Vaccines and Autism

The controversy surrounding vaccines and autism was popularized by a British study

published in 1998. In this study, Andrew Wakefield concluded that there is a link between

vaccine injections and autism. This has led to many parents taking a stand against vaccines and

refusing to vaccinate their children. The debate over whether vaccines are safe for children still

exists today even though no attempt to replicate this study has been successful, or that

Wakefield’s study having been faked, leading to him losing his medical license.

There are three distinct reasons as to why the vaccine debate has become more

politicized. The first reason as to why this debate is politicized stems from a lack of

understanding. I imagine that very few people really know exactly how vaccines protect against

disease, and where there is a lack of understanding, people are surely going to fill that void with

skepticism or wariness. In this case, I think that the fake article gave these skeptical people

something to latch onto. The second reason that vaccines have become political is the “freedom

argument”. This is the biggest reason that this issue has become a political argument rather than

scientific argument. Parents and people against vaccines say that they should have the right to

decide if their child gets vaccinated, not the government. This makes it political because now the

argument is about whether or not there should be legislation that forces newborns to be

vaccinated. The last reason that vaccines are politicized is that there aren’t people to translate the

science for us. As we discussed in class, Americans no longer care about science as much

leading to the journalists who explained developing scientific studies to the general public no

longer have those same jobs. This feeds into the first reason, being a lack of information.

Combined, these three reasons have caused scientific studies to take a back seat to political

debate about whether vaccines cause autism or should be required.

 I think that two ways in which scientists could have prevented this topic from becoming

politicized both have to do with communicating more with journalists and news outlets. In class

we learned that less than 25 percent of scientists talk with reporters. This lack of communication

with the people who translate the complex scientific world for the American public leads to a

lack of scientific knowledge in the public. The two subjects that scientists could have discussed

are how vaccines work and why Wakefield’s study shouldn’t be taken seriously. If these two

things were communicated clearly to the public, there would not be a debate about whether

vaccines are safe or should be required.

 Bibliography
Wilson, B. (2015, February 5). A discredited British study helped create today's anti-vaccine movement.
Retrieved February 20, 2018, from https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-05/how-did-
discredited-study-create-us-anti-vaccine-madness