Just In: Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism

The question of whether or not vaccinations do cause autism has been a topic growing in popularity. The argument, in simple terms, is the theory that if you are to give your kid a vaccination, the likelihood of them getting autism goes up thus indicating that vaccinations cause autism. The authors of this publication are people representing the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I do find this a reputable source because on the last page it shows all of their references and it is an article coming from a children’s hospital that gives supported evidence. Some of the concerns that the article gives is the possibility that getting too many vaccines in a short time frame puts the child at risk, the MMR vaccine causes autism, and that the thimerosal vaccine causes autism (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 2016, Vol. 2). All of these concerns were proven wrong in this article from evidence (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 2016, Vol. 2). 

All of the facts that this article gave were supported by scientific evidence. One such study described in the article was by Michael Smith and Charles Woods. They wanted to find out if delaying/withholding vaccines from children due to fear of getting autism would cause the children any harm. They found that children who were not vaccinated and those who were vaccinated were equally as likely to develop autism (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 2016, Vol. 2). Another finding in this article was whether or not thimerosal causes autism. Hundreds of thousands of children who were given the vaccine containing thimerosal and those who got the vaccine without thimerosal were studied. The conclusion was found to be that both groups were equally as likely to get autism (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 2016, Vol. 2). 

I never believed that vaccines caused autism so this article reaffirmed my opinion. I think the idea of vaccines giving children autism is ridiculous and just putting the children at more of a risk of contracting the illnesses/viruses that the vaccines would have prevented. 

Reference Section

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Spring 2016. "Vaccines and Autism: What you should know". Philadelphia, PA. 

Death to the Truth

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MqTOEospfo&t=31s

In the society that we live in today, we rely on the information through other people either by facts or opinion and we make our own conclusion from that information. However, often times that information is not reliable or even true. As said by Neil deGrasse Tyson, our country, as well as the world, feeds into this false information that denies science and misinforms the public. This denial keeps people from discussing and fixing the true problems at hand such as climate change. I think he believes that his words are so important because he realizes the state of ignorance and denial that our society is in and how little we do to try to get to the true issues at hand. An example of this that he states is largely represented in politics. Many people would choose to deny a scientific fact and argue over that rather than accept it and work to get a solution.

I do believe that  these words are very important. We believe that our society is very informed by how easy it is for us to get the latest news and information yet many of us are still holding on to beliefs that are proven to be wrong and rather not have any desire to change their belief. They do not want to accept that they are wrong and this is why our society is set so far back. We deny the facts and argue over them when instead we should accept the truth and move towards a solution to better our lives as well as the planet. A wonderful example of this is the argument of the climate change. It is a proven fact that the earth is getting warmer and yet there are still people in politics today that deny those facts despite all the information that is proving them wrong.

I believe that Tyson means, regarding to an informed democracy, that if these science deniers were to rise to power, they would keep facts and information from the public and deny them thus resulting to an uninformed public. Facts will be denied that need to be addressed politically in order to benefit humanity’s future. The truth, in their eyes, does not matter and is wrong so therefore it should not be considered anymore than that.