A subject that engenders fear and questions amongst parents all over the world. Autism and vaccines: a link that just won’t die. The debate over whether vaccines cause autism has become one of the most controversial disputes in the United States. On one hand, the medical world makes the argument that parents are either crazy or selfish not to vaccinate. Vaccines help us avoid acute illnesses and lower death rates. On the other hand, parents hear about the aftermath of vaccines on children and don’t take the time to research evidence or data to gain more knowledge about the issue. They simply want what’s best for their child and they’re not sure what to do. Now with mandatory vaccines being advanced in some areas, the issue is begging for …show more content…
Until 2002, many parents against the vaccine believed in the myth that mercury in the preservative commonly used in vaccines in the US was a major cause of autism. The main ingredients in a vaccine include mercury, sucrose, sodium hydroxide, and streptomycin. These chemicals may sound scary to parents at first but all chemicals are present in extremely low concentrations (Gorski 2008). Each chemical plays a necessary role in either making the vaccine or ensuring that it is effective and safe. The ingredient that parents fear the most is thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that has been used for decades in the US in multi-dose vials (Thimerosal in Vaccines, 2015). There is no evidence of harm or autism caused by low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions and swelling on site. The mistake that people make when looking at ingredients in vaccines is that the whole doesn’t always equal the sum of the part. For instance, table salt is made out of two dangerous elements, chlorine and sodium. The two elements are very reactive on their own. Yet when you combine them together, you get a safe compound known as table salt. The same principle goes for ingredients in vaccines. All the ingredients are dependent on each other in order to be safe and