Nice take on this. A couple of things I’d like to add.

You say that either people believe vaccines cause autism or they don’t. I personally “believe” vaccines do not cause autism based on scientific evidence. The anti-vaccine movement has a religious-like belief that vaccines cause autism despite the scientific evidence.

Great comment about Jenny M. making money. Dr. Offit received a lump sum for his vaccine. He will not make more or less money no matter how much is sold. Like you said, this is a bad reason to dismiss the data anyway. A better reason would be if the data could not be reproduced. This is the case with Dr. Wakefield’s data. He actually had a huge conflict of interest with his study. However, this is not the reason why his study was poor. It was a small study, and the results have not been able to be reproduced.

In general, the biggest problem I have with groups like Generation Rescue (Jenny M’s group) is that they claim that the medical establishment is hiding “the truth”, but practically everything they say is either a manipulation of data or a flat-out lie. This reminds me of when Stephen Colbert (humourously) says he loves “the truth” but that he hates “facts”.

I talked with my pro-vaccine pediatrician about this, and she had a very logical comment: there is almost no way to prove a link or disprove a link. It would be way too difficult of a study to undertake and maybe impossible to really conclude. One hard thing about studies is who pays for them–there are definitely advantages to the big pharmaceuticals to disprove a link. There may be a religious-type of belief attached to some people who believe vaccines are linked, but most don’t have anything to gain. (Other than Jenny McCarthy.) That doesn’t mean they’re right either. I’ve heard that some have suggested that the mercury in vaccines has caused effects similar to autism–mercury poisoning and autism have similar symptoms. All in all, I think it’s a convoluded issue that is not going to be quickly or easily cleared up. I also am not totally paranoid or about conspiracies, but I think everyone (dateline producers included) has an agenda and that can affect how groups are portrayed, tests are conducted, etc. I think it’s really hard to trust any one person or group about this, which sucks. I don’t know what to believe.

Kiki: links are very easy to prove. Either the data support the assertion or they don’t. Disproving links is the hard part, hence the situation we find ourselves in today.

Kiki, it is true that, in science, you can never prove 100% that something (like a link) does not exist. I read a great analogy the other day – I could say I have an invisible purple unicorn in my garage. You could never 100% prove I was wrong. All you could do was say there was no evidence of this creature.

It is the same with the vaccine-autism link. There have been many studies, and still no link has been shown. Some anti-vaccine groups say they won’t be satisfied until someone can say with 100% certainty that vaccines do not cause autism. This is impossible, so this argument will never end, no matter the evidence provided.

Also, mercury (thimerosal) was taken out of pediatric vaccines in the US in 2001. (In some states it is still in the flu vaccine, but I know not here in California.) However, the autism rate continues to rise. This is the ultimate evidence that thimerosal does not cause autism. (As close to 100% as you can get.) However, people still complain about the mercury in vaccines that no longer exists.

Large studies, even those sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, have to be peer reviewed. Also, if someone is suspicious of the data, it can be reviewed after publication. As Brett said, the fact that the study was paid by someone does not by itself make it a bad study. It may cause someone to review it.

Vaccine manufacturers are heavily regulated. Anti-vaccine groups are not. Sometimes it blows my mind what they publish on their sites. If a pharma company tried something like that, they would be shut down in a minute.

@Citizen Mom, That’s a terrific point, I appreciate your bringing it up. I visited an autism treatment center while in college and it was quite an experience. I’m not able to do it justice in this comment but what I saw there, in terms of the variety of patients and the different methods of treating each of them, was extraordinary.

The thought of not vaccinating a child does not make sense. Even if there is a small risk of Autism. There are bigger and further reaching risks to our children and general population if otherwise controllable diseases are allowed to spread through not vaccinating our children.

I see many stories about autism treatments, but they also tend to be simplified and sensationalized. Meanwhile there are autistic people everywhere with all levels of severety and cognition, while most of society does not know how to recognize the manifestations of autism. Awareness should be promoted through TV shows, documentaries and stories that showed different autistic people going about their daily lives, in the classrooms etc. Teachers should also prepare and study on this issue because more and more autistic children are being mainstreamed.

Comments
This blogpost is very sensible as is the discussion that follows it. My two cents, as a journalist who has followed the controversy from its inception: Science can not prove that any individual autistic child was not made that way by a vaccine–unless there’s strong evidence of some other cause. But science can and has shown that children vaccinated with vaccines containing trace amounts of mercury, or the MMR vaccine, are no more likely than other children to become autistic. The data is in on this question and it’s pretty indisputable. There was a time when there were plausible if improbable theories that MMR-provoked leaky gut syndrome leading to autism, or that thimerosal-provoked encephalitis led to autism. Those theories have been disproven by numerous studies. Could the pathophysiology constructed in these theories actually occur in rare instances? Perhaps. But they would be rare. THe hundreds and even thousands of people who attend conferences at which people like Andrew Wakefield speak are deluding themselves to think that his cures, which are based on a disproven theory, will work.