The Vaccine-Autism Controversy

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Recommended: Debate about mandatory vaccinations

Parents everywhere ponder the question, what causes autism in young children? Since the early 1990s it has been debated whether or not vaccines are to blame for being the causal effect of autism. Numerous studies have been conducted to prove this theory true or false; however, many parents are still fighting the courts that vaccines caused autism in their children. Furthermore, more babies are not getting vaccinated due to the increasing scare being presented on the media about vaccines. The vaccine-autism controversy is the central issue in Jeffrey S. Gerber’s and Paul A. Offits’ article “Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses” as well as in Andy Coghlan’s article “Vaccines May Have Triggered Autism-Like Symptoms, US Court Rules.”
Gerber and Offits clearly argue that science proves vaccines are not the link to autism. They state three proposed hypotheses about how vaccines cause autism in their introduction and then follow up with numerous studies disproving each of the three hypotheses in their body paragraphs. Coghlan’s article does not come straight out and state that vaccines cause autism; nevertheless, he uses a real-life example of a two-year old girl who received multiple vaccinations, developed autism-like symptoms, and is now being compensated by the U.S. Court for her disabilities due to the vaccines.
In “Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses,” the title says a lot about the central issues in the article. The writers provide the three main hypotheses that are presented when arguing the vaccine-autism controversy, they are stated by Gerber and Offits as follows:
(1) the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism by damaging the intestinal lining, which allows the entrance of enceph...

... middle of paper ...

...ism like symptoms due to the vaccines she received which helps strengthen his article.
I feel that Gerber’s and Offits’ approach and perspective is much more convincing than Coghlan’s because of how they structured their article with the three hypotheses and then disproving each of them with scientific data. Furthermore, they have 39 references cited to help them come to the conclusion that vaccines are the not the link to autism. Due to the many references and case studies this article would be extremely useful to other researchers or parents interested in the vaccine-autism controversy.

Works Cited

Gerber, Jeffrey S., and Paul A. Offits. "Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting
Hypotheses." SmartSearch, 2009. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
Giles, Jim. "Vaccines May Have Triggered Autism-Like Symptoms, US Court Rules."
SmartSearch, 2008. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

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