Vaccines and Autism: Why it won’t go away (just yet)

These are some of the reasons why I think the vaccines-autism scare has taken a life of its own, despite the lack of scientific evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship between thimerosal and autism (as well as MMR and autism).

• Vaccines have always caused controversy
• No established cause for autism
• Public mistrust of the current risk assessment and management
• Misinformation widely available
• Conflicts of interest (perceived and real)
• Pseudoscience
• Risk perception driven by the media

I will expand about some of the above in future posts.