Dr. Andrew Wakefield wrote an article published in February 1998 in the British medical journal The Lancet that claimed the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella) caused autism in children. Since the study was published, vaccination rates across the developed world have dropped, and several diseases that are usually easily vaccinated are making a comeback.
In the last 12 years, anti-vaccine activists have crusaded to stop vaccinating children against common childhood illnesses like measles and mumps and more serious illnesses like whooping cough and polio. The activists base their beliefs on Wakefield’s original study, despite it being discredited by countless independent scientists, disproven by numerous public health associations and officially retracted by the journal that originally published it.
Wakefield’s study claimed the MMR vaccine caused autism and inflammatory bowel disease based on tests and procedures run on 12 autistic children. In May of this year, the U.K. General Medical Council struck Wakefield’s name from the medical registrar after a three-year investigation of the experimental methods employed in the 1998 study.
The GMC found him guilty of unethical conduct, ranging from collecting blood samples from children at his son’s birthday party to accepting 50,000 pounds from a group looking for evidence the MMR vaccine caused autism. Further investigation has also shown much of the original data was actually falsified.
Most anti-vaccine activists believe vaccines cause autism through mercury poisoning because vaccines are commonly preserved using the mercury compound thimerosal. While thimerosal does contain mercury, a standard vaccine preserved in thimerosal contains roughly the same amount of mercury found in the average tuna sandwich, according to the New York Times.
In an attempt to placate worried parents, vaccine manufacturers decreased thimerosal levels in their products.
Since 2001, vaccines have contained roughly the same amount of mercury found in an infant’s daily dose of breast milk.
These theories have been discredited by the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. Studies conducted by these organizations on children around the world found no increased incidence of autism in vaccinated over nonvaccinated children.
Many worried parents believe vaccines are responsible for the rise of autism in the past few decades, but most public health researchers believe cases of autism only appear to be increasing because of improved diagnostic practices and the broadening of the traditional autism diagnosis to ASD, autism spectrum disorder.
A larger number of children are being diagnosed with autism not because more children have the disease but because high-functioning autistics who would previously not have been diagnosed with traditional autism are being correctly diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
I am in no way trying to diminish the incredibly difficult sacrifices the parents of autistic children endure on a daily basis or to ridicule them for their beliefs cultivated by corrupt pseudoscientists.
However, the damage these beliefs can cause to innocent children is incalculable. Many autistic children are forced into dangerous and scientifically unjustified treatments for mercury poisoning, like chelation, because of the flawed beliefs of their parents and doctors. The anti-vaccine movement is also responsible for exposing children to potentially deadly diseases, which could be prevented with a simple vaccine.
Many parents wrongly believe these diseases have been destroyed by modern medicine and that vaccinations against them are inconvenient and potentially harmful relics. In reality, vaccinated diseases are still prevalent abroad and can reinfect an unvaccinated population easily through international travel. Only 56 cases of measles were found in the U.K. in 1998, but last year there were 1,348 confirmed cases.
Whooping cough, a disease once responsible for thousands of infant deaths a year, has also made a comeback with the rise of the anti-vaccine movement. Only 48 cases of whooping cough were confirmed in Florida in 2000, but there were 497 by 2008. As more and more children are denied vaccines, these diseases will continue to grow exponentially.
Anti-vaccine activists believe they are protecting their children from autism. In reality, they are risking their children’s lives and rejecting proven research — an unethical and scientifically unsound action.
Andrew Shockey is a 20-year-old biological engineering sophomore from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Ashockey.
 
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Contact Andrew Shockey at [email protected]