Based on review of recent findings from cohort studies exploring the association between vaccines and the development of autism in children, my position is that there is no causal relationship. All scientific inventions elicit controversies in one way or the other, and vaccines are no exception. Therefore, concerns about the possible link between vaccines and autism in children are justified. It is the role of researchers to provide irrefutable empirical evidence to allay fears among the public. The process is necessary to encourage positive perceptions towards vaccines and improve their uptake, which is critical in the fight against infectious diseases.
Researchers and practitioners have denounced the connection between vaccines and the development of autism in children. The causes of autism are unknown, though genetics, different in brain anatomy, and exposure to toxicants in the environment are suspected risk factors (Dudley et al., 2018). Since a controversial study, which has since been discredited for spreading falsehood, was published in 1998, emphasis has been placed on examining the claim that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines cause autism. A cohort study conducted by Hviid et al. (2019) on over 657,000 Danish children (vaccinated and unvaccinated) established that vaccination with MMR did not elevate the risk of autism, or did other vaccinations.
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In a study involving at least 95,200 children with older siblings, Jain et al. (2015) found out that the rate of autism prevalence was not associated with vaccination regardless of whether older siblings had the disorder. In the same vein, a study conducted on expectant women by Becerra-Culqui et al. (2018) revealed that the prenatal tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccination was not linked to the development of autism in children. The empirical evidence corroborates the argument that vaccines are safe.
The consensus among researchers is that vaccines do not cause autism. This is the official position adopted by the National Academy of Medicine, formally, the Institute of Medicine (Dudley et al., 2018). As the search for the causes of autism continues, it is evident that fear expressed about the link between vaccines and autism in children is greatly misconceived. The comprehensive body of empirical evidence on the subject favors rejection of the claims on the casual relationship between the two.
References
Becerra-Culqui, T. A., Getahun, D., Chiu, V., Sy, L. S., & Tseng, H. F. (2018). Prenatal Tetanus, Diphtheria, Acellular Pertussis Vaccination and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Pediatrics , 142 (3), e20180120.
Dudley, M. Z., Salmon, D. A., Halsey, N. A., Orenstein, W. A., Limaye, R. J., O’Leary, S. T., & Omer, S. B. (2018). Do Vaccines Cause Autism?. In The Clinician’s Vaccine Safety Resource Guide (pp. 197-204). Berlin: Springer, Cham.
Hviid, A., Hansen, J. V., Frisch, M., & Melbye, M. (2019). Measles, mumps, rubella vaccination and autism: A nationwide cohort study. Annals of Internal Medicine , 170 (8), 513-520.
Jain, A., Marshall, J., Buikema, A., Bancroft, T., Kelly, J. P., & Newschaffer, C. J. (2015). Autism occurrence by MMR vaccine status among US children with older siblings with and without autism. Jama , 313 (15), 1534-1540.
