Vaccines are widely known as one of the most prominent, public health mechanisms ever invented. Despite the popular belief that vaccines are extremely beneficial for children that receive them, anti-vaccinationists claim that some vaccines correlate with the neurological disorder autism. There have been two controversial claims trying to relate childhood vaccinations to autism. Both claims presented can seem convincing at first but can easily be found falsifiable upon research. To fully understand why the claim vaccines cause autism is pseudoscience, it is important to examine the history of vaccinations and to analyze both scientific claims presented.
The first scientist to introduce viruses to the scientific world was Louis Pasteur. …show more content…
Specifically, the amount of mercury found in childhood vaccinations equates to the amount of mercury in a piece of fish or a bowl of cereal. Anti-vaccinationists claimed that the mercury in thimerosal caused mercury poisoning that could lead to diagnosed with autism. Children that are diagnosed with mercury poisoning show changes in motor skills, communication skills, and analytical skills (Gerber). In autistic children, these changes are usually notices over a period of time or are completely vacant. Further studies reveal that the amount of mercury in vaccines is not considered toxic and was not the root cause of autism. For precautionary measures, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service motioned to remove thimerosal from childhood vaccinations in 1999 (Gerber). Even after the removal of thimerosal in vaccines, autism still saw a steady increase. Today, flu shots contain thimerosal as a preservative, but people receiving this vaccination do not acquire autism proving that there is no correlation between the preservative thimerosal and the neurological disorder autism. After this claim was found to be falsifiable, many other hypotheses were tested and claims were stated to try and correlate childhood vaccines and …show more content…
However, once an individual completely breaks down as well as analyzes the claims made by the anti-vaccinationists group and Andrew Wakefield it is easily proven that vaccines do not correlate with autism. Because of the public’s misconception on the danger of vaccines, many children are not vaccinated every year. Ultimately, the pseudoscience behind the idea that vaccines cause autism has resulted in unnecessary fear among parents and unnecessary outbreaks of viruses that could have easily been prevented. After the outbreak of scared parental communities, Andrew Wakefield retracted his statements, which only supported the unreliability of this information and once thimerosal was removed from immunizations, cases of autism in children continued to rise because of our further enhancement on our knowledge of autism. In conclusion, vaccines do not contribute to a child’s development of
The first scientist to introduce viruses to the scientific world was Louis Pasteur. …show more content…
Specifically, the amount of mercury found in childhood vaccinations equates to the amount of mercury in a piece of fish or a bowl of cereal. Anti-vaccinationists claimed that the mercury in thimerosal caused mercury poisoning that could lead to diagnosed with autism. Children that are diagnosed with mercury poisoning show changes in motor skills, communication skills, and analytical skills (Gerber). In autistic children, these changes are usually notices over a period of time or are completely vacant. Further studies reveal that the amount of mercury in vaccines is not considered toxic and was not the root cause of autism. For precautionary measures, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service motioned to remove thimerosal from childhood vaccinations in 1999 (Gerber). Even after the removal of thimerosal in vaccines, autism still saw a steady increase. Today, flu shots contain thimerosal as a preservative, but people receiving this vaccination do not acquire autism proving that there is no correlation between the preservative thimerosal and the neurological disorder autism. After this claim was found to be falsifiable, many other hypotheses were tested and claims were stated to try and correlate childhood vaccines and …show more content…
However, once an individual completely breaks down as well as analyzes the claims made by the anti-vaccinationists group and Andrew Wakefield it is easily proven that vaccines do not correlate with autism. Because of the public’s misconception on the danger of vaccines, many children are not vaccinated every year. Ultimately, the pseudoscience behind the idea that vaccines cause autism has resulted in unnecessary fear among parents and unnecessary outbreaks of viruses that could have easily been prevented. After the outbreak of scared parental communities, Andrew Wakefield retracted his statements, which only supported the unreliability of this information and once thimerosal was removed from immunizations, cases of autism in children continued to rise because of our further enhancement on our knowledge of autism. In conclusion, vaccines do not contribute to a child’s development of