Inexplicably, a 2014 “meta-analysis” of published science exploring the relationship between vaccines and autism has become the evidence du jour to prove “vaccines don’t cause autism.” The inadequacies of the 2014 paper are simple to understand, and reveal much about the current environment.
SYDNEY, Australia —Luke E. Taylor, a “Pediatric Registrar” at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, Australia, may not realize that his surname has been co-opted by many in the vitriolic vaccine-autism science debate. A college graduate in 2009, Mr. Taylor (he’s not a doctor) was only one year removed from getting his Master’s Degree in Medicine in 2014 when he authored the only research paper he’s ever published, Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Today, his paper is commonly referred to as the “Taylor study” and it has become, surprisingly, the evidence du jour that “vaccines don’t cause autism.”
