Hmmm...this is a bit disappointing. As a parent, I can empathize will feeling conflicted and confused over the information you are receiving. However, as a science writer, I know that we can vette sources, and find experts to interpret the data for us, if we can't do it ourself. It's not clear to me what your research was, if you came out this confused. In this case, the evidence is in on vaccinations and autism--there is no link. Anyone who says otherwise is clinging to nothing more than superstition at this point. Back in the 1990's, there was a great deal of activism around this question, and no clear prospective studies to settle the issue. A decade later, the studies are in, and no link was found. But as you can imagine, certain high profile activists have a hard time giving up on this idea of autism and vaccinations.

As for the court case you mentioned, I believe if you go back and look carefully at the case, you'll find that the courts found a link between the vaccination and a rare complication of autism in one particular child, not the disease itself, and certainly not a general link, as was so strenuously emphasized, and which apparently sailed right over the heads of a lot of people.

We don't have all the answers about autism, but we do have some of them. Vaccines don't cause autism, so let's not perpetuate the myth.

Catherine Shaffer
Parenting Squad Contributor