Critical Analysis of studies regarding Austim and whether vaccinations are the cause - Essay Example

the disorder is not been linked to ignorance or carelessness but is linked to MMR vaccination, which is used to immunize children against measles, mumps and rubella. It is hypothesized that since 1980, when the vaccinations was made available to people from all the classes in the society, the development in autism has increased substantially (KNOW. . ., n.d., para 5). Not only that, but because of this hypothesis, parents are concerned about the reliability of the vaccination to such an extend that even the scientific studies contradicting this hypothesis are not helping to develop trust in safety of vaccines.

There are numerous studies conducted by scientists and researchers to find if MMR vaccine causes development of autism and most of the studies have found no evidence of relationship between MMR vaccine and increase in risk of developing autism. Smeeth et al., in their article ‘MMR vaccination and pervasive developmental disorders: a case-control study’, describe a study conducted to find out if there was any relationship between the MMR vaccine and the increase in the risk of autism.

The intention of the study was to see if MMR vaccine causes autism (Smeeth et al., 2004, p.963). The method that was used to study if an increase in risk of autism or other PDD’s is associated with MMR vaccine was a case control method(Smeeth et al., 2004, p.963). The data of the population for study was taken from UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD), which was set up in 1987. The strength of this study was the availability of the data that consisted of electronic clinical records of the patients registered with all the practices in England and Wales and hence, was not limited (Smeeth et al., 2004, p.963).

The data also