If a hundred scientific studies proved that the seat belt in your Honda Odyssey couldn't fail, but as a parent you subsequently watched your son get ejected through the windshield during an accident while wearing a seatbelt, I guarantee you wouldn't agree with the science. That's why the autism-vaccine debate will never end -- too many parents who have witnessed one or more of their otherwise healthy children slip away immediately after a round of vaccines. The medical establishment will never, ever convince this subset of parents that there isn't evidence of harm. Too many parents share the same story...too coincidental.

This issue has been over and donw eith for awhile. Vaccines do NOT cause autism. Period. Jenny McCarthy and her allies are killing Americans. see:
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html

The debate gets blurred. Its not about long term mercury. Its about a percentage of the population having an immediate brain reaction. Vaccines are big money, just like tobacco.

This study was long ago debunked at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School's Institute for Vaccine Safety. While Autism is heartbreaking there are too many other explanation to blame vaccines.
http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/

A pediatrician commented to me that she'd once had a child go into a seizure while sitting on his mother's lap, right before a vaccine injection was to be administered. The child had not previously exhibited this condition. If the seizure had come right after the vaccination the mother would have no doubt blamed the vaccination. The simple fact of the matter is that on any given day thousands of children are vaccinated, and the first symptoms of serious conditions can occur for many of them a couple of days before or after they are vaccination. For many of the parents who witness conditions immediately after a vaccination the correlation is enough for them to blame the vaccination, and not the luck of the draw. But we must remember, correlation is not always causation. If the relationship between vaccinations and autism was as obvious as anti-vaccination advocates claim it would be glaringly obvious in the statistics. But the causal relationship between vaccinations and autism has not been substantiated in ANY large, well designed studies.

The controversy will not end, because most Americans seem to have lost the ability to reason scientifically. We need to understand that there is nothing we do without risk. Vaccines are a calculated risk, but the risk is overwhelmingly to the good if you administer them.

We also need to understand that there will always be outliers in the results of any system with risk and that will always give rise to anecdotal evidence that is the root of this controversy.

Most of all, we need to rely on the scientific method to quantify risk and to separate causation from correlation, something that few Americans (and fewer American politicians) seem to understand. The fact that anyone gets their medical advice from a model/actress is a stark illustration of this.

The Vitamin D Theory of Autism explains the disease very well. Dr. John Cannell's theory has predicted every development and observation so far concerning infantile autism. Get the facts at: Vitamin D Council- Vitamin D Theory of Autism. Link: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-theory-autism.shtml

Correlation and Causation are two different things. Things that are associated with autism are often casien intolerance or allergy. Therefore, vitamin D and calcium deficiency are common traits that correlate with that. It's the same with vaccines. While they may not CAUSE autism, they may AUGMENT the action that results in autism.

For example, exposure to heavy metals that are in any vaccine (aluminum salts and thimerasol in some immunizations) in a boy with an MTHFR gene mutation at 6 months of age during the testosterone surge, the correlative effects could result in autism. Can you prove any one factor caused it? Probably not. It may be the unfortunate timing that results in the damage.

The verdict is still out.