The controversy continues, but vaccinations do not cause autism. That is the short answer. Why does the controversy continue? Because the controversy has become a conspiracy theory.
It started with Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Dr. Wakefield published a research paper in the Lancet in 1998, which later was debunked. Besides the Lancet, his other research papers were in Neurotoxicology (withdrawn), American Journal of Gastroenterology (retracted), and another Lancet paper (retracted). Wakefield published a book titled Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines: The Truth Behind a Tragedy.
A news article in the Telegraph stated that Wakefield said his only concern was for children. Nevertheless, this issue with vaccines caused Wakefield to flee the UK for the USA. The General Medical Council in the UK censured Wakefield for misconduct in 2010.
This is sad because Dr. Wakefield has an impressive work history. Being a fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1985, Wakefield received a Wellcome Trust to travel to study abroad. He returned to the UK in 1980s to further his research interests. It was in the 1990s when he began studying the link between autism and vaccines, and this is when Wakefield and his colleagues started to get into trouble in 1996 with an article titled Is Measles Vaccination a Risk Factor for Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
In 2016 Wakefield wrote in part and directed Vaxxed: From Cover Up to Catastrophe, produced by Del Bigtree. In 2019 a sequel was produced by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., (RFK, Jr) Vaxxed II: The People's Truth. In 2024 a second sequel, Vaxxed III: Authorized to Kill by RFK Jr.'s organization Children's Health Defense.
Where is Dr. Andrew Wakefield today? He is still promoting the belief that vaccines cause autism as an anti-vaccine activist. ThinkProgress, The Washington Post, The Guardian,Wired, John Hopkins Bloom-berg School of Public Health, Steven Salzberg, and Paul Offit have all decried him as a conspiracy theorist.
