Monday, November 5, 2007

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.