We’ve heard from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and now the Journal of the American Medical Association hopes to put to bed the erroneous notion that vaccines can cause autism in children.
According to a new report, researchers studied 95,000 children who had been given the MMR vaccine prior to their fifth birthday. 1.04 percent of children were categorized as having some sort of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but after looking at all the data, researchers could find no evidence that the MMR vaccine contributed in any way to autistic tendencies.
“Consistent with studies in other populations, we observed no association between MMR vaccination and increased ASD risk among privately insured children,” the researchers wrote.
But researchers didn’t just stop there. In an effort to end this “debate” once and for all, researchers examined a separate cohort of children who were classified as high-risk for autism (a documented family history of the condition). As you’re probably not shocked to learn, they again found no association between the MMR vaccine and autism.
“In this large sample of privately insured children with older siblings, receipt of the MMR vaccine was not associated with increased risk of ASD, regardless of whether older siblings had ASD,” the authors concluded. “These findings indicate no harmful association between MMR vaccine receipt and ASD even among children already at higher risk for ASD.”
A Mountain of Evidence
If you’re still not convinced, here’s a list of related studies from reputable sources that once again confirm there is no link between vaccines and autism.
Hopefully this latest evidence can put this argument to bed for good, and we can start protecting our children instead of promoting harmful untruths.