Do Vaccines Cause Autism? Busting the Myth
Correlation does not equal causation. This is something that the general population seems to misunderstand. Many believe that if B follows A, then A must be the cause of B. Let’s say that A is the vaccine and B is an autism diagnosis. If you get vaccinated and are soon after diagnosed with autism, then the vaccine must have caused you to develop autism. Right? Wrong.
Where did this absurd myth originate? The MMR vaccine, which is for mumps, measles, and rubella, is administered to 12 to 18 month old children. This is also the usual age for signs of developmental disorders like autism to begin showing. Therefore, many people mistakenly believed, and still believe, that MMR vaccines cause autism.
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a London physician, was conducting studies with the MMR vaccine and found that apparently normal children manifested “autistic” symptoms after being administered the vaccine. He hypothesized that the measles virus in the vaccine triggered inflammatory lesions in the colon so that it was no longer permeable to neurotoxic proteins that had to reach the brain; these proteins were necessary for healthy brain function and thus, the lack of them led the children to develop autism. Surprisingly, nobody publicly questioned Wakefield’s ideas at the time despite the irrational logic that this precise biological origin could lead to such a diverse spectrum, a spectrum that he clearly didn’t account for. If Wakefield’s logic was correct, then why are some autistic people nonverbal and others find social interaction unchallenging?
Another theory involved a component of the vaccine vials: thimerosal, an antiseptic that combines ethyl-mercury and thiosalicylate. The large amounts of mercury that are dumped in the ocean can cause central nervous system (CNS) damage to shellfish and humans. As autism is a CNS condition, people concluded that the mercury in vaccine vials was responsible for inducing autism. In reality, the extent of the mercury found in oceans compared to the minimal amount used in vaccines is incomparable.
So no, vaccines do not cause autism. Wakefield’s license was actually revoked for falsifying information and ethical violations like conducting unnecessary invasive procedures on children. A 2015 JAMA study analyzed the health records of over 95,000 children, 2,000 of whom were classified as “at risk” for autism due to having an autistic sibling. The study confirmed that the MMR vaccine did not increase risk for autism spectrum disorder.
Despite the correlation to autism, vaccines have always garnered skepticism in regards to infants’ immune systems being too weak to handle vaccines, since live virus vaccines like MMR contain a weakened version of the virus or bacteria that they target. Cynical-minded folks believe that the government is poisoning and brainwashing us. It seems scary to inject our children with an unknown concoction, but at some point you have to trust the science. It is much more harmful to latch onto propagandistic, anti-vax ideas than to simply get vaccines. Don’t trust conjectural conspiracies over scientific evidence.
