaccines. However, many medical professionals disagree.
“I don’t think there is any evidence for that,” said Dr. Kathy Ellerbeck, who sits on the
Autism Subcommittee for the Elk Grove Village based-American Academy of Pediatrics, but practices in Kansas City.
She said British medical researcher Andrew Wakefield, who first suggested a link between vaccines and autism in 1998, has been thoroughly discredited as fraudulent.
But the fear Wakefield helped spread has caused even greater concern, doctors said. Diseases once thought eradicated, such as measles, are beginning to re-emerge because of concerned mothers who are refusing to vaccinate their children, according to doctors.
“In some places in the country, you’re getting pockets of about 20 percent of kids that aren’t immunized,” Ellerbeck said. “It is a very dangerous thing for public health.”
She said there were three recent cases of measles in Kansas City.
Locally, Dr. Perniya Masood, who practices pediatrics at Delnor Hospital in Geneva and at an office in St. Charles, said she recently almost had a patient die of “whooping cough,” which was thought to be eradicated decades ago.
“It really puts us in a bind,” Masood said. “We’re here to help patients. Unfortunately, sometimes there are consequences (to not being vaccinated.)”
Celebrity Jenny McCarthy will be the keynote speaker Saturday during a conference on autism at the Westin Hotel, 70 Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard.
The five-day conference which begins today is organized by the nonprofit group Autism One. One of the group’s and McCarthy’s main messages is that autism is caused by vaccines. However, many medical professionals disagree.
“I don’t think there is any evidence for that,” said Dr. Kathy Ellerbeck, who sits on the
Autism Subcommittee for the Elk Grove Village based-American Academy of Pediatrics, but practices in Kansas City.
She said British medical researcher Andrew Wakefield, who first suggested a link between vaccines and autism in 1998, has been thoroughly discredited as fraudulent.
But the fear Wakefield helped spread has caused even greater concern, doctors said. Diseases once thought eradicated, such as measles, are beginning to re-emerge because of concerned mothers who are refusing to vaccinate their children, according to doctors.
“In some places in the country, you’re getting pockets of about 20 percent of kids that aren’t immunized,” Ellerbeck said. “It is a very dangerous thing for public health.”
She said there were three recent cases of measles in Kansas City.
Locally, Dr. Perniya Masood, who practices pediatrics at Delnor Hospital in Geneva and at an office in St. Charles, said she recently almost had a patient die of “whooping cough,” which was thought to be eradicated decades ago.
“It really puts us in a bind,” Masood said. “We’re here to help patients. Unfortunately, sometimes there are consequences (to not being vaccinated.)”
