Vaccines and autism – Why Mr. De Niro is wrong and it’s time to move on

Once again, yet another famous person has thrust the debunked vaccines-autism link into the national spotlight. This time it is respected actor and producer, Robert De Niro, who also happens to be the father of an 18-year-old boy with autism. 

Last week, Mr. De Niro appeared on the Today Show to discuss the Tribeca Film Festival, of which he is a founder. Just a few weeks prior, Mr. De Niro came under heavy criticism for including an anti-vaccine documentary in the festival. As a result of the backlash, the documentary screening was canceled. During his interview, Mr. De Niro made multiple erroneous assertions about vaccines and gave credence to a theory that is not only unequivocally false, but one which also has potentially devastating repercussions.

On a personal level, this incident is disappointing because I am a devoted Robert De Niro fan. The Godfather movies are some of my personal favorites and of course, who doesn’t love Meet the Parents? On a professional level, this incident is even more disappointing because of what it means for those of us in the medical and scientific community. It means we still have a long way to go to help parents understand that  vaccines do not cause autism. Vaccines are the cornerstone of our nation’s health and the single most important way to protect our children’s health.

Mr. De Niro’s comments come at an interesting time for public health professionals like myself – this week is National Infant Immunization Week (NIIW). NIIW is an opportunity for us to highlight the importance of infant immunization; however, in light of this incident I feel compelled to address Mr. De Niro’s statements and, yet again, defend the safety of vaccines.

One of the most concerning statements Mr. De Niro made was in response to the interviewer’s comment that parental vaccine refusal has caused the reemergence of vaccine-preventable diseases. He questioned the validity of published data, stating, “I don’t know if those statistics are accurate. I’m not the one to say, but I would question even that. There’s a kind of hysteria, a knee-jerk reaction.”

Mr. De Niro – you could not be more mistaken.

One recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reviewed the last 15 years of measles data. The authors found 57 percent of the 1,416 measles cases were in unvaccinated individuals. Another study examined the impact of vaccine refusal on the 2010 pertussis outbreak in California in which 9,120 cases of pertussis and 10 deaths were reported. All of the deaths were in infants less than 3 months of age. These infants were too young to be fully immunized and relied on their community to be vaccinated to protect them. The study found communities with an increased concentration of children who were philosophically exempted from school-required vaccines were 2.5 times more likely to be associated with an outbreak of pertussis.

The body of evidence connecting vaccine refusal with vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks is overwhelming. This isn’t a knee-jerk reaction – this is years of data from thousands of individuals across the U.S. If the medical community sounds hysterical, it is because we do not want any more infants and children dying from diseases that are preventable.

Mr. De Niro also asserted that scientists don’t want to talk about vaccines and autism, that we are failing to address the issue. He went on to say, “Let’s find out the truth.”

The truth is out there, Mr. De Niro, if only you would accept it. When Andrew Wakefield first asserted that the MMR vaccine may cause autism, the scientific community was eager to respond. After all, if vaccines had any association with autism, of course we wanted to know. The response was overwhelming – dozens of studies in multiple countries examined hundreds of thousands of children, both vaccinated and unvaccinated. These studies looked at MMR vaccine, thimerosal (the ethylmercury containing preservative), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended immunization schedule and the results were the same each time. Vaccines do not, nor have they ever, caused autism.

The purported vaccine-autism association has been thoroughly disproven and there must be a point where the collective body of evidence is enough. When the questions and accusations cease. Until then, we, the medical and scientific community, are more than willing to discuss the issue.

As a young mother living in a large community of young families, I constantly field questions about vaccines and always strive to go above and beyond in providing information and reassurance about any topic related to vaccines. My colleagues and I do not shy away from the hard questions.

And, as Mr. De Niro stated, “It’s complicated…Everyone should have a choice.” Yes, Mr. De Niro – in that, you are absolutely correct. It is complicated. And everyone does have a choice. However, when it comes to vaccination, personal choices have societal implications. The choice to refuse vaccines due to a misguided fear they cause autism must be weighed against the very real risk of disease – a risk that vaccines are designed to prevent. Moreover, as a parent and community member, we must protect our own children and each other’s. Thinking about the 10 infants who died from pertussis in California in 2010, it is up to all of us to protect each other.