Once upon a time, responsible people proposed a hypothesis that the rise in incidence of autism was somehow correlated with the rise in the number and kind of vaccinations infants and young children received.
That's how science works, after all: noticing changes in the environment and wondering why the changes are occurring. Then there's the next step: conducting rigorous experiments to determine the relationships, if any, between the two observed phenomena. Then, if the predictions the hypothesis made are borne out by the experiment(s), then the hypothesis can be kept (and/or expanded). Otherwise, a responsible person must reject -- throw out, give up -- the hypothesis.
One hypothesis, proposed by Andrew Wakefield in 1998, was that the measles - mumps - rubella vaccine (MMR) was implicated in a form of autism. That hypothesis was been thoroughly discredited by 2001. Wakefield's scientific duplicity has also been thoroughly covered.
A second hypothesis was that a mercury-derivative vaccine preservative, thimerasol, somehow contributed to, or caused, autism. Arthur Allen's 2002 article, The Not-So-Crackpot Autism Theory, explains some of the factors and the timeline. By March, 2003, researchers concluded:
On the basis of current evidence, we consider it improbable that thimerosal and autism are linked.
The research continued, however, investigating possible links between autism and exposure to mercury via vaccination. No correlation has ever been found. As David Gorski wrote in Mercury in vaccines as a cause of autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs): A failed hypothesis
The scientific data, taken in totality, do not support a link between mercury in vaccines and autism.
In other words, there's no "controversy" any more -- there is no link between vaccination and autism. There's no valid "debate" about the role of vaccination in autism.
Denialism (n): the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.
Anyone who continues to claim that there is a link can rightfully be labeled a denialist, a propagator of pseudoscience, and may be engaging in the arrogance of ignorance.
But the beat goes on--in other words, anti-vaccination "activists" still push the two theories. And now ABC, in the guise of a TV show, is beating the big drum. They will be airing a drama, 'Eli Stone' on January 31, in which the title character, an attorney, sues his former client, a pharmaceutical company, "on behalf of the mother of an autistic child who believes a mercury-based preservative in a vaccine caused her son’s autism."
When it is revealed in a dramatic courtroom revelation
that the chief executive of the vaccine maker did not allow his
daughter’s pediatrician to give her the company’s vaccine, the jury in
“Eli Stone” awards the mother $5.2 million.
Remember, there is no more "debate" or "sides" -- autism and vaccines/mercury have no connection. The show's co-creator, Greg Berlanti, said that:
he believed that the script showed both sides of the argument. “I
think they wanted us to do our homework about all of it, which we did,”
he said.
Must be the University of Google homework used by Jenny McCarthy.
Why is this such a big deal? It's just a TV show pilot, after all.
It matters in the big picture -- the defense of truth and reality over fantasy and wishful thinking.
As Donald Kennedy wrote in Twilight of the Enlightenment
Twilight for the Enlightenment? Not yet. But as its beneficiaries, we should also be its stewards.
It matters in the small picture -- quack treatments for autism kill, failure to vaccinate injures and even kills.
Over the next two to six years, outbreaks of measles soared in Britain and Ireland, causing at least three deaths and hundreds of children to be hospitalized.
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