Edward Yazbak

F. Edward Yazbak, MD, is a retired pediatrician who writes regularly about autism and vaccines on the Internet. He practiced in Greater Woonsocket, Rhode Island and served as a school physician in Woonsocket and North Smithfield, Rhode Island before retiring. He is now based in Falmouth, Massachusetts, where he studies the medical histories of autistic children.
Yazbak is a leading proponent of the claim that vaccination of young children and pregnant women is a risk factor for subsequent development of autism. He is the grandfather of an autistic boy, who has what Yazbak describes as 'autistic enterocolitis' (a controversial entity).
Yazbak contends the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, when given to infant children, is a factor in the perceived increasing number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. Yazbak's first research on pregnancy and MMR involved seven women, contacted by email through vaccine groups, who received the MMR, and their children. His results were published on a website rather than a peer-reviewed medical journal. "All of the children who resulted from these pregnancies have had developmental problems, six of the seven (85 percent) were diagnosed as autistic and the seventh seems to exhibit symptoms often associated with autistic spectrum disorders," he wrote in the article.
Yazbak stands in opposition to the scientific consensus that there is no evidence that MMR plays a role in causing autism. However, the theory that MMR causes autism has led to a drop in vaccination rates. A 2005 measles outbreak in Indiana was attributed to children whose parents refused vaccination. After vaccination rates dropped in northern Nigeria in the early 2000s due to religious and political objections, the number of measles cases rose significantly, and hundreds of children died.
Bibliography
* Yazbak, F.E., [http://www.vacunacionlibre.org/yazbak.pdf "Autism in the United States: A Perspective"] (PDF) - Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Vol 8, No 4, Winter 2003
* Yazbak, F.E., "Autism seems to be increasing worldwide, if not in London" - Letter - British Medical Journal 2004;328:226-227 (January 24, 2004)
* Yazbak, F.E., - (2008)

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