EBD Blog

Time magazine, which has stopped somewhere just short of flatly endorsing unfounded concepts such as facilitated communication, seems not to be buying the vaccine-autism argument. In an article about vaccinations that currently appears on the front page of Time’s Web site, reporter Laura Blue recites the litany of benefits that vaccines have provided and then asks why people resist using them.

Sickness and death from vaccine-preventable diseases has fallen to an all-time low in the U.S., according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year, there were no reported deaths in the U.S. from measles, diphtheria, mumps, polio, or rubella (German measles), according to research published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The number of deaths for tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), and Hib disease (a major cause of meningitis) had all fallen more than 99% since vaccines were introduced against them. Vaccines have cut the number of deaths from hepatitis A, acute hepatitis B, and chickenpox by more than 80% each. And deaths from invasive pneumococcal disease (a cause of pneumonia, meningitis, and blood infection) have been cut by a quarter. Smallpox has been eradicated worldwide.

Why, then, is there so much concern about vaccines? In the U.S., few health issues get people as riled up as the persistent, though almost completely discredited, argument that routine childhood immunizations cause autism.

I found this last observation by Ms. Blue to be refreshing, given Time’s history with FC. Did I miss something? Has there been a change of policy or editors?

Link to Ms. Blue’s article.