Repeat after me: correlation is not causation.

Shots are generally given at thus and so an age. Autism generally becomes noticeable at thus and so an age. Many parents will be particularly alert for symptoms right after the shots are given. To them, it will seem a straight case of cause and effect. The scientists must be pulling a massive coverup. They’ve seen it with their own eyes.

Autism is on the rise. In the days before vaccination, it was less common. More “proof”. But first, diagnosis has improved, and standards for diagnosis have become more liberal. And second, the fraction of children born to older parents has risen, and the older you are, the more chance a stray cosmic ray has to whack a germ cell.

Both Left and Right have every incentive to squirt ink when science gets in their way, as it will, because politics accepts lies while science by its nature cannot keep a lie up. Scientists may lie, but there’s always another scientist out there willing to call attention to a mistake, (if they’re polite), or call the liar out (if they’re not polite.)

The combination of attacks from left and right has left us with a public that distrusts science and is halfway ready to give credence to almost any kind of nonsense.

And children sicken and die. You squids out there, are you proud now?