Vaccines do *not* cause Autism, says doctor

Yes, the good old vaccine debate again!

A quick recap - It started with a man named AJ Wakefield who published a study that concluded the MMR vaccine was dangerous, and suggested a different type of vaccine instead. However it seems he had financial interests in promoting his own vaccine, and if he could "prove" that the MMR vaccine was more harmful than his, then he stood to profit a lot of cash.

In May of this year, The General Medical Council found Dr Wakefield guilty of serious misconduct. Just one small quote from the article -

And the panel hearing the case took exception with the way he gathered blood samples. Dr Wakefield paid children £5 for the samples at his son's birthday party.

Most people on ATS are definitely in the vaccines-are-dangerous camp, and considering the people and companies who are pushing it, I agree. Guilt by association sort of thing. But it really makes you wonder, when the people leading the fight against them basically abuse children for their own questionable medical experiments.

The creator of this video works in the medical field, and has made dozens of highly respectable videos pertaining to religion and evolution. He just made a new one and runs through the whole debate. He's very convincing.







Is he wrong? Or right? Somewhere in between? I'd like to know what ATS thinks.

Note to self - don't post threads at 315 in the morning if you want any reception whatsoever.

It's not definitive whether vaccines CAUSE autism, but there are certainly a number of credible, peer reviewed studies which come to the conclusion that vaccines, contribute to autism is small children.

Whether they would have had a less severe form of autism naturally, or no autism at all without the vaccines is still up for debate.

However, I myself am against vaccinations exept the major ones which have been around for 50 years that are tested, tried and actually do something good, like prevent TB or Malaria etc..

~Keeper



[edit on 6/28/2010 by tothetenthpower]

I'd be surprised if vaccines caused autism. I imagine most of the people here and probably everyone I know has been vaccinated. We're probably all fine. Even if vaccines did cause autism in a small fraction of the population, I'd still be OK with it. I'd much rather there be a few people with autism than have everyone die of some horrible disease (smallpox for example). Bill Gates supposedly has Aspergers and he turned out to be quite the success and smallpox is almost completely gone.


I can see being angry if your child has autism and looking for someone to blame for your misfortune but, for most of us, vaccines worked out fine. They've been good for humanity as a whole.