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The way this story broke (and has continued to break) in the 90s has been damaging to everyone, on both sides. For a start we now have 'sides'. The initial story frightened thousands of parents into not vaccinating their children and we've consequently seen an exponential rise in dangerous childhoos illnesses, which had previopusly been all but wiped out. The way the rebuttal occurred (not helped by the shortcuts the original researcher took) has led people who should be looking at it dispassionately to batten down the hatches and 'take a side'. Anybody attempting to look into it properly, is labelled a crackpot and effectively becomes a pariah in scientific and medical circles.
It shouldn't be a matter of 'sides'.
There are two 'needs' at play here and there is no logical reason for them to be mutually exclusive.
There is a 'need' to prevent the high levels of infant mortality caused by such illnesses as measles and Rubella. Tackling that has to happen at a massified, societal level: vaccinations work against this need.
There is also a 'need' to ensure that individual children are not adversely affected by those vaccinations.
Now we have a situation where the vaccination is suspect enough, to enough people, that levels of vaccination have fallen below the 'critical mass' required for them to be effective at a mass level. And at the same time, all research into the individual effects of vaccination seems stymied.
The same people who advocate mass vaccination should be at the forefront of investigating how to ensure it is safe at an individual level. mass vaccination is beneficial at a mass level; but if yours is the child who is harmed so that we as a society can reduce infant mortality; that's pretty cold comfort.
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