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Comment by callmeed | Hacker News Reader

I have a friend with an autistic son and she is firmly convinced it was caused by his vaccine(s) (according to her, no symptoms prior). Her younger son is perfectly healthy but never vaccinated.

I get that you don't agree with anti-vax people but it can't be too hard to see where those directly affected are coming from—can it?

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Absolutely, there is even a lovely latin term for it post hoc ergo propter hoc.

http://www.skepdic.com/posthoc.html

Good friend of mine has a older son who wears glasses and a younger son with perfect vision. Must be the buildup of ZOMG VACCINATION EVILZ that ruined his eyes, right?

I know, you're not saying that, no one is, but it seems about as silly.

Not quite as silly. My point is that when you combine (a) a known increase in autism cases that isn't fully explained, (b) lying researchers, (c) media hysteria, and (d) personally having to deal with the condition, it's understandable why some might take that side—even if it's based on a fallacious argument.

I'd love to know what their explanation is then when the healthy child catches polio and is crippled for life, or catches measles and dies from the complications, which are both things that have a much higher likelihood of happening to an unvaccinated child then autism, especially when everyone is going on the anti-vaccine craze. Maybe their child will thank them when he becomes sterile in adulthood by having measles, or she will miscarriage and become sterile by having rubella. Well, love is definitely the wrong word here, of course. Not quite sure what the right word is.

I might sound a bit harsh, but I was vaccinated against polio and that was the only thing that saved me from becoming a cripple for life when the stupid bug insisted on infecting me when I was 5 years old - the vaccine didn't quite take, but it took enough to dampen the bug's spirit, but I still had to spend 8 years on physiotherapy and I still suffer the effects from it to this day - all because someone shared a spoon between me and another child one afternoon. These people are the new Darwin Award winners, only they're doing it to their children. It's a shame.

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