Contributed by: evilscientist
One would hope that the retraction of the Wakefield et al. (1998) by the medical journal The Lancet would stop the antivax movement in its tracks, given that Wakefield (1998) is the basis of the whole vaccine-causes-autism woo. It won't, of course, since the antivax community is dogmatically set in its ways in the manner of a religious fanatic. No amount of evidence from sources that used actual epidemiological studies (Taylor et al 1999, DeStefano & Chen 1999, DeStefano & Chen 2000, Gillberg & Heijbel 1998, Peltola et al 1998) will dissuade them from their firmly held belief. The danger in this lies in the fact that these people will continue to attempt to force their views on an unsuspecting public. There are two large dangers in this apart from the basic attack on science that I've discussed before.The first danger is the obvious, that of large numbers of children will go unvaccinated. This not only puts individual children at risk of death from easily preventable childhood diseases, but the rest of society as well due to the reduction in herd immunity. This means many thousands will suffer needlessly and hundreds may needlessly die. All because of an unevidenced belief held with religious tenacity.
The second and more insidious danger is that to autistic children. By diverting resources into attempting to proved what has been shown to not be there, the antivax crowd is diverting resources away from productive autism research. This means that resources that could have gone to determine what factors actually cause autism are being sent to study something that we already know isn't causing autism. This causes a delay in more productive autism research causing the exact opposite of what I imagine the parents of autistic children want, which would be a better understanding of the condition.
Unfortunately the antivax zealots will continue on unphased by their legs being pulled out from under them. They're like the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail who despite having his legs and arms cut off continues to attack. All we can do is to continue to educate the public that they are being deceived by the antivax crowd. This will act as a vaccine in society causing the antivaxers to go the way of smallpox.
References:
DeStefano, F. & Chen, R.T., 1999, Lancet, 353 1987
DeStefano, F. & Chen, R.T., 2000, J Pediatr, 2000, 136 125
Gillberg, C. & Heijbel, H., 1998, Autism, 2 423
Taylor, B. et al, 1999, Lancet, 353 2026
Wakefield, AJ, et al, 1998, Lancet, 351 637
Evilness
http://www.evilscientist.ca/article.php?story=20100203115814878