Sexual HealthLessons From The Vaccine-Autism Wars
Researchers long ago rejected the theory that vaccines cause autism, yet
many parents don"t believe them. Can scientists bridge the gap between
evidence and doubt?
This week, the open-access journal PLoS Biology investigates why the
debunked vaccine-autism theory won"t go away. Senior science writer/editor
Liza
Gross talks to medical anthropologists, science historians, vaccine
experts, social scientists, and pediatricians to explore the factors
keeping the
dangerous notion alive-and its proponents so vitriolic.
Pediatrician Paul Offit has made it his mission to set the record
straight: vaccines don"t cause autism. But he won"t go on Larry King
Live-where he could reach millions of viewers-or anyplace celebrity
anti-vaccine crusaders like Jenny McCarthy appear. ""Every story has a
hero, victim, and villain,"" he explains. ""McCarthy is the hero, her
child is the victim-and that leaves one role for you.""
When she read that hecklers were issuing death threats to spokespeople who
simply reported studies showing that vaccines were safe, anthropologist
Sharon Kaufman dropped her life"s work on aging to study the theory"s grip
on public discourse. To Kaufman, a researcher with a keen eye for
detecting major cultural shifts, these unsettling events signaled a deeper
trend. ""What happens when the facts of bioscience are relayed to the
public and there is disbelief, lack of trust?"" Kaufman wondered. ""Where
does that lead us?""
Despite overwhelming evidence that vaccines don"t cause autism, one in
four Americans still think they do. Not surprisingly, the first half of
2008
saw the largest US outbreak of measles-one of the first infectious
diseases to reappear after vaccination rates drop-since 2000, when the
native
disease was declared eliminated. Mumps and whooping cough have also made a
comeback. Last year in Minnesota, five children contracted Hib, the most
common cause of meningitis in young children before the vaccine was
developed in 1993. Three of the children, including a 7-month-old who
died,
hadn"t received Hib vaccines because their parents either refused or
delayed vaccination.
Now, more than ten years after unfounded doubts about vaccine safety first
emerged, scientists and public health officials are still struggling to
get
the story out. Their task is made far more difficult by the explosion of
misinformation on the Internet, talk shows, and high-profile media
outlets,
by journalists" tendency to cover the issue as a "debate," and, as Kaufman
argues, by an erosion of trust in experts.
Information technology has transformed the way trust and knowledge are
produced, Kaufman says: ""Scientists have to consider their role in this
changed landscape and how to compete with these other s of
knowledge."" Simply relating the facts of science isn"t enough. No matter
that
the overwhelming weight of evidence shows that vaccines don"t cause
autism. When scientists find themselves just one more voice in a sea of
""opinions"" about a complex scientific issue, misinformation takes on a
life of its own.
Funding: This work received no funding.
Competing interests statement: The authors declare that no competing
interests exist.
Citation:
"A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine-Autism Wars."
Gross L (2009)
PLoS Biol 7(5): e1000114. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000114
Plos Biology