Now How Can People Believe That About Vaccines?

by Kristina Chew · 2009-01-23 19:09:00 UTC
Topics:

You know the belief that vaccines can somehow be linked to autism has become so deeply steeped in the public consciousness---to the point that vaccines may be mistakenly thought to be "the" autism issue and that "autism advocate" has become, misleadingly, equivalent to "anti-vaccine advocate"----when a website on the "important issues in education" has a headline like Plan for Federal Autism Research Marked by Debate on Vaccines.

The article is about the recent resignation of now-former executive vice president for communications and outreach for Autism Speaks Alison Tepper Singer from that organization. Singer resigned the night before she was to cast a vote concerning the recommendations for research on autism spectrum disorders in the Strategic Plan of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. Noting her "concerns" about Autism Speaks' policy towards research on vaccines and citing the numerous studies that have refuted a vaccine-autism link, Singer stated

"I believe we must devote limited funding to more promising areas of autism research."

It wasn't too long ago that it was widely believed that autism was caused by bad parenting, by "refrigerator mothers" who withdrew from their children and failed to bond with them. Today, so many seem to think, or say they think, that vaccines or something in vaccines is linked to autism: Sometimes it seems that you can already hear future generations saying,

Now how in the world could people believe that?

Photo by Richard Drdul.

Kristina Chew
PREVIOUS STORY:
Defensive Medicine: The Truth Is Out There
NEXT STORY:
Why I'm Asking Aetna to Cover My Surgery

COMMENTS (21)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.