Vaccination Fears and Autism
To be sure, there have been large scale studies published, which rule out vaccines as a cause of autism. But there is no scientific consensus on what could be the reason for the apparent increase in cases--or even if, in fact, there are more kids with autism. (Some believe there are just more kids being diagnosed, due to a better understanding of the autism spectrum.) But you also have a large, vocal group of parents of autistic kids, who are convinced that we are in the midst of an epidemic, and a major culprit are vaccines that had mercury.
Both sides are about to come to court, and likely the controversy will be stoked again. Investigative reporter David Kirby's book, Evidence of Harm, and various activists have suggested that the link to vaccines was never fully explored or purposely suppressed because of undue pressure from the pharmaceutical industry (a charge denied by government officials, scientists and many others).
Unfortunately, we're living at a time when there is so much suspicion of vaccines that people are refusing to have their kids vaccinated. So we're seeing increases in diseases like whooping cough, which were all but eliminated before. Or, as fellow journalist Jessica Snyder Sachs reports, parents are purposely exposing their kids to chicken pox (rather than get their kids vaccinated), even though chicken pox can be an extremely dangerous disease.
Stumble It!
posted by pam at 1:07 PM
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