New Study Sheds Light on the Roots of Today’s Vaccine Hesitancy

The anti-vaccine movement that has helped stoke widespread resistance to Covid shots has long been traced back to a single, now-retracted 1998 journal article linking autism to childhood immunizations. Now, a new study sheds light on just how much impact the study had, finding it led to a doubling of reports of side effects.

The discredited vaccine research and the rise to fame of author Andrew Wakefield have long been viewed as the beginning of suspicion of standard immunizations, which has blossomed in the coronavirus pandemic. Since the study appeared in the prestigious Lancet medical journal more than two decades ago, resistance to childhood vaccinations has grown steadily. The shots have been falsely linked to debilitating autism, mercury poisoning and other ills, despite study after study debunking those concerns.