Immunization Article in USA Today

USA Today says vaccine fears are threatening public health.
USA Today (2/16) editorializes that "reported cases of measles, while still tiny, are now ticking upward, and the probable reason is troubling: Fearful parents are refusing to let their children be vaccinated against once-common childhood diseases." The fear that childhood vaccines cause autism is now "turning into a dangerous threat to public health," USA Today argues. In fact, "during the recent swine flu epidemic, nearly one-fifth of those who didn't get vaccinated cited fears that the shot was harmful." USA Today concludes, "It would be tragic if the current generation has to learn what their parents and grandparents knew from watching children get sick or die -- that yesterday's diseases are still lurking, and that vaccines are most effective when virtually everyone gets them."
Expert defends scientists who linked autism to MMR. In an op-ed in USA Today (2/16), Mark Blaxill, editor-at-large for Age of Autism and a director of SafeMinds, which researches the role of mercury in autism, defends Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital "who simply reported a series of cases combining bowel symptoms, autistic regression and exposure to the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella)" in a study retracted by The Lancet. The scientists now "stand accused of fraud and misconduct," but Blaxill claims that "the evidence clearly shows there was neither fraud nor misconduct" in Dr. Wakefield's work. Meanwhile, "the medical industry has dismissed concerns over exploding autism rates in a crusade to protect their policies and vaccine profits," he asserts.