A Short History of Vaccine Panic

Little girl receiving antihydrophobia vaccine after being bitten by a dog. Photo John Vachon
Little girl receiving anti-hydrophobia vaccine after being bitten by a dog. Photo: John Vachon

Rebecca Estepp, a spokeswoman for Talk About Curing Autism, a national organization that offers support and information to families, likens learning about the autism and vaccines issue to becoming an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Maybe the Middle East is more complicated. But maybe not,” she says. In his 2008 book, Autism’s False Prophets, Dr. Paul Offit needed 298 pages to summarize the topic, which has sparked hundreds of studies and reports. Have a day job? Here’s a 16-point chronology of recent events:

1998 — Confidence in the MMR vaccine is shaken when British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield publishes a study that says the measles virus caused a leaky gut, sending toxic substances into the bloodstream. He later faces charges of serious professional misconduct, which he denies. He now practices in the U.S.

May 1999 — Fear of vaccines grows after a government report stated that three childhood vaccines might expose infants to more mercury than expected. The report finds that the amount of ethylmercury children receive has exceeded that recommended by the EPA for methylmercury.

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June 1999 — Uncertainty about ethylmercury’s toxicity prompts Neal Halsey, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, to [urge](<br ></a> http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/Testimony-O99.htm) vaccine policymakers to remove thimerosal from vaccines as a precautionary measure.

July 1999 — The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service issue a joint statement explaining the decision to minimize children’s exposure to ethylmercury. The vaguely worded statement, meant to calm, only increases parents’ fears. It says, in part, “current levels of thimerosal will not hurt children, but reducing those levels will make safe vaccines even safer.”

2001 — By the end of 2001, only one vaccine commonly administered to children — the influenza shot — contains thimerosal.

2003 — The CDC releases a study of more than 120,000 children that showed no relationship between thimerosal and autism. Officials there receive threats.

2004 — A panel at the Institute of Medicine, the nation’s leading independent advisor on science and health policy, unanimously determines that a review of more than 200 epidemiological and biological studies has revealed no evidence of a causal relationship between either thimerosal or MMR and autism.

June 2005 — Rolling Stone magazine publishes a piece by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., called “Deadly Immunity” that accuses the government of protecting drug companies from litigation by concealing evidence that mercury in vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids. The piece will later be roundly discredited for, among other things, overestimating the amount of mercury in childhood vaccines by ninetyfold; Rolling Stone issues a series of corrections and clarifications that do little to unring the bell.

March 2006 — U.S. Senator John Kerry becomes only the latest in a string of politicians — others include Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman — to state publicly that they believe vaccines cause autism.

2007 — Dr. Robert Sears, the popular pediatrician known as “Dr. Bob,” publishes a book that lays out a new schedule for parents who want to delay or spread out the vaccines they give their kids. The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child has sold more than 100,000 copies, but critics say it sends are irresponsible message. The website ScienceBasedMedicine.org compares Sears’ proposal to “trying to compromise between mutually exclusive positions, like young-earth creationism and evolution. It doesn’t work.”

August 2008 — The New York Times reports that measles cases in the first seven months of 2008 grew at the fastest rate in more than a decade.

October, 2008 — The first national survey of Americans’ attitudes towards autism reveals that nearly one in four people (24 percent) feel that because vaccines may cause autism, it is safer not to vaccinate children. Another 19 percent are not sure.

January 2009 — The Minnesota Department of Health reports that five children under the age of five contracted Hib, the most common cause of meningitis in young children before the vaccine became FDA-approved in 1993. Three of the children, including a 7-month-old who died, hadn’t received Hib vaccinations.

February 2009 — The first definitive findings of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program’s Omnibus Autism Proceeding are handed down by three Court of Federal Claims Special Masters. The court found in favor of the science that demonstrates no causal relationship between vaccines and autism, adding that petitioners had “fallen far short” of establishing such a link.

January 2010 — The British medical authority General Medical Council issues the results of its years-long inquiry into Andrew Wakefield’s research. The 143-page report concludes that Wakefield acted unethically and with “callous disregard” for his patients.

February 2010 — The medical journal The Lancet formally retracts the Andrew Wakefield study asserting a link between the MMR and autism.