kk

Um, that’s not at all what that link says, nor do the majority of medical studies (although the studies are not always reported accurately in the media). Although Dr. Ben Goldacre tends to be rather…abrasively opinionated, he is quite good at going to the original studies and interpreting the statistics correctly over at Bad Science.

If you look at the actual amount of mercury in childhood vaccines in the U.S., most contain none–only a couple contain trace amounts, and parents can request the (more expensive) single-dose Thimerosol-free versions. On the subject of informing parents, I’d like information like that to be more readily available than buried in the CDC website.

This is not to say I think vaccines are 100% safe and never have side effects–that’s not true at all–but I have yet to see convincing evidence of a connection between vaccines and autism, and I think many parents underestimate the effects of the serious diseases many vaccines prevent.

Arthur Allen’s Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver presents a pretty comprehensive history, nasty parts and all, although it’s not very kind to some anti-vaccine parents.