Vaccine Scares May Be Endangering Children

25 Jun Vaccine Scares May Be Endangering Children

You may have heard about claims that vaccines cause autism in children. This has become a popular Internet conspiracy theory and one that does an excellent job of making parents fearful of something that could actually save their child’s life.

There have been cases in the past where drug companies have put very dangerous products on the market. There are, in fact, thousands of cases working their way through the civil courts right now over these matters. Vaccines, however, have not been linked to autism by any serious scientists and not vaccinating children may mean making them take risks that are completely unnecessary.

How it Happened

According to CNN, the original study that linked autism and childhood vaccinations has been debunked. A medical journal from England, BMJ, in fact, referred to the study as nothing less than an “elaborate fraud”. That original study was published in 1998. In the study, the BMJ found that researchers had actually altered some of the medical histories of the 12 patients that were examined and had misrepresented others.

In short, the study was bunk from the start, but that didn’t stop it from becoming an Internet sensation. Celebrities—none of whom have any real qualifications to speak on the matter—added their powerful, but ill-informed, voices to the chorus and the conspiracy theory took off.

Things that are real and confirmed to be threats by medical science, however, include measles, mumps and rubella, all of which can be vaccinated against during childhood, preventing the spread of these sometimes deadly illnesses and keeping children from having to endure the pain and suffering that goes along with them.

The doctor who authored the study has had his license to practice taken away by British authorities.

Why Does it Persist?

Doctors and pharmaceutical companies do sometimes make mistakes. When they do, however, those mistakes tend to be revealed by the shared negative outcomes of thousands of patients who use a product or treatment that is defective. There is no secret evidence to worry about, since the effects themselves usually reveal the product to be defective.

When doctors do get it wrong, it is sometimes a case of incompetence. For instance, if a physician told you not to get a necessary treatment, told you to get the wrong treatment or missed a diagnoses because of incompetence, talking to a Dallas medical malpractice lawyer might enable you to take them to where real medical mistakes are dealt with: the courts.