[quote=CA renter]Well, I’m very much a numbers, facts, and figures type of person with an IQ above the 99th percentile, and I’m also intelligent enough to know when a conflict of interest exists. Some don’t have that same ability, or they’re too naive to understand why or how it might exist.

Again, anecdote almost always precedes science. People thought that Dr. Semmelweis was an “idiot” for thinking that washing hands might bring down hospital fatality rates. There are so very many examples where the medical community was doing something that was completely harmful to patients…and there were always “discredited idiots” who would cause an outcry about these practices…and they were eventually proven right. There are countless stories like this.[/quote]

Wait – you believe in IQ tests?? The data against those is mountainous compared to the data supporting a vaccine autism link. In any event, I would point to the helicobacter pylori controversy as a more modern example of what you are saying (ulcers caused by bacterial infection rather than acid/stress). In that case, the ridiculed doctor provided clear experimental data that he was right, the ridicule stopped, and those that discredited him had to eat crow. You never hear of people having surgery for ulcers anymore (good meds also contribute to this improvement). When (and if) similar data is generated to support your view, enough reasonable people exist who will take notice. The problem is that data supporting a vaccine/autism connection don’t exist other than anecdotally.