From 1998 to today: the timeline of the vaccine–autism debate
Why it matters
You cannot judge the current federal actions without the full timeline. This is the compressed history, both what was claimed and what was contested, in one place.
The modern debate traces to a 1998 Lancet paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues suggesting a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The paper was later found to have serious methodological and ethical problems; ten of its co-authors retracted its interpretation in 2004, and The Lancet fully retracted it in 2010.
In the years that followed, large studies across multiple countries reported no causal link between the MMR vaccine, thimerosal, or the vaccination schedule and autism, the mainstream scientific consensus that holds today.
The reform movement contends that key questions, the cumulative effect of the full modern schedule, aluminum adjuvants, and the absence of a vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated trial, were never adequately studied. We keep this timeline current so you can read the primary sources on both sides instead of trusting either summary on faith.
Source
AJF reporting.
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