Here's a CTV article from Canada that lays it all out in a pretty accessible manner. The whole scare is due to one paper published in Britain by a guy that is now being investigated to see if his medical license should be removed. In the ten years since the paper came out, no researcher has been able to duplicate this quack's results despite dozens of attempts.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070716/vaccine_070716?s_name=&no_ads=

Make sure your mother understands that one experiment or study is not considered evidence of anything until it can be verified.

Tilberian, the link doesn't work.

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you Tiberian!

I just sent my mother that article and another that was linked to the page. I think the combination of the two should clear up some of her misconceptions, and hopefully she'll even pass the info on to her friends and co-workers. She works with autistic children.

Thanks, entomophila, good article.

My pleasure. The other thing you might want to point out to your mother is the far higher chance of life-threatening illness that unvaccinated children face. Then she should reflect on all the millions of people who have received vaccinations and not become autistic. Even if vaccinations do cause autism, any sane analysis would show that getting vaccinated is by far the lower risk choice.

The issue became important the British Tabloid the Daily Mail got involved. In the UK papers are probably more politically important than TV (which is strictly controlled for bias).

Daily Mail generally headlines similar to 'Illegal immigrants are pushing up house prices and will make your children sick' etc. I personally think some of its editors should have been charged with  manslaughter for the children whose deaths they have been responsible for.

It all came about due to the well known genuine disease of the 'blame culture'. Middle class kids arent meant to get sick if you give them a decent nanny etc