On Saturday, Colin Meloy, the singer and guitar of the Decemberists, tweeted at Stein, bluntly asking whether she believed vaccines cause autism. Stein clarified that “I’m not aware of evidence linking autism with vaccines.” Some Twitter users reported that she had first sent and then deleted an earlier tweet in response to Meloy, which more clearly stated that there was “no evidence” linking the two. In an email, Stein’s spokeswoman told me that “The deleted tweet was the result of a miscommunication among staffers.” She added that “Dr. Stein has repeatedly articulated her support for vaccination,” and accused the Washington Post piece of being “framed to cast doubt on that question.”

Stein tweeted again, saying “I support vaccinations,” on Monday.

But Stein is not the only candidate to address vaccines this election cycle. As first pointed out by the Twitter user @mcclure11, three of the four media-receiving presidential candidates have appeared to pander to anti-vaccine advocates. Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson has tweeted “No to mandatory vaccines.” And Donald Trump linked vaccines to autism in a GOP primary debate last fall, before being corrected on-stage by the surgeon Ben Carson.

Hillary Clinton tweeted in support of vaccines in February of this year. “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and # vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids,” she said.

This round of equivocation from candidates may seem ominous—but, if anything, questions from party leaders over the safety of vaccinations have lately decreased. Comments like these were more common eight years ago. In 2008, Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain seemed to question the safety of vaccines. “We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate,” said Obama said at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania. “Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines.”

“The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it. Part of the reason I think it’s very important to research it is those vaccines are also preventing huge numbers of deaths among children and preventing debilitating illnesses like polio,” he said.

Earlier that year, McCain had said there was “strong evidence that indicates that [a rise in autism rates] has got to do with a preservative in vaccines.”

But as president, Obama has spoken clearly about the safety of vaccines. “The science is pretty indisputable,” he said last year. “There is every reason to get vaccinated — there aren’t reasons to not.”

In other words, popular and scientific consensus have moved closer together over the past decade. What's more, experts no longer think there's been a sudden rise in autism cases; rather, they see rising diagnosis rates as due to increased understanding and changing social norms.

Surveys also reveal that the vast majority of Americans correctly understand vaccines to be safe. There simply aren’t many votes to win by pandering to anti-vaxers. In a society of millions, though, the margins are large enough to drive thousands of votes—and maybe that’s why some candidates continue to take less-than-firm stances on the safety of vaccines.