The Independent: Italian court rules MMR vaccine did trigger autism

[Ms. Toad]

115. The reality is that there are still some things we don't know

about how vaccines work. Most vaccines contain adjuvants, for example. We know how some of them work - we don't know how others work. (2nd paragraph in the Adjuvant section, next to last paragraph.

We are also just in the early stages of identifying specific variants of a number of autoimmune disorders via GWAS studies; diseases we previously thought were a single uniform disease but we are finding are really multiple strains with different genetic predispositions. The most prevalent theory is that a genetic predisposition plus an environmental trigger may be the pathway of disease manifestation. Adjuvants, or the bacteria or virus itself, may provide that environmental trigger (See, for example: Exemplary concerns expressed by scientists. There may be a small subpopulation of what we previously thought was a single uniform population that is, in fact, susceptible to vacinations providing the environmental trigger. Depending on how large the variant population group is, their susceptibility may not show up in the larger studies because the subgroup is too small to have a statistically significant impact.

What is being learned doesn't mean tossing vaccines out the window, but it does provide scientific support for having some rational conversations about the balance between the general need for widespread vaccination and consideration for how we identify and protect children who may be particularly susceptible to the possibility of the vaccination (or more likely the adjuvant) acting as a trigger for the manifestation of one or more immune disorders.