What a terrible injustice was done a decade ago to vaccine makers, and to doctors and nurses who give vaccines. The injustice was the work of Canadian surgeon Andrew Wakefield and his associates, when they published a report in 1998 linking MMR vaccines with autism. That created a worldwide furor (yes, worldwide through Internet scuttlebutt) over the MMR vaccine and autism.

Why do I call it an injustice? The little-told story of this incendiary conclusion by Wakefield and friends is that their conclusion was false. In 2004, 10 out of 13 investigators retracted their support for Wakefield's report. Further, it was revealed that Wakefield was funded by lawyers who brought cases against vaccine companies, a fact that has led Wakefield to court to defend his falsification of his data.

So, in fact, there has never been a verifiable research study supporting an autism-vaccine link. Many international medical groups have conducted research using vaccine data and have continually concluded that vaccines do not cause autism. There is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism nor between mercury in vaccines and autism. Yet, the rumors regarding vaccines continue.

Why do people still fear vaccines? It is easy for a family with an autistic child to conclude that the autism diagnosis coincided with the end of the primary vaccine series. That is a coincidence of timing, but not cause and effect. This does make it easy to perpetuate the fear that vaccines cause autism. They do not. There is no reason to fear vaccines. In fact, there is good reason to fear not being vaccinated.

In my 25-year career as a pediatrician, I have seen cases of measles, mumps, meningitis, chicken pox and polio - all preventable through vaccines. But we see dramatically fewer cases of these harmful illnesses as a result of the vaccines we give. Pediatricians used to do spinal taps weekly on babies looking for meningitis. Now, spinal taps are a rare medical procedure in pediatrics.

Some people feel we don't need to give these vaccines as often since these diseases are increasingly rare. However, nothing can be further from the truth. Last year, measles and mumps swept across part of our country from the Midwest to the Northeast. More recently, there have been cases of mumps spreading south from Maine. Other bacteria that cause ear infections, pneumonias and meningitis are alive and well. Whooping cough still troubles communities. Even polio is not eliminated worldwide. The risks of vaccines are minimal compared to one death caused by one of these nasty illnesses.

If you are worried about vaccines, talk to your doctor. Ask him or her to verify the facts in this article. The worldwide rumor-mongering about vaccines has been a great force to battle. We in medicine have not been very good at battling the vaccine naysayers. But the evidence is clear, and more confident conversations about the greater benefits of vaccines have to occur. Vaccines save lives, and your child is safer in this world when he or she is vaccinated.

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Dr. Brian Orr is a Gloucester pediatrician. Send your comments and questions to him in care of features@ecnnews.com.