Many of us have no way to understand this, but there are millions of people in the U.S. and around the world who, for some reason, worship celebrities. This photo is indicative of how extreme the problem can get:

A fan cries

People magazine, Us magazine, the Tabloids, TMZ, etc. are also indicative.

One of these celebrities decided that vaccines cause autism, and therefore went on large-scale campaign that encouraged parents to stop using vaccines. Because she is a celebrity, and millions worship celebrities, she was able to get TV exposure for her campaign. You can see her message in this video:

At 3:25 there is this exchange:

Interviewer: Take Trudy for example. She has a son who has autism. She also has a… Eliza is 2 years old? Uh, 20 months. She hasn’t gotten any vaccines yet. What would you, if you believe there is this strong connection, say you have another baby. What would you do different this time?

McCarthy: I wouldn’t vaccinate at all. Not at all.

Interviewer: Ever?

McCarthy: Not for my child, no way. Other people, I’m not telling them, because we do need vaccinations.

In other interviews and sound bites the “other people” part is left out. And for celebrity worshipers, why listen to the “other people” part? If a celebrity would never use vaccines on her children, why should anyone? The anti-vaccine movement is born, now affecting up to 25% of parents:

1 in 4 Parents Link Autism to Vaccines

And so we get articles like this one, which states the situation:

Whooping Cough epidemic declared. And the vaccine debate is re-ignited

Certainly each time a health epidemic occurs, especially among a disease that can be prevented through vaccinations, it ignites another discussion about the safety of vaccines and if they cause autism. It also raises the question of whether we are seeing more health epidemics (which lead to very sick children who sometimes do not survive!) because there are more parents choosing to not vaccinate their children.

The problem is that there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism. All there is is a celebrity’s hunch, widely distributed to celebrity worshippers:

Most doctors (and really most parents) will tell you that there is no reputable medical study that confirms the connection between autism and vaccines. At the same time, there is a vocal group of parents, who have children with autism, who swear that there is a connection. They connect the rise in autism to the increased number of vaccinations that are now recommended (more than double what was recommended in say 1976 when I was born)

There are two interesting parts in this situation, because they show how susceptible people can be to messages from celebrities. You can see the first one at the 45 second point in this video:

Interviewer: You adopted a child…

Dr. Kartzinel: That’s correct.

Interviewer: And after vaccination developed symptoms.

Dr. Kartzinel: Absolutely. When we vaccinated, and for him it was the mumps/measels/rubella vaccination….

The problem with this thinking is that there is no cause/effect relationship. He (and millions of others) are selectively blaming “vaccinations” and ignoring a thousand other things that all happened at the same time. One percent of kids who get vaccinated get autism, true, but one percent of kids who drink water get autism too. Why not blame something in the water? Or why not wait until a valid study finds a statistical link?

This is exactly the same thing that makes Friday the 13th unlucky in many people’s minds. Friday the 13th is not unlucky, statistically. But if you believe that Friday the 13th is unlucky, you notice all the unlucky things that happen and ignore all the good. It is called a superstition. It is also called confirmation bias.

The second is the loudly trumpeted idea that vaccines contain “toxins”. You can see the idea manifest itself in the first video. This idea ignores the fact that different doses can be toxic or not toxic. Acetaminophen (the drug in Tylenol), for example, is a deadly toxin. People frequently use it to commit suicide. But in normal doses it is not a toxin. Water is essential to life, but if you inhale a couple of teaspoons of it you can die. Salt is a necessary nutrient, but salt water can kill you if you drink too much. There is no evidence that the chemicals used to preserve vaccines cause autism.

The other problem is poverty. At the moment there is a whooping cough epidemic in California – whooping cough being a disease that can be controlled by vaccines. But there are two populations of unvaccinated people – those influenced by celebrities and those living in poverty:

Whooping Cough Kills 5 in California; State Declares an Epidemic

Dr. Chavez said that lack of information and inoculations in agricultural regions in the state’s Central Valley — home to many Latino farm workers — might be a culprit in the high incidence in that community.

Another example:

Reebok employee in Canton diagnosed with measles

More than 95 percent of measles deaths happen in low-income countries with weak health care systems, according to the World Health Organization. Measles vaccination resulted in a 78 percent drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2008 worldwide.