I'm a skeptic of everything and detest the status quo as much as, if not more than, many of the people who frequent this verse. However, as someone with a background in molecular biology I have to say:
This study is garbage. The authors only point to a correlation between the use of certain vaccines and an increase in autism diagnoses. Correlation =! causation and the increase in autism rates could be attributed to almost anything else, including increased awareness of autism within the medical community, other environmental factors, etc. Also, as someone who has authored a few peer-reviewed journal papers I can tell you that the discussion section is written in a very non-objective way and it is clear the authors have an agenda.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up the institute affiliated with the authors and it is some outfit called the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute. Their agenda is clear from their website, so any paper authored by them should be treated with the utmost skepticism.
As a father I have been following this whole vaccination hysteria closely and have yet to find any convincing studies that establish a causal relationship between vaccines and autism with any reasonable level of rigor. If anyone has any other papers they think demonstrate otherwise I would love to see them.
Correlation != causation, but it certainly gives merit for investigating. Your discounting of one study and the correlation between the two shows that maybe you're not as open to the idea as you think.
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KoKansei ago
I'm a skeptic of everything and detest the status quo as much as, if not more than, many of the people who frequent this verse. However, as someone with a background in molecular biology I have to say:
This study is garbage. The authors only point to a correlation between the use of certain vaccines and an increase in autism diagnoses. Correlation =! causation and the increase in autism rates could be attributed to almost anything else, including increased awareness of autism within the medical community, other environmental factors, etc. Also, as someone who has authored a few peer-reviewed journal papers I can tell you that the discussion section is written in a very non-objective way and it is clear the authors have an agenda.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up the institute affiliated with the authors and it is some outfit called the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute. Their agenda is clear from their website, so any paper authored by them should be treated with the utmost skepticism.
As a father I have been following this whole vaccination hysteria closely and have yet to find any convincing studies that establish a causal relationship between vaccines and autism with any reasonable level of rigor. If anyone has any other papers they think demonstrate otherwise I would love to see them.
datjedi ago
Correlation != causation, but it certainly gives merit for investigating. Your discounting of one study and the correlation between the two shows that maybe you're not as open to the idea as you think.