Vaccines prevent autism

I'm sure by now most have heard of the latest anti-science trend, the anti-vaccine movement. For those of you who haven't, an MD by the name of Andrew Wakefield was paid off by a legal firm to manufacture data showing that the MMR vaccine causes autism. His "study" (now known to be 100% fraudulent) led to a war on science, pitting snakeoil salesmen and the parents of autistics they scammed against MDs, scientists, and sane people in general.

The end effect of this has been a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases, deaths from diseases which just a decade ago were on the verge of extinction, and all kinds of general mayhem. For fairly obvious reasons, scientists and MDs have been working hard to ensure that vaccines are truly safe, and to tell the public the truth.

Today, another nail in Wakefields coffin has been driven in. A scientific study repeated Wakefields original study, using a larger number of people (192 in stead of 12). In addition, they look not just at the MMR vaccine, but also the measles-only vaccine (as Wakefield claimed it was the measles component that caused autism). Their analysis showed something quite interesting. Instead of seeing what Wakefield saw - an assocaition of autism with MMR vaccination, they saw the opposite - MMR and Measles Vaccines are PROTECTIVE against autism.

In brief, the MMR vax reduced the chance of getting autism dramatically (odds ratio of 0.17, 95% CI: 0.06-0.52) and the measles vax reduced the chance of getting autism but not quite as much (odds ratio of 0.44, 95% CI: 0.22-0.91).

I'm sure the anti-vax loons will promptly be telling us this is all part of some conspiracy, but non-the-less, the fact the got such a striking finding using Wakefields own methods pretty much confirms what we all know - Wakefield lied about his results.