An epidemic is spreading across the country- and it isn’t an illness. In fact, the epidemic is that people are refusing to prevent disease. Parents all over the US deny their children the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine because of an irrational fear that it causes autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. This idea first made headlines when Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, published a study in 1998 in The Lancet that linked the MMR vaccine with autism.

However, despite extensive research by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics), the IOM (Institute of Medicine), and many other health organizations, researchers still have been unable to find a solid connection between ASD and childhood vaccines. Furthermore, Andrew Wakefield’s study in The Lancet was officially retracted in 2010 after it was found to be untrue, and he was branded as a “dishonest, irresponsible doctor” and had his medical license taken by the General Medical Council. Signs of autism appearing in children after they receive vaccines like the MMR vaccine are completely coincidental.

In 2002, a study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine that followed all children born in Denmark from 1991-1998 (over 537,000 kids). About 440,000 of them received the MMR vaccine and found that only 316 were diagnosed with an autistic disorder and only 422 were diagnosed with other autistic-spectrum disorders.

Besides the MMR vaccine, many anti-vaccine advocates claim that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative found in many vaccines, also leads to autism in children. They say that thimerosal could push an infant’s total exposure of mercury above safe limits. However, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Office of Special Masters, a group of judges appointed to handle cases of families who blamed their child’s autism on vaccinations, ruled that thimerosal does not increase the risk of ASD. Demographic analyses show that autism rates continued to rise even after thimerosal was removed from almost all vaccines in 2001.

Parents that are anti-vaccination claim that if other people’s children are vaccinated, there is no need for their children to get shots. But vaccines aren’t always 100% effective, so vaccinated children can still be infected when exposed to disease. Some children can’t receive vaccinations because they are immune deficient or allergic, so they need herd immunity (when people without immunity to a disease are protected from illness because most of the population is vaccinated) to avoid sickness. When people refuse to vaccinate their children, they are putting other people’s kids at risk of disease as well as theirs. In 2008, unvaccinated children led to measles outbreaks in California, Washington, Illinois, Arizona, and New York. Eighteen children were hospitalized as a result. Is the fear of autism worth the danger of contracting a potentially deadly disease?

It’s time that people realize that preventing life-threatening diseases in children does not lead to autism. There is no solid evidence of vaccines causing ASD, and there are far more children dying from diseases that they weren’t vaccinated for than there are children who receive side effects from shots. Make sure parents around you, especially those of young children, are aware that the risk of vaccine induced autism is nonexistent. People need to overcome their fear of shots and potentially save their children’s lives. One in four parents agree that “some vaccines cause autism in healthy children,” but with proper education, the statistic can be changed to zero in four.