Vaccines and Autism
All medical professionals have had questions raised by parents re a possible connection between vaccines and autism, in spite of repeated trials that have failed to show a link. Finally, it appears that one of the larger autism groups is listening. For the entire article, go to the article directly.
Autism group softens stance on vaccines
Sunday, August 16, 2009
By Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Autism Speaks, the nation's largest autism advocacy group, recently made its clearest public statement yet that minimizes the link between vaccines and autism.
In a prepared interview posted on the Autism Speaks Web site, the group's chief science officer, Dr. Geri Dawson, says that scientific studies have found no link between thimerosal, a mercury preservative used in certain vaccines, and autism. Nor have they found a connection between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism.
"So ... given what the scientific literature tells us today," she says, "there is no evidence that thimerosal or the MMR vaccine cause autism" and "evidence does not support the theory that vaccines are causing an autism epidemic."