For over a decade now most doctors, researchers, and government officials have denied that there could be any link between vaccines and autism. They’ve denied it so vehemently that they’ve refused to adequately study the very idea. Until now. The federal government’s vaccine advisory panel (the National Vaccine Advisory Committee or NVAC) just voted to recommend to the US Dept of Health and Human Services that they and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conduct large-scale prospective research trials in groups of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children to determine various theoretical risk factors and possible severe reactions to vaccines, including autism.
For those of you who are saying, “Wait – they HAVE researched it extensively and have proven there is NO link between vaccines and autism.” Well, that’s not exactly accurate. To date, no study has “proven” there is no link. Many studies have “failed to demonstrate a causative relationship between vaccines and autism” – in essence, showing there probably is no link, or even there is almost definitely no link. But that is a very far cry from “proving for sure that there is no link.” What they HAVE done so far is use population-based statistical analyses (epidemiological studies) to determine that vaccines probably don’t cause autism. But no large prospective study has yet to be done using unvaccinated children as a large control group to have something to compare the vaccinated children to. This is really the gold standard for coming as close as we can to proving something is safe. And that’s the type of research the government had, up until now, refused to do. And we are not just talking about autism. There are so many other theoretical reactions to vaccines that have never been adequately studied. We’ve just written them off as so rare we won’t worry about them. Finally, after years of public pressure, the government has agreed to do the research.
Maybe.