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Vaccines and autism are not linked or associated according to real science, published in real scientific journals written by real scientists and physicians. But this false claim that vaccines and autism are related is repeated by anti-vaxxers nearly every day.

Let’s be clear – the lack of a link between vaccines and autism is settled science. There is overwhelming evidence, as listed in this article, that there is no link. Outside of anecdotes, internet memes, misinformation, and VAERS dumpster-diving, there is no evidence that there is a link.

Probably as a result of reports that more and more children are being diagnosed with autism, people seem to be creating a false correlation (let alone causation) between vaccines and autism. So let’s take a look at the science.

CDC study – autism spectrum disorder rates

In April 2018, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that data showed a continued rise in the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD is considered to be a disorder of neural development, usually appearing before the age of 3 years, characterized by impaired social interaction and verbal and non-verbal communication, and by restricted, repetitive or stereotyped behavior.

Predictably, the anti-vaccine community jumped on this information (despite their hatred of the CDC) to make unfounded claims, not backed by science, that this was all the fault of vaccines. Of course, they did that.

The report, published in the peer-reviewed Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Surveillance Summary, utilized data from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, which is an active public health surveillance system that provides estimates of the prevalence of ASD among children aged 8 years who reside within 11 ADDM sites in the United States. Those sites are in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin (see Note 1). This study updated results from a similar study published in 2010.

ADDM surveillance is done in two separate phases:

The first phase consists of analyzing anonymized comprehensive evaluations of children performed by professional healthcare providers in that community. They use data sources from general pediatric health clinics along with specialized programs for children with developmental disabilities. Additionally, the ADDM network may also review records of special education students in public school The second phase determines if the child’s case meets the definition of ASD. A child meets the definition if a comprehensive evaluation by a qualified healthcare professional describes behavior consistent with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) (see Note 1). They included diagnoses for the following conditions – autistic disorder , pervasive developmental disorder -not otherwise specified (including atypical autism ), or Asperger disorder .

For 2014, the overall prevalence of ASD among the 11 ADDM sites was 16.8 per 1,000 (one in 59) children aged 8 years. Overall ASD prevalence estimates varied among sites, from 13.1-29.3 per 1,000 children aged 8 years.

This study from the CDC updated autism statistics to a level that seems that autism is growing quickly in the USA. But is it really?

Myths about vaccines and autism

Of course, there is a ridiculous belief that increased vaccinations and poorly designed vaccines, that contained thiomersal, the major villain of some of the story, has led to the increased rates of ASD. This legend is based upon a retracted and fraudulent paper authored by Mr. Andy Wakefield who alleged a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. If you want to read all about Wakefield’s despicable deceit, you can read it here, here, and here, a series of articles written by award-winning journalist Brian Deer and published in the British Medical Journal (now known as BMJ), a respected peer-reviewed publication.

Despite the fact that the CDC is unsure of why there is an increase (speculating on how we gather data rather than an environmental cause), despite the fact that Andy Wakefield lied, and despite the fact that 100s of vaccine studies have established no link between vaccines and autism, the anti-vaccine cult cannot help themselves in creating conspiracies or outlandish claims that vaccines cause autism.

They relish in fear, uncertainty, and doubt to push their pro-disease agenda.

One anti-vaccine religious zealot, Ginger Taylor, who appears to lack any formal education in science or any critical thinking skills, cherry-picked 80 (give or take) studies that seem to support the hypothesis that vaccines cause autism. Except, of the 80, at least 20-25 do not make the conclusion that Ginger wants us to believe. Either the researchers are talking about a whole different topic, or the data was so weak that there’s barely a statistical difference in the autism and non-autism groups.

Ginger is pandering to her uneducated sycophants who don’t actually know how to read scientific articles. Lucky for humanity and the health of children who won’t have to suffer from vaccine-preventable diseases, some of us know how to read and refute Ginger’s list of bogus studies.

What’s particularly laughable is that she uses numerous citations from Lucija Tomljenovic and Christopher Shaw, both of whom could be generously described as real shills for the anti-vaccine movement. Very well paid shills in fact. Their articles are based on ludicrous science, published in terrible open access, and in some cases, cursory (or even non-existent) peer-reviewed journals. Shaw and Tomljenovic are perfect examples of anti-vaccine shills whose articles get retracted. And retracted. And retracted again.

If these two anti-vaccine shills actually had real data, why don’t they published the research in top-notch journals that relish the publicity of cutting-edge science? Like Lancet. Or the New England Journal of Medicine. I guess if you have bogus data published in bad journals, you get what you get.

The real science of vaccines and autism

By cherry-picking a handful of poorly designed articles in poor journals, the anti-vaccine religious order tends to find anything that supports the a priori conclusion that vaccines are horrific and they cause autism.

Proper scientifically skeptical thinking says that you review all evidence, giving more weight to the quality and quantity of evidence – then you follow that higher quality and quantity of evidence to a conclusion.

These vaccine deniers ignore the vast weight of evidence of real science published in real journals. They search for the “evidence” that supports their preconceived conclusions.

Real science shows that not only do we lack evidence that vaccines cause autism, but we also have affirmative evidence that vaccines do not cause autism.

One example, published in the journal Vaccine, is a meta-analysis of five cohort studies involving 1,256,407 children, and five case-control studies involving 9920 children. As I’ve written before, meta-analyses form the basis, the deep foundation, of the scientific consensus, and they are the highest quality scientific evidence available. This study is like a gigantic clinical trial because it rolls up the highest quality data from those millions of subjects to develop solid conclusions.

The authors concluded that,

Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the components of the vaccines (thimerosal or mercury) or multiple vaccines (MMR) are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder.

This was a powerful, large, and well-constructed meta-review. This study takes all of the evidence and data that had been developed previously and rolled it up into one huge cohort and clinical trial. And once again, we find that vaccines don’t cause autism.

A 2019 large, powerful, robust cohort study, with nearly 600,000 subjects, provides nearly unimpeachable evidence that the MMR vaccine and autism are unrelated.

Below is a list of 155 peer-reviewed articles, published in the best journals across the world. This isn’t a list of every article published over the past 20 years that rejects the hypothesis that vaccines or its ingredients are linked to autism. There are probably 1000 more that contradict the claim that vaccines cause autism.

And we actually know what might be the cause of autism – genetics. Two large, powerful studies show just how closely linked autism is to a large set of genes. Again, it has nothing to do with vaccines.

The myth that vaccines and autism are linked has been debunked and debunked. The science is settled, despite the irrational claims of Del Bigtree. Bigtree has zero credibility on vaccines.

However, I’m not a fool. The zombie vaccine myths continue to rise from the dead.

Notes

The DSM-IV-TR was replaced by the DSM-5 in 2013, which meant that this 2014 study was right on the cusp of the changeover to the new diagnostic criteria, which changed some aspects of the ASD diagnosis. Probably most psychiatrists and psychologists had made the change during the timeframe of this study. Starting in 2016, the ADDM network will use the DSM-5 criteria. Editor’s note – this article was originally published in April 2014. It has been and will continue to be regularly updated as new research is published that dismisses any causal link (or correlation for that matter) between vaccines and autism.



Vaccines and autism citations

Here is a list of 146 peer-reviewed articles, published in relatively high impact factor or specialized journals, that document the lack of correlation (and therefore causation) between vaccines and autism. If I missed any key ones, please tap me on the shoulder and tell me.

Note: In almost every case in the list above, I’ve linked to the PubMed abstract, which often has limited information and lacks detailed analyses of methods, statistics and results. It is always preferred that you read the full article, but many of these publications sit behind expensive paywalls (I hate paywalls, they limit free access to scientific data). Students, especially in scientific fields and most academic physicians have access to the full article through their schools’ journal search engine. I have personal access to many, if not most, of the actual articles, and have read them in detail.

PubMed occasionally links to a “free” full version of the article. It can be found on buttons on the top right of the PubMed page, which says “Free Full Text” or something similar. These links may direct you to the actual journal, who graciously makes some articles free for the public, or to PubMed Central, a US National Institutes of Health library of full text medical and biological articles (although you can find the occasional article in other areas of science). I do not link, usually, to the free version of an article because it changes all the time, so I have found it better to go to PubMed. If there is a PubMed Central version of the article, you will see “PubMed Central PMCID:” in the standardized citation (which I always use for scientific journal articles). Using the PMC number, you can search for it through Google or the PMC website.

Also, many thanks to the brilliant folks at a pro-vaccine Facebook Page who put many hours into creating this list. I can’t link to the group or the individuals publicly, but they know who they are, and they made this blog post relatively easy. I’ve adapted the list to the scientific citation style that I prefer to use and added a few additional articles that support the scientific consensus.

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The Original Skeptical Raptor Lifetime lover of science, especially biomedical research. Spent years in academics, business development, research, and traveling the world shilling for Big Pharma. I love sports, mostly college basketball and football, hockey, and baseball. I enjoy great food and intelligent conversation. And a delicious morning coffee!

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