Link Between Autism and Vaccination: Case Study Analysis

This essay discusses the case study 'Scenario Vaccination' and analyzes the original research on the link between autism and vaccination. It also examines the rebuttal research and presents a response based on evidence.

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Introduction
Potential links between autism and vaccination has been topic of debate for several years and made the
parents concerned about the safety of their children. Anxiety has increased rapidly from 1990 when a
medical team led by Wakefield declared that vaccination might be the cause in the growth of autism.
From this publication, vaccination has been matter of controversy for the parents and application of
vaccination had reduced in several nations in spite of much discussions on the safety of vaccination, and
absence of evidences regarding the connection between autism and vaccination. The essay will discuss
the case study “Scenario Vaccination” and identify the original research about the link of autism with
vaccination along with groups to focus for research. It will critically analyze the original research as well
as the rebuttal research. It will also present the response on the basis of the evidence.
Autism with Vaccination
The claims of the connection between vaccination and autism has been examined extensively and found
to be false. The connection was first recommended in the year 1990 and came in notice of the public from
The Lancet published in the year 1998 by Andrew Wakefield (Donzelli et al., 2018). The research paper
linked autism with vaccination.
Focus Group
There are two groups, vaccine-hesitant parents and parents with vaccinated children. Vaccine-hesitant
parents are Emily and John who are hesitant to take decisions for the vaccination of their children.
Parents with vaccinated children are Alison and Paul who are not against the vaccination. But their
daughter Sarah could not be vaccinated due to compromised immune system and allergies. So, the focus
group will be on Alison and Paul who are having difficult time while coping with the stress to take care of
Sarah due to her frequent illness and compromised immune system. Alison is concerned for Sarah
contracting whooping cough and measles. She need help for getting information so that she can utilize
that information to persuade Emily vaccinate her children and protect Sarah from those diseases that can
covered by vaccination.
Critical Analysis of the Original Research
The claims of the connection between vaccination and autism has been examined extensively and found
to be false. Potential links between autism and vaccination has been topic of debate for several years and
made the parents concerned about the safety of their children (Filliter et al., 2017). Anxiety has
increased rapidly from 1990 when a medical team led by Wakefield declared that vaccination might be
the cause in the growth of autism (Zerbo & Klein, 2018). From this publication, vaccination has been

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matter of controversy for the parents and application of vaccination had reduced in several nations in spite
of much discussions on the safety of vaccination, and absence of evidences regarding the connection
between autism and vaccination (Glickman, Harrison, & Dobkins, 2017).
The connection was first recommended in the year 1990 and came in notice of the public from The
Lancet published in the year 1998 by Andrew Wakefield and the research paper linked autism with
vaccination. The publication of Wakefield in the year 1998 has consecutive reports of twelve patients
with loss of acquired language as well as stomach pain and diarrhea (Gromis & Liu, 2018). After a
multisystem examination, no specific abnormalities were found except the colitis and hyperplasia in nine
out of 12 children (Hooker, 2018).
It was reported of symptoms of gastrointestinal of these children by their parents. Initially, Wakefield did
not made direct connection with vaccination, and rather he commented on the connection between
temporary connection with vaccination and measles and inflammation of gastrointestinal with autism
(Jain et al., 2015). The sentiment of his claims continued to be delivered to the parents in the meetings
of autism all over the world. In the year 2017, a survey by Autism Society of USA specified that almost
50% of the parents agreed that they feel that the vaccinations were the primary reason for autism in their
children (Zerbo et al., 2018).
Rebuttal Research
The cases of autism rose dramatically between 1990 and 2000 and is largely attributed to the changes in
the practices of diagnostic although it is not known the number of changes (Qin, King& Broder-
Fingert, 2018). The development came from real changes in the existence of autism and moreover not
linked with vaccination was illustrated. In the year 2004, European Union examined 120 research papers
and considered unplanned impacts of vaccination and concluded that though vaccination is linked with
negative and positive impacts, a link between autism and vaccination is doubtful (Uno, Uchiyama,
Kurosawa, Aleksic & Ozaki, 2015).
In the year 2006, literature found no relation between autism and vaccination. In the year 2007, the
original paper of Wakefield was reviewed, and the researches gave compelling proofs against the fact that
vaccination is linked with autism. In the year 2012, almost 14,000,000 were studied and proved that there
are no evidences of involvement of vaccinations with autism (Venkatraman, Garg & Kumar, 2015). In
July of the year 2014, a review with systematic methods discovered solid evidences that autism is not
linked with vaccination. In March of the year 2019, large-scale research carried out by Statens Serum
Institute followed more than 600, 000 children for almost ten years and found no connection between

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autism and vaccination even in children those who have autistic brother or sister (Waye & Cheng,
2018).
Conclusion
The essay identified the original research about the link of autism with vaccination along with groups to
focus for research and for this the “Vaccination and Facilitated Communication Case Study” has been
taken under consideration. It critically analyzed the original research as well as the rebuttal research. It
also presented the response on the basis of the evidence. Medical science has still not solved the
mysterious cause of autism. No blood test or any other process could recognize the spectrum of autism in
the children. It is believed that the reason is hereditary and autism begins in the first three months of
conception. Reviewing some videos of children in the initial year of their life who later diagnosed autism
has helped to recognize a few of the early symptoms of autism which had not been observed earlier.

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References
Donzelli, G., Palomba, G., Federigi, I., Aquino, F., Cioni, L., Verani, M., & Lopalco, P. (2018).
Misinformation on vaccination: A quantitative analysis of YouTube videos. Human
vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 14(7), 1654-1659.
Filliter, J. H., Dodds, L., MacDonald, N., Shea, S., Dubé, E., Smith, I. M., & Campbell, L. A.
(2017). The next vaccine-autism question: Are school-aged youth with autism spectrum
disorder undervaccinated and, if so, why? Paediatrics & child health, 22(5), 285-287.
Glickman, G., Harrison, E., & Dobkins, K. (2017). Vaccination rates among younger siblings of
children with autism. New England Journal of Medicine, 377(11), 1099-1101.
Gromis, A., & Liu, K. (2018). The roles of neighborhood composition and autism prevalence on
vaccination exemption pockets: A population-wide study. Vaccine, 36(46), 7064-7071.
Hooker, B. S. (2018). Reanalysis of CDC Data on Autism Incidence and Time of First MMR
Vaccination. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 23(4), 105-110.
Jain, A., Marshall, J., Buikema, A., Bancroft, T., Kelly, J. P., & Newschaffer, C. J. (2015).
Autism occurrence by MMR vaccine status among US children with older siblings with
and without autism. Jama, 313(15), 1534-1540.
Qin, S., King, S., & Broder-Fingert, S. (2018). Factors Affecting Vaccination in Children and
Their Siblings after Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis. JAMA Pediatrics, 172(10),
985-985.
Uno, Y., Uchiyama, T., Kurosawa, M., Aleksic, B., & Ozaki, N. (2015). Early exposure to the
combined measles–mumps–rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines and risk
of autism spectrum disorder. Vaccine, 33(21), 2511-2516.
Venkatraman, A., Garg, N., & Kumar, N. (2015). Greater freedom of speech on Web 2.0
correlates with the dominance of views linking vaccines to autism. Vaccine, 33(12),
1422-1425.
Waye, M. M., & Cheng, H. Y. (2018). Genetics and epigenetics of autism: A Review. Psychiatry
and clinical neurosciences, 72(4), 228-244.

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Zerbo, O., & Klein, N. P. (2018). Factors Affecting Vaccination in Children and Their Siblings
After Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis—Reply. JAMA Pediatrics, 172(10), 985-986.
Zerbo, O., Modaressi, S., Goddard, K., Lewis, E., Fireman, B. H., Daley, M. F., & Getahun, D.
(2018). Vaccination Patterns in Children after Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis and
in Their Younger Siblings. JAMA Pediatrics, 172(5), 469-475.