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In 1998, there was a groundbreaking study telling parents that their children were at risk of getting autism from vaccines. Parents everywhere collectively gasped. After all, they had been told for years vaccines were the best way to prevent any number of unwanted diseases. Now they find out the very treatment they thought was making their children better could potentially result in devastating consequences, at least in the case of low-functioning Autism.
The only problem was that same study published in the Lancet was later retracted. Its author, Andrew Wakefield, was shown to have falsified data. His "science" proved to be fraudulent, and riddled with conflicts of interest. His research was so void of ethics that the British General Medical Council removed him from the medical registry and he's no longer allowed to practice medicine in the United Kingdom.
The damage, however, was done. As with so many other societal perceptions based on debunked science, vaccines causing autism is still a very real concern for many parents. In a survey published in Health Affairs in 2011, 30%-36% of parents were concerned that their children were given too many vaccines in the first 2 years of life, and that those vaccines might cause learning disabilities (like autism). 10% say they will delay, or refuse vaccinations believing it's safer than following the recommended CDC schedule.
To put this issue to bed, let me say, as a medical professional who has researched this extensively (and someone who has two members of my family who are on the autistic spectrum; so this is a subject I was already quite familiar with even before doing the necessary research to answer this question)- there has never been a single reputable study ever performed that demonstrates any link between vaccines and autism. In fact, countless studies have shown there is absolutely no link between the two.
No, vaccines do not cause autism. To understand why I'm so confident in saying that, let's throw some good science at this myth, learn a little about Autism and vaccines, and see if we can't quiet down the naysayers.
Autism, in general, is a broadly defined developmental "disorder". Those diagnosed can have a wide range of cognition issues and abnormal behaviors. They can have significantly different social, behavioral, and intellectual abilities. Due to this, the term Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is now used to describe the many differing presentations.
Because there are so many misconceptions about these presentations, even among psychiatrists and doctors (and I think in many instances the prevailing views are just flat wrong from my experience), I'll just refer you to an absolutely phenomenal article by Maia Szalavitz about the work of famed neuroscientist Dr. Henry Markram (director of the Blue Brain Project, an attempt to create a synthetic mammalian brain, and director of the Human Brain Project, an attempt to simulate the human brain using supercomputers).
Dr. Markram also found that the prevailing views among scientists and psychologists about autism simply didn't line up with what he was seeing with his own son's autism and other cases he studied. Being one of the world's leading neuroscientists, he has since leveled his amazing brain at the problem. Joining him in this endeavor is the equally impressive brain of his wife, Dr. Kamila Markram.
After a breakthrough involving observing hyper-connected cells in the subjects they were studying, the two came up with a theory which, in my experience (and, of course, theirs as you'll see), seems much closer to the mark when you actually live with people on the spectrum and get to be around them all the time. For instance, among other things, you'll see he debunks the whole "lack of empathy" thing. Here's the article:The Boy Whose Brain Could Unlock Autism
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No, Vaccines Don't Cause Autism