Although the Stanford Prison study was appalling in its implications about human nature, and extremely harmful to the participants, the publication of fraudulent conclusions stating that the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine causes autism has caused unnecessary pain and death for almost twenty years, and will likely continue to do so for as long as the true cause of autism is a mystery.
In 1998, the publication of Dr. Andrew Wakefield's paper in the esteemed Lancet medical journal caused widespread backlash from the scientific community for its conclusion that the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine administered during early childhood caused autism. …show more content…
Shockingly, despite the enormous body of evidence disproving Wakefield's "evidence", people all over the world still refuse to vaccinate their children to the point that diseases thought to be almost completely eradicated are now making a comeback. People present Wakefield's disproved research as proof to each other that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Fear of the vaccine and for their child's mental well-being powerfully outweighs education and the results of multiple large studies that disprove links between MMR and autism. As if that wasn't bad enough on its own, the MMR vaccine was so effective, for so long, that people now forget just how terrible the diseases are, because they have never seen them, and they are brutal indeed. Moreover, it is difficult for some people to trust the contents of medication and the results of scientific experiments that they feel may be manufactured to deliberately deceive and profit from them. That is, they cannot see the evidence with their own eyes, and think there is a conspiracy by pharmaceutical corporations to keep them paying for vaccines and other medication. Ironically, however, they still have no issue believing that a doctor who was convicted of fraud