Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On?

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Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On?

Research has soundly disproved the alleged connection, yet fears about vaccines continue to be a major risk to public health.

By Chris Mooney|Wednesday, May 06, 2009

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jun/06-why-d...y-live-on/

When it comes to autism, vaccine defenders make two central claims. First, the condition is likely to be mostly genetic rather than environmentally caused; and second, there are reasons to doubt whether there is really a rising autism epidemic at all.

It is misleading to think of autism as a single disorder. Rather, it is a spectrum of disorders showing great variability in symptoms and expression but fundamentally characterized by failed social development, inability to communicate, and obsessive repetitive behavior.

Autism generally appears in children at early ages, sometimes suddenly, and its genetic component has long been recognized. Studies have shown that if one identical twin has autism, there is at least a 60 percent chance that the other also does.

“From my point of view, it’s a condition associated with genetic defects and developmental biology problems,” says Peter Hotez, a George Washington University microbiologist and father of an autistic child.

Hotez, who is also president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, says, “I don’t think it’s possible to explain on the basis of any vaccine toxin that is acquired after the baby is born.”

Still, scientists cannot fully rule out environmental triggers—including various types of toxicity—that might interact with a given individual’s preexisting genetic inclination. Autism is a complex disorder with multiple forms of expression and potentially multiple types of causation that are incompletely understood.

As for whether autism is rising, a number of experts say it is hard to know. Is the increase real, or is it largely the result of more attention to the condition, an expansion of the autism spectrum to embrace many different heterogeneous disorders, a new focus on children classified as autistic in federal special education programs during the 1990s, and other factors? It could be some combination of all these things.

But if environmental triggers of autism cannot be ruled out, the idea that those triggers can be found in the MMR vaccine or in thimerosal has crumbled under the weight of scientific refutation.

studies have cast grave doubt on Andrew Wakefield’s MMR hypothesis—and so have subsequent scandals. Nearly all of Wakefield’s coauthors have since retracted the autism implications of their work; The Lancet has also backed away from the study. A series of investigative stories published in The Times of London unearthed Wakefield’s undisclosed ties to vaccine litigation in the U.K. and, more recently, suggested he fabricated his data (which Wakefield denies).

Ultimately, that is why the vaccine-autism saga is so troubling—and why it is so important to explore how science and so many citizens fell out of touch.

“It wouldn’t have been possible without the Internet,” says journalist Arthur Allen, who has covered the vaccine-autism story since 2002, when he wrote a high-profile New York Times Magazine article that took the thimerosal risk seriously. Over time Allen changed his mind, coming to reject the idea that vaccines are to blame.

Still, he recognizes why it persists. “If people believe something happened to them, there are so many people on the Web you can find who believe the same thing.” The Internet has become a haven for a number of autism support groups that continually reinforce the vaccine-autism argument. This has led to the radicalization of some elements who have denounced scientists as “vaccine barbarians,” “pharmaceutical and medical killers,” and so on.

And after all we have heard about environmental and chemical risks—some accurate, some not—people are now easily persuaded about all manner of toxin dangers.

But if the Internet has made it easier for pockets of antiscience feeling to grow and flourish, scientific authorities also deserve some of the blame. “I don’t think they woke up that this was a serious problem until maybe 2008,” David Gorski says about the growing antivaccine sentiment.

George Washington University’s Hotez notes that “the office of the surgeon general, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and the head of the CDC have not been very vocal on this issue.”

True, the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, and other governmental organizations feature accurate and up-to-date information about vaccine risks on their Web sites. But that is very different from launching a concerted communications campaign to ensure that the public retains faith in vaccination.

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