So, have you seen the news report from The Times of London that Dr. Andrew Wakefield manipulated data in his research that sparked the scare of an autism link with the measles, mumps and rubella vacine?
Even though the results from the original 1998 research were based on a statistically insignificant sample size of 12 patients apparently the report caused a herd mentality drop in MMR vaccinations in the UK. Subsequently, the number of reported measles cases went from 56 in 1998 to 1,348 in 2008.
This speaks to me to the enormity of the burden parents of autistic children feel upon their shoulders. Many on the outside might not realize the incredible stress it places upon a family to provide 24/7/365 care for a child with this condition. And due to this stress, it is often tempting to jump in head first to what appear to be promising new revelations relating to the origin, and hopefully prevention or cure of autism.
The link to the article in The Times is here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.ece
The A Bogus Autism Study? by Chris Hartzog, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States License.
