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.