"Vaccine War" on PBS

A new TV documentary:

In The Vaccine War, airing Tuesday, April 27, 2010, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE lays bare the science of vaccine safety and examines the increasingly bitter debate between the public health establishment and a formidable populist coalition of parents, celebrities, politicians and activists who are armed with the latest social media tools, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and are determined to resist pressure from the medical and public health establishments to vaccinate, despite established scientific consensus about vaccine safety.

“Scientifically, I think the matter is settled,” says Anders Hviid, an epidemiologist at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark. In one of the largest and most comprehensive epidemiological studies available, Hviid and colleagues analyzed data on more than a half million children and found no link between the MMR “triple shot” for measles, mumps and rubella and an increased rate of autism—a link that’s been strongly asserted for years by anti-vaccine activists. Similar epidemiological studies in Denmark also failed to reveal a link between the mercury preservative thimerosal and autism. In fact, around the world, peer-reviewed epidemiological studies have found no link between autism and either the MMR shot or thimerosal.

But vaccine skeptics like celebrity Jenny McCarthy, whose son, Evan, was diagnosed with autism following a series of vaccinations, including MMR, are convinced that further study into the other 15 pediatric vaccines and their additives will ultimately reveal a link. “Something happened. And when I say something, I mean a behavior, a trigger,” McCarthy tells FRONTLINE. “Is it mercury? Is it the schedule? Is there just too many? My answer to people and what I’ve been telling them is, ‘It’s all of the above.’ We don’t know for sure, which is why we keep saying, ‘Study it.’”