The debate over a potential link between autism and vaccines has raged for years, but this week a top British medical journal formally retracted one of the key studies that suggested a possible connection, media outlets reported.
Concerns about vaccine safety have risen in recent years as some parents and researchers suggested there could be a link between recommended shots and autism. The now-retracted research, published in The Lancet, was one of the drivers of those fears. The debate continued even as other studies arrived that showed no causal link between the disorder and vaccines.
The fear of vaccines sparked another fear among public health officials about outbreaks of measles and other diseases. For example, the percentage of kids who started school lacking at least one of the required vaccinations jumped from 2.7 percent to 5.5 percent in King County alone during the last decade, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported last year.
"This retraction by the Lancet came far too late," said Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a coinventor of a vaccination for babies against a gastrointestinal virus, Rotateq, that is marketed by Merck & Co. "It's very easy to scare people; it's very hard to unscare them." – “Lancet Retracts Study Tying Vaccine to Autism,”—Wall Street Journal.2/3/10.
The debate is obviously a concern for the early learning community, since children’s health is a key element in creating high quality early education.
The next question is what will happen to vaccination rates now that this study has been formally dismissed?
The debate does not appear likely to go away.
“Certainly the retraction of this paper doesn’t mean that MMR doesn’t cause autism and it’s all a farce,” said Wendy Fournier, president of the National Autism Association. It is “possible” that the MMR vaccine causes autism, she said, but “the science is not there in terms of the mechanism.” The concern is that measles virus has been found in children’s intestines after vaccination, said Ms. Fournier. – WSJ, 2/3/10.
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