About this episode
The alleged link between vaccines and autism was first published in 1998, in a since-retracted study in medical journal The Lancet. The claim has been repeatedly disproven: there is no evidence that vaccines and autism are related. But by the mid-2000s, the myth was out there, and its power was growing, fueled by distrust of government, misinformation, and high-profile boosters like Jim Carrey and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In this episode: the roots of the modern anti-vaccine movement, and of the fears that still fuel it – from a botched polio vaccine, to the discredited autism study, to today.
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