Chances are, you’ve heard the idea that vaccines can cause autism. This notion is championed by various organizations and individuals, one of the most prominent being actress Jenny McCarthy, whose son was diagnosed with autism at age 2. She has an autism-related organization called Generation Rescue, and on its website is a guide to vaccine safety. I was a bit surprised by how relatively toned down it was, but I got more along the lines of what I expected with one of the places it directed people to go to for more information, the National Vaccine Information Center. It includes a “cry for vaccine freedom wall” and a “vaccine victim memorial”. They have a MedAlerts database of people’s reported adverse reactions to vaccines, and a search for autism spectrum disorder yields 391 case reports. One thing that struck me as interesting was the seemingly random grab bag of multiple…
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