We explored four key myths and why they don’t stand up to scrutiny:
- ‘Vaccines were never properly tested’
- ‘Vaccinated and unvaccinated kids haven’t been compared’
- ‘The ingredients are toxic’
- ‘Too many, too soon’
Today we’ll delve into five more that you also have likely encountered. The nine myths reflect those most frequently seen in my clinical practice and in discussions.
Each has been studied extensively and refuted. Yet each persists, because misinformation travels faster than correction and because they tap into genuine fears. Study after study presents solid evidence to the contrary, as I illustrate below.
Myth #5: ‘Vaccines cause autism’
No vaccine claim has been more thoroughly investigated or more definitively refuted.
The concern originated with a 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield proposing that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism through bowel inflammation. The study involved just 12 children, lacked a control group, and described symptom timing inconsistent with the proposed mechanism. It was later discovered that Wakefield had undisclosed financial conflicts and had manipulated data. The Lancet retracted the paper, and Wakefield lost his medical license.
But the damage was done. The hypothesis triggered some of the most rigorous epidemiologic scrutiny in medical history. A 2002 Danish study of 537,303 children found no difference in autism risk between those who received the MMR vaccine and those who did not. A 2019 follow-up of 657,461 children reached the same conclusion and specifically tested whether children with autistic siblings, a high-risk group, showed increased vulnerability. They did not. A US study of 95,727 children with older siblings, including siblings with autism, found no association. Study after study, country after country, the answer has been the same.
When the MMR hypothesis failed, the focus shifted to thimerosal. When thimerosal was removed and autism rates continued rising, the hypothesis shifted again to “too many vaccines given too soon.” When studies of total antigen exposure found no association, critics moved on to aluminum. Each iteration has been tested. Each has failed to find the predicted relationship.